Soul of the Future/ The Two Futures: Utopia or Apocalypse (with Update)

There are many possible futures, but in stories about the future they generally come down to two kinds: a future in which things are worse (usually much, much worse), and a future in which things are better (much, much better.)

The shorthand names adopted here for these two futures are: apocalypse and utopia.  The apocalyptic futures include both the end- of- the- world scenarios and aftermaths, and the working societies that are nevertheless pretty awful: the dystopias.

Why just two kinds?  They each correspond to an important reason for thinking about the future at all.  While it is very hazardous to generalize about the capabilities or "thinking" of other life forms, and maybe even more hazardous (because so easy) to speculate on the formative thinking of early humans, it's probably safe to surmise that the two basic reasons for any lifeform, including humans, to consider the future are to anticipate dangers so they can be avoided, and to anticipate opportunities so they can be grasped.

That "future" could be a few minutes or seconds away, such as what might be behind the boulder up ahead: a predator or a new food source.  Or it could involve sensing pathogens or recognizing patterns: for example, patterns of behavior of food sources (for wildcats, when and where prey animals go for water; for neighborhood cats, when your favorite human gets home.)

Humans also mythologize, they imagine ultimate states according to selected standards.  This particular division is embedded in major societal myths, a prominent one being Hell or Heaven.  There's also something to be said for the parallel to the first and greatest bifurcated mystery: death or life.

Western culture's first famous apocalyptic story--of events leading up to, during and after the end of the world--is part of the Christian Bible.

Sir Thomas More's 16th century book about an ideal island he called Utopia led to a number of books over the centuries imagining such societies, and even some attempts (in the 19th century especially) to physically create such social structures.  However, many Utopias were only implicitly set in the future.

Then beginning more or less officially in the late 19th century with H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, the apocalyptic story emerged, not based on religious belief but on industrial technology and science as they began to shape things, and seemed destined to shape the things to come.

Wells also updated the utopian story, and among other changes, he set some of them explicitly in the future, and made them global.  He also dispensed with the ideas that a utopian society has to be perfect and unchanging; he called for "kinetic utopias" that got better.  Nowadays, stories of both kinds of futures are recognized primarily as science fiction.

There is much to say about stories of each future, and hopefully this series will say some of them.  But let's dispense with the major objection to this division, which is that the real future rarely turns out to be either a utopia or dystopia.  This is true to some degree, but misses the point.  Though clearly open to interpretation (as well as location in the world or the social hierarchy), the future can be seen as predominately one or the other.  And these after all are stories--not literal predictions of a future, but indications and directions.  They speak of dangers and opportunities.

Utopia or Oblivion

There are other complexities to mention right away, that will be explored more later. Utopias are often critiques of contemporary society, which are seen in contrast to dystopias of the real world present.  Similarly, dystopias are often satires (though not always funny ones) of the present. Moreover, the better society in modern utopian stories is often preceded by a dystopian society or apocalyptic event.

But perhaps the most important and most sobering prediction for real world futures is the shrinking of the middle ground--the future we just muddle through to, that is different but not much better nor much worse than today.  Such a future is increasingly difficult to envision.

Early in his 1961 Inaugural Address, President John F. Kennedy asserted: “For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life." In other words, he recognized that contemporary civilization had the capability of creating either Utopia or Apocalypse.

But later in the 1960s, the legendary Buckminster Fuller proposed that there was no longer a third choice.  Humanity couldn't create Utopia, Apocalypse or Mr. In-Between, More of the Same.  The dangers of the future were so profound, and yet the opportunities so possible but requiring profound change, that unless humanity created Utopia--a different and better society--the outcome would be Apocalypse.  Although Fuller gave it a slightly different name: it would be Utopia or Oblivion.

Some fifty years later, this either/or is clearer.  Asked "How do you see the future of humanity?", science fiction author and forthright utopian advocate Kim Stanley Robinson replied: "I don’t think anyone can see the future of humanity. It’s a big spread of possibilities right now, ranging from utopia to extinction. At the same time, I don’t think the ordinary "muddled middle” of ordinary history can sustain. We either get it together as a civilization and live within our biophysical means, in which case we might have a glorious semi-utopian (or optopian) future, or else we are in for a terrible time, a mass extinction event that will hugely damage humanity too." 

