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2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

12. The Dynamics of Imaging Futures (1978)

Author : J. Russell Boulding

Published in: Elise Boulding: Writings on Peace Research, Peacemaking, and the Future

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Forecasting, prediction and social planning involve well-developed methodologies for dealing with the future, but they depend for their effectiveness on the capacity to imagine otherness. The very fact that we have made tremendous advances in data collection techniques for the measurement of social, economic and political development nationally and for the planet 7 as a whole, and comparable advances in the use of the computer for increasingly complex social and economic planning, has blinded us to the shrinking time horizon within which planning is done.

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previous chapter Futurology and the Imaging Capacity of the West (1970)

next chapter A Journey into the Future: Imagining a Nonviolent World (2002)

This text was first published as Boulding, Elise (1978). The Dynamics of Imaging Futures. World Future Society Bulletin XII(5):1–8, September–October, 1978. Copyright © 1978 by World Future Review. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications, Inc.

Fred Polak, De Toekomst is Verleden Tyd (Amsterdam. 1953), translated by Elise Boulding as The Image of the Future (New York: Oceana Press, 1961). An abridged edition, also prepared by Elise Boulding, has appeared under this same title (San Francisco: Jossy Bass/Elsevier, 1972).

These four modes of imaging the future are discussed in more detail in Chap. 11, this volume.

Erich Jantsch, 1976: “Evolution: Self-Realization through Self-Transcendence.” in: Erich Jantsch and Conrad H. Waddington (Eds.): Evolution and Consciousness: Human Systems in Transition (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley): 37–70. (Cited hereafter as Evolution and Consciousness.)

Ilya Prigogine, 1976: “Order Through Fluctuation: Self-Organization and Social System,” in: Evolution and Consciousness: 93–126; quote on page 95.

Theoretical approaches to open-ended design suggest that planning does not in fact have to be linear. See for example Robert Boguslaw, 1965: The New Utopians: A Study of System Design and Social Change (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall); Donald Schon, 1967: Technology and Change (New York: Delta Books/Dell) and “BBC Ruth Lectures” The Listener, December 3, 1970; Anthony Judge, 1971: “Matrix Organizations and Organizational Networks,” in: International Associations, 3: 143–170; and Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential (Brussels: Union of International Associations and Mankind 2000,1976).

Magoroh Maruyama, 1976: “Toward Cultural Symbiosis,” in: Evolution and Consciousness: 198–213.

Rene Thorn, 1975: Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, tr. D.H. Fowler (Reading, MA.: Benjamin Advanced Book Program).

Milan Zeleny and Norbert A. Pierre, 1976: “Simulation of Self-Renewing Systems,” in: Evolution and Consciousness: 150–165.

Erich Jantsch and Conrad H. Waddington (Eds.), 1976: Evolution and Consciousness: Human Systems in Transition (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley).

Robert Masters and Jean Houston, 1972: Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space (New York: Viking Press.

O.W. Markley (Ed.), 1974: Changing Images of Man Report CSSPRR-4 (Menlo Park, California: Stanford Research Institute).

O.W. Markley, 1976: “Human Consciousness in Transformation,” in: Evolution and Consciousness: 214–229.

In this connection, S.N. Eisenstadt emphasizes the importance of free-floating human resources for peaceful change in The Political Systems of Empires (New York: Free Press. 1963).

Arnold J. Toynbee, 1954: A Study of History, 2nd Ed. (New York: Oxford University Press).

Max Weber, 1930: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, tr. Talcott Parsons (London: Allen and Unwin).

Saul Mendlovitz, (Ed.), 1975: On the Creation of a Just World Order: Preferred Worlds for the 1990s (New York: Free Press).

Marie-Louise von Franz, 1974: Number and Time: Reflections Leading Toward a Unification of Depth Psychology and Physics (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press): Chapter 11.

Joseph Needham, 1966: “Time and Knowledge in China and the West,” in: J.T. Fraser (Ed.), The Voices of Time (New York: George Brazillier, 1966): 92–135; quote on page 130.

J.L. Russel and S.J. Russel, 1966: “Time in Christian Thought,” in: J.T. Fraser (Ed.), The Voices of Time (New York: George Brazillier):59–76.

“Astrophysics: Discovery and the Ubiquity of Black Holes,” Science, 195, 21 January 1977.

Nicholas Wade, 1976: “Rad-Wastes and the Next Civilization,” Science, 192, 28 May 1976, p. 873.

See the discussion of criteria for nuclear waste disposal in Gene I. Rochlin, “Nuclear Waste Disposal: Two Social Criteria,” Science, 195, 7 January 1977, pp. 23–31.

J.D. Hays, et al., 1976: “Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” Science, 194,10 December 1976, p. 1131.

See the report by Gene Linberg of research currently going on at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in “Fossils Show Ozone Peril,” The Denver Post, 23 March 1977, p.12 A.

Vincent Monteil, “The Evolution and Settling of the Nomads of the Sahara,” International Social Science Journal, XI, 4:572–585.

Louis M. Thompson, 1975: “Weather Variability, Climatic Change and Grain Production,” Science, 188, 9, May 1975, p. 535–540.

In one sense everything we do as a human race has a cumulative long-term impact on the planet and I am not proposing that all actions be subject to a 10,000 year test! Nuclear waste disposal does seem, however, to fall into a special category.

One classic in this field is Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, which was first published in 1953.

Title: The Dynamics of Imaging Futures (1978)
Author: J. Russell Boulding
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Elise Boulding: Writings on Peace Research, Peacemaking, and the Future
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30986-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-30987-3

Copyright Year: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30987-3_12