“We must take comfort from the fact that human nature gives rise to altruism as well as selfishness, to conscience as well as cruelty. The hope of the race is that passions of generosity, restraint, and goodness may prove as strong as those of egoism, aggression, and cruelty.”
Eric Bentley
“Better to make a good future than predict a bad one.”
Issac Asimov
“The future is not a gift: it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present.”
Robert F. Kennedy
“I am curiously not interested in things,” wrote H.G. Wells in his 1917 book, The Future In America, “and curiously interested in the consequences of things.”
This is the first lesson of evolution, which Wells applied to the future to shape what “the future” means to us. The consequences of things (technologies, processes, events, inventions, decisions, etc.) in the past and present comprise the conditions of the future.
Wells is the first of my “eight figures for the future” and sets the agenda for the rest: to fill in his outline of the future. Most of these figures have appeared earlier in this series, so this is a kind of summation. Significant aspects of their work help form a framework for envisioning and enacting an evolution of hope.
From his first public writings to his last over a fifty- year career, Wells was fixed on the future. He learned as he went, and came to another seemingly simple conclusion that seems also to have escaped many other who command the mainstream of assumptions about the future: the causes of future conditions are complex.
It was fine for a science fiction story, or a thought experiment, to follow the effects of one change while keeping everything else familiar. But that’s not how the future works: it’s the consequence of everything.
One technological change—or even technological changes in general—can and usually does have a mighty influence on the future. But these effects interacted with other factors, including other changes, and with responses that were often unanticipated. Things happen on different scales, at different rates. They interact unpredictably. And the consequences always include the unintended.
This is a lesson that overwhelmed the sensible futurist of the 1970s, but other more egotistical predictors persist in making the fatal mistake of leaving too much out. This is a particular habit of those predicting the dominance of technologies, and it still happens.
In an online Substack piece of August 2021, the author chides those who make extravagant claims for the rise of certain technologies in the near future, and then offers his more “conservative” or realistic predictions based on current trends for life in 2050. He issues 18 detailed technological, social and political predictions, employing hundreds of words, and never even mentions climate--not causes nor effects of the ongoing climate catastrophe, or anything involving the context of the natural world.
Moreover, this was published during the most violently and obviously consequential summer of the climate crisis so far, which included the hottest month ever recorded for the entire planet, and which climate scientists confirm would basically have been impossible without a seriously deformed climate.
These are not just omissions; they are serious distortions of the future we know is coming that make his predictions worthless. His predictions presuppose everything else is stable, and at this point that’s fantasy. The irony is that based on chemistry and atmospheric science alone, the acceleration of a distorted climate is about the most certain prediction about the future that can be made.
The habit of holding on to a single through-line for the future based on a narrow interpretation of the past that requires that counter-evidence be ignored, has itself distorted the prospects for the actual future. Such interpretations tell slightly different but mutually congenial stories about the human historical past and the biological past predating but including humanity—in particular the principles that govern the outcomes of evolution.
The common story driving western civilization was that man and nature were separate, that at best nature was a useful source (i.e. “natural resources”) but most of the time, an enemy, a barrier to human “progress.” The dominant interpretation of Darwinian evolution complicated this story, without really changing it. The human species was placed in competition with the rest of nature, and that competition was defined as violent struggle, with a few winners—maybe only one-- and lots of losers.
The idea that the future belonged to the best predators predated and probably influenced Darwin. But Darwin’s positing of natural selection as determining survival became immediately distorted and supercharged by the ideology now known as Social Darwinism. That two of its prominent 19th century adherents were John D. Rockerfeller and Andrew Carnegie pretty much explains its dominance.
Though the 20th century strengthened this view through the reductive misinterpretation of genetics that produced the infamous “selfish gene” theory, it was during the 20th century that other voices countered this view by adding new information and context.
