Created 08/01/2012 9:16:05 AM

Futures Studies owes many futurists because of their constructive ideas and intellectual contributions. One of these futurists is Richard Slaughter that has served the field over the half of recent century. In his ‘Futures studies as a civilizational catalyst’, Slaughter (2002) critiques over the lack of substantive futures perspectives focused on long-range civilizational concerns.

He has considered a ‘civilizational challenge’ and a number of strategies that may be used to increase the take-up and effectiveness of futures work over coming decades.

Through a historical review he goes back to the 1960s and 1970s when a number of futures-related courses were established in universities and schools. He remembers by the mid-1990s a coherent and internationally grounded knowledge base for FS had emerged. In fact, a new field had been born.

Coming back into modern time, he asks: “How can the field of FS and foresight studies move on in the 21st?” To answer that question, he introduces the concept of ‘civilizational challenge’ and its different aspects, including: The industrial ‘flatland’. A globe-spanning infrastructure developed but instrumental reason could neither recognize nor address the spiritual poverty felt by nearly everyone, rich or poor. Slaughter reminds that Wilber coined the term ‘flatland’ to describe the way that a world with a vital vertical dimension embracing heights and depths, was reduced to a flattened travesty of itself.

He also goes with ‘The ideology of economic growth’ explaining that growth-based economics remain dominant and no competing paradigm has yet become mainstream. Then he considers Impacts on the global system. In this sense, nature is now surrounded and, in many places, overwhelmed by humanity. He reminds us that ‘Future is overwhelmed by technology’. He warns: “A dehumanized world overrun by machines we can neither see nor control has become a distinct possibility.”

He confirms that the ‘civilizational challenge’ does exist and it can plainly be seen intersecting in a thousand ways with the broad symbolic arena that is FS. He suggests a number of strategies: Establishing shared meta-goals, The de-colonizing of futures knowledge, Community access to foresight, Design of foresight cultures, Raising the profile of professional standards in futures work, A quantum jump in the active use of FS in educational contexts, The further evolution of the knowledge base of FS, The design, implementation and nurturing of institutions of foresight, The elaboration of futures themes in mass media, Evoking the ‘state of the planet’, and The active involvement of more individuals, groups and organizations in the futures conversation.

This is the essence of Slaughter’s view: “The central task for the futures community is to begin to turn its individual and collective attention away from helping to maintain the obsolete patterns and structures of the industrial era and toward the task of envisioning and designing the structural underpinnings of the next level of human civilization.”   

Reference:

Slaughter, R. A. (2002). Futures studies as a civilizational catalyst, Futures, 34, 349–363.