A
Personal Agenda for the 21st Century
Richard
A. Slaughter
Abstract
The
21st century looks as though it will be a ‘make’ or ‘break’
time for humanity. Present trends do not encourage optimism. But
there are many ways in which humans can act to develop foresight and
to ‘steer’ toward more consciously-chosen futures. The paper
considers ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ threats to humanity and to an
emerging ‘congruence of insight’ about how we might respond.
There is a need for many more voices to enter this ‘futures
conversation’.
Everything
is at stake
The
year 2,000 is, as is well known, an artefact of the Gregorian
calendar. The latter is the result of 1,700-year long process during
which the present dominant time sense was slowly brought into being
by the collective efforts of people in many cultures. But, at the
same time, early inaccuracies mean that the placing of the sequence
of years is ‘out’ by several years. In other words, the
‘real’ year 2,000 has already come and gone. It was mis-labelled
as, maybe 1995, 1996 or 1997. We will never know. 1 This reminds us
that under the reassuring surface of everyday life, the normalcy of
‘the way things are’, there lie many unasked questions, profound
uncertainties and, perhaps, a deeper gulf of chaos than we are
prepared to contemplate or admit. This is a metaphor for the
condition of humanity at this time.
The
year 2,000 and the shift to a new century and millennium have
attracted many hopes for improvement in the human condition. But
most of these hopes will not be sustained, at least not yet. The
diet of ‘bad news’ that characterised the late 20th century will
continue for a long time to come because humanity is only part-way
through a transition that will take many, many years to complete. So
the killings will go on. The bombs, the massacre of innocents, the
turning of people against their own kind and their world, will
continue. The environmental news will worsen. Coral reefs may soon
disappear, forests shrink to remnants; we will lose many more
species; whole areas will become deserts. Overall, the erosion of
the ecological foundations of life will continue unabated. Equally,
the fear of annihilation - whether by a resurgence of nuclear
conflict or by some unstoppably mutating lethal virus - will loom
large over rich and poor alike, particularly in over-crowded cities.
It is a terrifying prospect - so terrifying, in fact, that those
with the relevant money, resources, choices will, en masse,
generally opt for the comfort of images, unreality industries, 3DTV,
instead of the work of facing up to it. But face annihilation we
must. It is the only way forward for a culture in extremis.
Why
such a bleak view? There are many reasons. Humanity cannot re-invent
the inner worlds of those in power in a few years. It is the work of
generations. We cannot overturn inequitable economic relationships
with their ingrained ‘pyramids of sacrifice’ over night. There
will be no sudden enlightenment amongst the world’s governments,
no sudden upsurge of positive, visionary leadership among
statespersons. They will continue to disappoint. The abstract goals
of competing trans-national enterprises will continue to drive a
technological dynamic that has already forsaken notions of limits
and gone far, far beyond any conception of human need or positive
social value. This dynamic is now poised to overwhelm the world’s
cultures with yet another series of revolutions for which they are
utterly unprepared. 2
It
is necessary to stress these facts at the outset because in this
paper I want to try to show that, regardless of the above, there are
ways forward that are most certainly worth attempting. But we should
be clear at the outset that what is at stake in the forward view is,
precisely, everything: the viability of our world and our own
humanity.
Gaining
clarity
It
is no simple matter to understand the present condition of our
world. Indeed, the revelation of the very processes of
meaning-making, social construction and deep, unavoidable,
interpretation has led some to lose their confidence and fall into
the ‘problem of knowledge’, never to emerge. Others contemplate
the same dilemma and yet maintain their dignity and poise, discern
small consolations among the wreckage, the incapacity and the
unknowing. 3 I do not want to mock these positions or responses.
They belong to people who care deeply and have sought to find ways
forward, but failed. They are, perhaps, like some of the early
explorers who perished because of inadequate maps in unfamiliar
territory. They should be respected, but we should look further
afield, find other maps, and, as I hope to show, maybe even other
territories to explore.
In
order to gain clarity on the condition of our world it seems to me
that we must begin with a historical and cultural analysis. In other
words, we must understand why we live in this world, and not
in the innumerable others that were once possible. If there are
alternate pasts and futures there are certainly alternate presents.
Some works of imaginative fiction demonstrate this very clearly. 4
But
if there is one thing that modern scholarship has proved beyond
doubt it is that we are all situated, grounded, if you will, in
particular webs of language, ideology, assumptions and so on, many
of which are partial, committed, provisional - in a word, fallible,
ever open to challenge and to re-interpretation. That, after all, is
what happens in every site of conflict: my version differs from
yours. How, then, to give an objective account of reality? Well,
best to admit right away that we can’t. But to acknowledge that
does not, it seems to me, plunge us into a sea of indecision and
uncertainty where motivation and action die unborn. Quite the
opposite, in fact. The fact that we cannot be objective, that we are
all committed, enculturated, simply means that we should adopt a
kind of modesty, an understated approach and style, as we try to
engage some of the ‘big questions’ of our time. And engage them
we must. Although there is no rule book for reconstructing cultures
that is what we must attempt.
Where
can we obtain the clarity we need in order to act? Well, as
suggested above, the first step is to attempt a diagnosis of our
world. What is working well, what badly? What do we need to maintain
and protect, what do we need to change? We could do worse than begin
by valuing some of the things we have inherited from the efforts of
people in the past: language, writing, electricity, notions of
social justice and so on. From here we can deepen our cultural
diagnosis by considering the body of work that has been created on
this subject. In my own case, I found Lewis Mumford’s ‘long
view’ on the past and present gave me my first hints of a viable
view forward. Mumford was concerned to critique the modern uses of
science and technology. He also identified that period in time when
notions of ‘limits’ were removed, thus permitting an
historically new dynamic of exponential growth to be initiated. 5
Understanding that that phenomenon was, and remains, a social
construction also means that it can be deconstructed and replaced by
a view that more clearly reflects our the needs of a planet that is
suffering from too much material growth and associated impacts of
many kinds.
