Dear Colin

Citation

Wendell (2009), "Dear Colin", Foresight, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/fs.2009.27311aaa.002

Dear Colin

Article Type: Letters to the editor From: foresight, Volume 11, Issue 1

Congratulations on the recent special issue of foresight, in which Richard A. Slaughter’s article, “Is America ‘the land of the future’?” and responses to it by other authors were published. My hope is that the issue will be widely read, not only by futurists but also by others, including concerned members of the general public. With a convincing sense of urgency, Slaughter issues a challenge to us all that we must change our ways or face a collapse of the global system.

Slaughter focuses his critique on the USA as the epitome of the dysfunctions, among others, of free market ideology, corporatocracy, consumerism, corruption, growing inequality, unilateral state actions on the international scene, a commitment to thoughtless and endless economic growth, the erosion of civil liberties, and official mendacity and denial of negative consequences including environmental devastation. In sum, “the US empire,” he says, “embodies a form of ‘development’ that cannot be sustained, even by the rich.” Moreover, he sees the American futurist community as largely complicit in the system of wealth and power that is responsible for the crisis in the global system.

Certainly Slaughter’s analysis is critical of the USA. Yet I do not find it anti-American, if one means by that a generally hostile attitude toward the USA and its citizens in some consistently biased way. Rather, he is honestly critical, just as some Americans are, of many of America’s basic policies, social norms, and institutions. Also, Slaughter several times explains that his criticisms are not limited to the USA. He says, for example, “that it is emphatically not the case that these issues and concerns do not apply elsewhere; clearly they apply to varying degrees in many other places”. And, as he says of futurists, those of us “who live in rich Western environments need to acknowledge that we are all ‘part of the problem’.”

Slaughter’s essay, of course, is not all criticism. It is also an invitation, a challenge, and a call to action, most directly to the world futurist community but also to active citizens everywhere. It is an invitation to rethink our understanding of the world, the social changes taking place and their consequences, and to participate with others in the futurist community in the rejuvenation the futurist agenda. It is a challenge to invent and evaluate solutions to the negative consequences of human development and to create sustainable ways of successfully living into the future. And it is a call to speak truth to power more forcibly, to bring futurist understandings and proposals to the attention of decision-makers, and to participate more fully in general public discourses.

Slaughter’s essay and the responses to them are a good place to start. They have already affected me. At a recent meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, I was part of an audience listening to James Gustav Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, speak about his new book, Bridge at the Edge of the World. It was a litany of the evils of growth-oriented economic development, global warming, environmental devastation, poverty and inequality, and so forth, ending with the need for serious change now.

After his lecture, a friend, who was clearly aroused by the threats of the coming future as outlined by Speth, came up to me and asked, “Haven’t you futurists been talking about these issues for some time?”

“Yes,” I said, “at least for 35 years.”

“Well, for God’s sake,” she said, “Why haven’t you people done something about it?”

Having just read Slaughter’s article in the special issue, I had been asking myself the same thing. Have I done enough to communicate with the general public about futurist visions of the future? About the consequences of violence and destruction, of environment damage, of lies and deception, of corruption, of cruelty and torture, of the subjugation of women? How can I go about doing more? The questions continue.

Finally, Colin, may I express my gratitude to you for your efforts to put this special issue of foresight together? If it weren’t for your moral courage, I doubt if the issue would ever have appeared in print. You made sure that Slaughter’s essay was published without censorship. And you brought together an excellent set of diverse futurists to respond to it. My hope is that this special issue will stimulate not only more productive intellectual exchanges among futurists, but also that it will move futurists closer to helping to wake up publics everywhere so that they will take seriously the possibility of “overshoot and collapse” and the urgent need to create just and sustainable global futures. I will be looking at future issues of foresight myself for ideas and guidance.

Cordially

Wendell Wendell Bell, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University