Many other ecologists, scientists and thinkers contributed to Shepard’s syntheses, but many more have followed in his unacknowledged footsteps. He wrote eloquently about the long human development in the Pleistocene, and the deeply human need for connection with the rest of nature, beginning with childhood. This is “human nature--” physical and otherwise-- that goes back hundreds of thousands of years, and basically it has not changed. Shepard brought human culture back into the context that nourishes it, and shows how human destruction of the natural world is profoundly self-destructive.
Most of what Shepard and other ecologists found did not require laboratory experiments or expensive technology. Archeological discoveries and analysis, a certain amount of quantitative data gathered in the field were part of it, but the new picture emerging also required rediscovering the research and insights that had been ignored because they didn’t fit the dominant program.
For after all, the behavior among primates that exhibited cooperation, altruism and empathy in a carefully nurtured social structure had been there for researchers to see, centuries before primatologists like Frans de Waal and others showed up. But those earlier researchers didn’t see it because they weren’t looking for it—and since they were not prepared to believe it if they saw it, they didn’t see it. More broadly, the deep relationship of humans and nature was evident in the words and practices of Indigenous peoples all over the world, but was dismissed as sentimental and exotic, and profoundly threatening.
She then eloquently described the implications of her research, inspiring such thinkers as William Irwin Thompson. Margulis also went from micro to macro by becoming the co-author of the Gaia Hypothesis, a planetary vision of a single self-regulating organism. She is our third figure for the future.
Thanks to her and many others, a new synthesis and a more complex view of evolution has begun to achieve acceptance. (In a series of books, British philosopher Mary Midgley is especially trenchant on the weaknesses of the old standard view of evolution.) Whether the species that invented bombing deserves to survive is still a question. But that humanity is programmed by its genes to self-destruct is no longer a viable scientific conclusion.
The reality is that both competition and cooperation, both individuals and various kinds of groups, both genetics and epigenetics (when genes turn on or off), drive evolution. This vision has profound implications for the future, and offers hope that the consequences of the ongoing destruction of the natural world as we know it can be recognized more broadly before those consequences become entirely overwhelming.
Wells came to a second crucial realization when he turned to envisioning an attainable and desirable future. Wells believed human civilization could not survive much longer if humanity did not unite. National, racial and other enmities were leading to global catastrophe in a world in which weapons were inevitably going to be more destructive (Wells foresaw tank warfare before there were tanks, saturation bombing of cities from the air, and the atomic bomb.)
He saw that humanity needed a new vision of itself, a new story of human progress. So he wrote The Outline of History to tell that story, and it became the best-selling book of his career. Well’s history is now outdated. Progressives who worry about the future have for years called for “a new story.” Elements of it are contributed by others among these eight figures for the future.
Its universe of easy travel to other planets populated by similar beings is very likely a fantasy, but beyond the visuals that delight many, Star Trek has always been blatantly allegorical. It has championed a profound respect for life, whatever its form (“Infinite diversity in infinite combination” is the motto every fan knows) a spirit of adventure and wonder, but the wisdom of humility.
In addition to the allegories of principles tested by the unknown, Star Trek: The Next Generation in particular models behavior: courage and civility, discipline and openness, technological expertise and explorations of art and culture, loyalty and compassion, humor, love and the ability to examine behavior and change it. This is not a utopia without problems: it is a utopia because of how people define and attempt to solve problems together.
This Star Trek also demonstrates the power of an institutional morality that aligns with individual commitments. Institutions like the Federation and Starfleet have learned from history. In their encounters with the alien, the Other, they anticipate the past. “We are not invaders,” Captain Picard insists. “We are explorers.” This time, humans do not export their unconscious in attempting conquest by another name. Though they do not always succeed, they have rules to help them (the Prime Directive), and (it’s worth repeating) the humility and the tools to reexamine themselves.
Behind aspects of this vision were dozens of science fiction writers (Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, Asimov, Hamilton etc.), moviemakers and Saturday morning television shows, as well as those who contributed their talents to Star Trek itself. But television writer and producer Gene Roddenberry began this saga, and he inspired others to add their creativity to it by enlisting their enthusiasm for a vision that functionally became theirs as well as his. For this achievement he is our fourth figure for the future.