Apocalypse Now

I began thinking about this project—of writing about the major stories of the two futures—in the early 1990s. Walking down Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill, I realized that while I knew of many more or less current apocalyptic stories--in movie or book form, or both-- I had a hard time thinking of a contemporary utopian story.  In fact I could only come up with one that was as prominent as the apocalyptic stories: Star Trek: The Next Generation, then just ending its first run, and the Star Trek saga in general.

In superficial terms, it was not difficult to figure out why apocalyptic stories predominated.  They typically are more exciting, dramatic and cinematic--often involving things blowing up spectacularly. Danger is the more instantly visceral of the two futures: if you passed up an opportunity, you at least lived to find another one.  If you failed to act to avoid danger, maybe not.

But if apocalyptic stories are often cautionary tales, an exclusive diet of them could lead to them becoming self-fulfilling prophesies.  Utopian stories can model better futures, provide vision, or at least hope.  Though more difficult to create, they might be crucial to the future. This was, I emphasize, the early 1990s, when apocalypse still seemed avoidable, and a decisive turn towards utopia at least a possibility.

This was shortly after Bill McKibben, among others, began writing about “the greenhouse effect.” As I write this, McKibben has added a couple of new essays to his body of writing on the climate crisis, noting that his first such essays were published 30 years ago.

 In his piece in the NY Review of Books, he notes how grim the latest IPCC Report is on the climate crisis future: major threats to human civilization as we know it are increasingly likely, with efforts to forestall them utterly inadequate.  One reason is our dystopian administration, and the global emphasis on fear and division. "In retrospect," he writes of the International Climate agreements, "Paris in December 2015 may represent a high-water mark for the idea of an interconnected human civilization."

(David Wallace Wells at New York Magazine is even more apocalyptic regarding the IPCC Report and other indications of the climate crisis future.)

Update: Attempting to bury its conclusions by issuing it on Black Friday, the current US administration released a climate report which (according to the Washington Post via Political Wire) is dire. “The report’s authors, who represent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain than ever that climate change poses a severe threat to Americans’ health and pocketbooks, as well as to the country’s infrastructure and natural resources...“The congressionally mandated document — the first of its kind issued during the Trump administration — details how climate-fueled disasters and other types of worrying changes are becoming more commonplace around the country and how much worse they could become in the absence of efforts to combat global warming.”

 In his piece in the New Yorker, McKibben asserts "In the face of our environmental deterioration, it’s now reasonable to ask whether the human game has begun to falter—perhaps even to play itself out."

With this downward trend threatening to become a downward spiral, it seems that the choice of Oblivion has de facto been made.  So what is the point now of this project?  Why write about stories of apocalyptic and utopian futures, when apocalypse has won?

Though the task has changed, I believe it is still worthwhile.  In examining past apocalyptic stories that both shaped and reflected a societal mood—we can perhaps learn practical lessons for how we shape apocalypse, what we fear, how our attitudes affect what we do, and how life might be in an apocalyptic crisis. For after all, the kind of apocalypse we are probably facing will occur over lifetimes, and lots of people will have to find a way to live through it, usefully and productively.

Moreover, apocalyptic conditions are obviously the major element but not the only one.  It is how people respond to those conditions, and behave within them, that defines them and their societies.

But why examine utopias, if apocalypse is more or less fated at this point?  In terms of the future, a utopian vision is pretty much a prerequisite for building a better society, even if it must follow an apocalyptic period.

In the meantime however, utopian visions and ideas offer not only goals or even foci of hope but models for how people conduct their lives in whatever circumstances they find themselves.  The alternatives may need to be defined in order to make an actual choice, either as a society, a group or bloc within society, or an individual.  Utopias and dystopias depend on humans choosing particular qualities within themselves to emphasize and enact.   Behavior associated with creating or defining utopia can offer a moral center, even in terrible times.

Besides, there is that other set of opposites that pertain to the two futures: nightmare and dream.  Yet life includes both.

Earlier entries in this series can be found by clicking Soul of the Future here or below.