There are growing calls for more optimistic visions of the future. But it seems easier to imagine dystopian futures than better ones. Here’s how we can help change that.
“These days, we are good at envisioning future ecological disasters or technological threats. Yet much more than our predecessors 50, 100 or 200 years ago, we struggle to picture or describe how our society could be significantly better a generation from now.”
Mulgan suggests that people in the late 1940s, 1960s, and much of the 19th century had a strong sense of how their societies could get better, influenced by utopian literature and social movements (in Western nations at least). There were, too, dystopian narratives – Dickens’ novels, Orwell’s Nineteen eighty-four, Huxley’s Brave new world, and Carson’s Silent spring.
Brad DeLong’s book “Slouching towards utopia” writes about how the world was transformed from the 1870s onwards through technological progress and capitalism, which fueled visions and expectations of universal improvement. However, imagining an economic paradise didn’t create it, wealth accumulated but wasn’t evenly distributed.
And DeLong, as well as others, points out that productivity has been slowing now for several decades. This, combined with concerns about inequality, climate and environmental degradations, probably drives our current leaning towards dystopias.
Fearful narratives rather than stimulating action can become self-fulfilling prophecies, since they can overwhelm and lead to paralysis. But some, like Silent spring, stimulated action because there were relatively straightforward solutions, and shared public and political appetites to do something.
Hopeful narratives about the future are also intended to inspire and stimulate action.
Interestingly, some research suggests that when considering the present we can be quite good at imagining how specific things or experiences can be improved. But for many this doesn’t seem to translate into thinking about broader more generally positive futures thinking.
There are hopeful or inspiring stories if you go looking for them. Future Crunch, for example, sends out regular newsletters highlighting good news stories. And better futures are regularly generated by futures exercises too, they just get outcompeted in the media by the doomy, gloomy ones.
Mulgan suggests that we have a paucity of optimistic thinking (especially within governments) because of too little imagination. Others, such as Vaclav Smil in his book How the world really works, suggest that utopian visions of sustainable societies can suffer from too much imagination - wishful thinking that ignores, or doesn’t critically explore, current realities and barriers. [Smil in turn has been criticised for being too limited in the evidence he uses.]
Navigating the Scylla and Charybdis of futures thinking
Mulgan and Smil are both right. Futures thinking is about expanding imagination, as well as having a critical mind to understand current realities and influences. Too much of the former and not enough of the latter leads to the Charybdian whirlpool of wishful thinking and unrealistic vision statements. Too much of the latter and not enough of the former leads us onto Scylla’s destructive shoals of just tinkering at the edges.
Futures methods help with improving imagination, and in understanding current realities. But I’m often uninspired by futures reports and articles that I read.
So what’s going wrong? Many scenarios or narratives lack both imagination and depth. “Transformative” scenarios skew towards the simplistic, and often are achieved through largely technological steps or sudden changes in collective mindsets.
There is a predominance too of short descriptive futures, focused on telling how a problem from today was solved, or not. See, for example, Reinventing energy futures.
Weakly descriptive idealised futures are often no match for the emotive force of easily imagined disasters. So we need to devote more time to developing alternative futures that resonate.
Short problem-focussed futures exercises are understandable. We (individuals, firms, institutions) aren’t usually comfortable thinking longer term, so futures exercises often need to demonstrate relevance and salience, with an action plan attached, to a current problem. Consequently, they are prone to jump to solutions. “What’s the future of ...?”, “How do we fix ...?”
That’s not a fault of the methods, but rather of mindsets and how we use the the tools we have. Futures exercises can be compressed affairs, based around a couple of workshops. They can also tend to favour the “brain storm” approach, which restricts imaginative and reflective thinking. This means that we can too quickly jump to one preferred future, slogans, and “Magic word solutionism” (see my previous post).
For example, at the moment “circular economies”, “degrowth”, “nature-based solutions”, and “green new deal” proposals are common themes for creating better futures. These can be appealing but are often vague, and so are easy to criticise. Corvellec et al highlight the lack of clarity and substance to some of these terms, and caution against uncritical acceptance of the circle as a metaphor for sustainability issues.
What is being circularised, and what isn’t?; what does degrowth mean in practice, and how will it overcome current power structures and incentives that maintain the status quo?; what qualifies as a nature-based solution?
Imagination can also be restricted by focussing on a problem, and how to solve it. Reviewing climate change trends and developments Elizabeth Kolbert concluded that:
““Climate change isn’t a problem that can be solved by summoning the “will.” It isn’t a problem that can be “fixed” or “conquered,” though these words are often used. It isn’t going to have a happy ending, or a win-win ending, or, on a human timescale, any ending at all. Whatever we might want to believe about our future, there are limits, and we are up against them.””
More focus on potentials not just problem solving
Optimistic futures aren’t utopian ones, but they are anti-dystopian ones.
Futures projects that explore and seek to solve critical challenges are necessary, and there are already plenty of those. But they can reinforce a form of “deficit thinking” – if we just fix this then all can be well. We often hope in vain that the problem is completely fixable, and then magic will happen.
To generate more realistically optimistic (or hopeful) futures that gain wider credence we need more projects that credibly explore potential when limits or constraints still exist. I find I’m most creative when there are bounds to work within, or around.
That doesn’t mean accepting the status quo, but it does mean exploring less than perfect futures. Futures where many can feel themselves in them and have some sense of optimism and agency.
Novels (and movies and theatre) of course can do this. But they tend to emerge out of the social climate. More futures ideas and projects, from a greater diversity of perspectives and experiences, helps seed that climate.
The futures tools are available, we just need to be more creative and critical in how we use them. And to treat futures thinking not as a brief and rare activity, but as a capability to be practiced and improved upon over time.
Featured image created with DALL·E 2 using the text: “scylla, charybdis and a unicorn in stained glass”