Particularly in the Next Generation series, Star Trek suggested that the journey outward through space was a journey inward, and that each was at least equally important. Or as Star Trek writer David Gerrold wrote, “"...space is not the final frontier. The final frontier is the human soul."
In the first half of the 20th century, C.G. Jung drew what he knew was only a rough map of our inner landscape—of the soul or psyche. As crude as this map is, it suggests a crucial set of conceptual tools for understanding and directing our behaviors. These tools—such as denial, projection, compensation, and the shadow—help us question and discern whether our thoughts and perceptions are actually products of our conscious mind, or are deceptions and misperceptions arising from our unfathomable unconscious. For this alone, Jung is among our eight figures for the future.
The future that evolves from the past is not an entirely rational process, Jung warned. The mystery of the insistent unconscious—individual, group (or mob) and collective unconscious—persists in waves of human behavior, while the unconscious supplies deceptive reasons to keep the conscious feeling justified. That’s why these tools are so crucial.
(Using these tools to openly question our behavior was also modeled in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The necessity of doing so makes the sometimes ridiculed addition of a ship’s counselor so important.)
Thanks in part to the fervors surrounding two world wars, Jung saw that group delusion and a kind of mass psychosis fueled by unconscious compensation, self-righteous projection and denial are particular dangers in the modern world. After World War II, he feared the power-mad Soviets and the suggestible Americans. The grip of this equivalent of shared and mutually reinforcing demonic possession can be broken, he felt, only one person to another.
Towards the end of his life, Jung begged others to continue the exploration and mapping of the psyche. “The world hangs on a thin thread,” he said in a video interview. “That thread is the human psyche… We are the great danger. The psyche is the great danger. But we know nothing about it.” Despite the growing reductionism, arrogance and drug dependence of psychology since, others like James Hillman have continued the search—but not enough.
Part of the necessary synthesis to secure the future is re-integrating the profound experience and insights of ancient traditions. Particularly in the past quarter century, that work with Native American cultures has begun.
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| Leslie Marmon Silko (right) with Maxine Hong Kingston (left) and Toni Morrison (center.) |
The Dalai Lama is among the great synthesists for the future of our time. Over decades he has brought together scientists and Buddhist practitioners to reconcile religion and science, but especially to advance western science into introspective areas of the mind that Buddhists have been exploring for many more centuries than western science has existed. These discussions through the Mind & Life Institute, which led to new scientific experiments partially designed by Buddhist practitioners, have been public, resulting in nearly a dozen books and many hours of video, inspiring even more writing and discussion.
The Dalai Lama also has articulated principles and ethics that are widely shared and do not depend on doctrines of particular religions, or any religious doctrine at all. “... we are all members of one human race and have the same worries and needs”, he writes. “This ethical principle is not bound to a specific religion. Even an atheist can follow it. It is therefore not at all important whether we believe in God or the idea of rebirth. We can always do good, even today when we are afraid of the dangers that the future may bring.”
British author John Gray has tried to co-opt Buddhism and Eastern religions in general to support acceptance of inevitable apocalypse inherent in human nature by rejecting active hope for the future. While it is true that Buddhist meditation focuses on exploring the individual’s present moment without judgment, this is only part of Buddhist tradition, and certainly the Dalai Lama has been outspoken in favor of both the possibility and the urgent necessity of compassionate action to build a better future.
Moreover, a core tenet of Buddhism is the value of the non-human world: of beings, of all life. The first precept of Buddhism, as Gary Snyder describes it, is ahimsa: “Cause the least possible harm.” It applies not just to humans but to everything in the natural world, and requires judgment and forethought as well as this radical empathy. As many contemporary Buddhists would attest, it applies to the larger questions of what harm humanity is causing to the life of the planet.
