Visions of Tomorrow

Where there is no vision, people perish. So it says in the Bible, and there is much truth to the statement. As individuals, as societies, as nations and as a collective species we all require visions of the future. For it is our visions which draw us forward.

The kinds of visions that we are exposed to come from three common sources. These are the visions found in education, those delivered by governments and those found in the popular culture and media.

Visions in education and those of governments tend to be similar. They are usually focused upon building a sense of national unity, via developing a sense of shared history. There is typically a national mythology involved. These mythologies, although based in the past, tend to direct the way policy-makers construct visions in the present. If the vision is too disconnected from the past, the people won’t buy it. In the USA, the idea of freedom and individualism is central to the national psyche, so even a slight turn towards collectivism or socialism can cause significant levels of rejection from many people – a Obama has discovered.

In Australia, the national anthem drums into us Aussies: “Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free.” No such sentiments of freedom in the Chinese national anthem, which implores the Chinese people to create a great wall against the enemy. There’s quite a different sense of destiny contained in those stories.

There is a danger when visions fail to materialise. Obama asked the American people to believe in the audacity of hope (dare to dream). In China, President Hiu Jintau put forward the idea of the Harmonious Society. This macropolicy tells the story of Chinese people living together in trust and harmony, and in unity with nature. It even exhorts the value of democracy, believe it or not. Needless to say, the term “harmonious society” has been the object of great derision in China, because the reality and the dream are so vastly different. Whenever someone steps out of line (i.e. challenges the local, provincial or national leaders) the joke goes that they will soon be “harmonised”. Many westerners may not realise that although there is implicit support for the Communist Party amongst most Chinese (if for no other reason than there is no viable alternative), there is also a great cynicism and even distrust of it.

Visions can unite people, but they can also lead to negative consequences, or even disaster. 

Deep Futures: Beyond the Machine

Deep down many images of the future are really shallow. That's  a play on an old joke, but let me explain.

Futures are not simply dry scenarios, not merely the compact, politically correct visions of policy makers and government think tanks. They are the images which fire our hopes and dreams within the present. Futures, whether preferred, probable, or possible, can call us to action, and can inspire us to reach higher and further. Human beings do not respond well to dry, empirical data. If that were the case, data for increasing greenhouse emissions would have seen a much greater shift in consumer awareness than we have observed. We human beings need something to be passionate about, something that gives us meaning and hope, something that brings us into deep relationship with each other, the world, and Gaia. They employ other ways of knowing and permit the use of intuition and exploration of inner worlds.

To summarise, futures with depth contain these elements:

• They inspire. They instill us with passion, and ignite something deep within us.