“In order to change the external world,” the Dalai Lama writes, “first we must change within.” That inner world includes imagination and a vision for the future. “If you want a beautiful garden, in the human mind you make some kind of a blueprint in the imagination, and then according to that idea, you implement, so the garden will materialize.”
That change may well be underway. The current dominance of rigid denial, Buddhist philosopher David Midgley maintains, “is typical of the terminal phase in the life-cycle of a paradigm, and might be compared to the chrysalis stage in the life-cycle of a moth or butterfly...While the outer shell of the organism seems rigid and immoveable, invisible changes are taking place within, which may erupt dramatically when they reach a critical stage of development.”
In any case, the activities of hope and personal commitment are essential to create the desirable future by enacting it now. "Whether we achieve what we are hoping for or not, it is important for us to keep hope,” said the Dalai Lama. “Hope is the basis of our future."
The Dalai Lama is our eighth figure for the future. But these eight are joined by newer voices, opening up new knowledge and possibilities.
The synthesis continues for example with books on parallels of Jung’s writing with Native American tradition and Buddhist practice (such as the connections between Buddhist mindfulness and Jungian consciousness), as well as Jung and nature, and Buddhism and ecology. Others explore the implications of quantum physics for insights related to various mystical traditions, Indigenous practices and Jungian glimpses (such as synchronicity) into what Star Trek’s cosmic being Q called “the unknown possibilities of existence.”
Deresiewicz suggests that this new story demolishes “the idea that human beings are passive objects of material forces.” Societies at different times and in different places made deliberate choices: they saw the perils of their authoritarian government and changed it, they saw a neighbor’s stratified society based on wealth and avoided it, they refused to become trapped in a single mode of existence, and moved easily as appropriate among farming, gathering, herding and hunting in an “ecology of freedom.”
“In a remarkable chapter, they describe the encounter between early French arrivals in North America, primarily Jesuit missionaries, and a series of Native intellectuals—individuals who had inherited a long tradition of political conflict and debate and who had thought deeply and spoke incisively on such matters as “generosity, sociability, material wealth, crime, punishment and liberty.” They call this the “Indigenous critique,” and maintain that it helped inspire the European Enlightenment.
Humanity did not march from hunter-gatherer nomads to total agriculture and then cities. They mixed and matched and did them backward and forward. They did not develop from tribal chieftains to kings and bureaucracies. They governed themselves in a variety of ways, with and without “authorities.”They did not always see civilization as acquiring wealth and power in a top down structure. Civilization might mean “mutual aid, social co-operation, civic activism, hospitality...simply caring for others...”
Moreover, these weren’t just doomed experiments. Some of these societies lasted longer than today’s.
These behaviors and these stories emerge in the worst times. Scholars Pearl Oliner and Samuel Oliner (a Holocaust survivor) studied Europeans who risked their lives sheltering Jews during the Holocaust, and expanded this research into broader inquiries on altruism and compassion. In The Altruistic Personality and other books, they explored many more examples of altruism under pressure than are mentioned in conventional histories.
In A Paradise Built In Hell (2009), Rebecca Solnit tells the stories of communities that responded to disaster with creativity and solidarity. “The history of disaster demonstrates that most of us are social animals, hungry for connection, as well as purpose and meaning,” she concludes. “Hierarchies and institutions are inadequate in these circumstances...Civil society is what succeeds, not only in an emotional demonstration of altruism and mutual aid but also in practical mustering of creativity and resources to meet the challenges.”
This is one basis for hope, as we confront the seemingly overwhelming effects of the climate emergency. But another basis, equally ancient yet reinterpreted for our time, is at least as vital, as we address the causes of what will otherwise be even worse fates. It can be expressed as the Buddhist principle of “bringing the future into the present path.” It still cannot be said better than in the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee: “In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation to come.”
Remember the future. Anticipate the past.
This ends the Soul of the Future series. I’ve decided to integrate its bibliography with a still ongoing series, History of My Reading. But eventually it will also bear the Soul of the Future label, for direct access.
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