But,
as noted, there are many other views. That is precisely the point.
The cultural diagnosis we need will necessarily be a synthesis of
what appears to any observer to be the best, the most penetrating
and insightful sources around. Thus, most recently, I have turned to
the work of Castells, Saul and Scruton. 6 The former informs us
about how deeply the ‘network economy’ is interpenetrating, and
being shaped by, the many different cultural milieus in which it is
now operating. Saul warns us about an over-arching corporatist
ideology at work in the world which seeks opportunity and profit but
which has become detached from the ecological foundations of the
world and, indeed, has no real interest (or capacity to be
interested in) the future. More recently, Scruton provided a
masterly account of what might be termed ‘the fall’ of the
modern, media-saturated, marketing-oriented, atemporal remains of
more vibrant cultural frameworks that manifestly ‘worked’ (ie.
provided answers to the perennial problems of human life) for other
people in earlier times.
Propositions
about ‘where we are’
From
these and many other sources I have, like many others, assembled a
view of the world, its travails and possibilities. This view
contains propositions such as the following.
*
The Western worldview is defective because provides us with a thin,
instrumental, view of the world which, though successful in the
short term, cannot be maintained in the long term.
*
Dominant political and economic powers in the world are generally
not interested in the real future. Their short-term agendas and
habit of ‘bounded rationality’ are perpetuating destructive and
unsustainable views, practices and systems everywhere.
*
There are significant arenas of human experience that have been
marginalised or overlooked by Western institutions, some of which
can be recovered. These include: conscious participation in wider
social and natural entities; identification with the latter;
celebration of being (as opposed to having); spiritual growth; the
direct experience of transcendence; the capacity to heal as a
socially sanctioned vocation.
*
Modern technologies do little or nothing to assist people in solving
the perennial problems of human existence - meaning, purpose,
soulful work, rites of passage, death. But they are represented as
if they were of central and vital importance.
*
The ideology of material growth was only viable for a short time and
cannot be sustained. It could replaced by an ethic of
‘enoughness’ or ‘voluntary simplicity’. But there are
powerful forces ranged against this option, making it opaque and
difficult to grasp.
*
Overall, it is possible to re-design the Western worldview by
retiring defective components and replacing them with
consciously-chosen equivalents. The tools for engaging in this work
are widely available, but the places where they can be learned and
practiced are few and far between.
Now,
if I am asked to prove the veracity of the above, I cannot. I can
show evidence, reveal my sources, trace back the chain of reasoning,
reflection, the formation and testing of hypotheses, the
modifications that flow from well-founded critiques. But I cannot
prove them because they are interpretations, not scientific laws.
They cannot be tested on the same kind of rig that tests the
strength of concrete because they are not empirically verifiable.
They rest on values, on judgements and on assumptions that support
each. Within the domain of futures enquiry we find rich clusters of
propositions that can, in the end, only be ‘tested’ through the
collective judgements of many other minds, each of which are also
embedded in their own worlds of reference that, in turn, are
constitutive of the ‘real world’!
As
noted, it’s easy to get bogged down in ‘problem of
knowledge’-type concerns here. The complexities are infinite. But
that is a mistake. What counts is whether or not we can extract
meaning from such propositions and, in time, whether they make sense
in the real world. Let me give an example.
Ideas
into action: the example of ‘foresight’
Some
years ago I became preoccupied with two clusters of ideas. One was
‘foresight’, the other was ‘wisdom’. There was a strong
sense of contained energy in each cluster and, moreover, the energy
level went up rapidly when the two were brought into close
proximity. The result was that I wrote a paper in 1990 called ‘The
Foresight Principle’. 7 But, to my surprise, that was by no means
the end of the story. These ideas were not exhausted: they spun on
and became elaborated in a whole range of ways. The result was a
book of the same title. 8 From here the argument continued to
evolve. I began to link the idea of foresight with those
relatively few places in the world (at that time) that attempted to practice
it. Hence I became interested in ‘Institutions of Foresight’, or
IOFs. In particular, I studied the one I was closest to and knew
best - Australia’s Commission for the Future (CFF). 9 As my
understanding of this particular IOF deepened, so my attention also
turned to others in other places and I began to formulate a set of
provisional guidelines about ‘what works’ and ‘what doesn’t
work’ in these contexts. I also began to promote the view that
Australia should have its own ‘post-CFF IOF’. What is
significant now is that, as I write this paper, it is in the
knowledge that I will shortly be taking up a new role as the
Foundation Professor of Foresight and Director of the Australian
Foresight Institute at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia.
The point is this: powerful ideas can be precursors to social action
if they can gain sufficient support.
Here,
then, is a personal reflection of the wider dynamic that I believe
holds out substantial hope for a world in stress and in peril. It
begins with historical and cultural understanding. It proceeds to
create forward views based on this understanding. My forward view
says, in effect, ‘the extensions of these trends, these accounts
of progress, these futures now in prospect are not good enough; they
are not viable pathways into the future.’ It’s not within my
power, nor is it my intention or role, to ‘take on’ powerful
entities, or to attempt to frontally assault established
institutions that are very much bound up with ‘the way things
are’. Instead, I have sought to use the tools of critical analysis
(critical futures studies) to, conceptually at first, undermine,
deconstruct if you will, some of the ways that such entities
operate, and then to follow through with positive action. I conclude
that, in combination, the deconstructive and reconstructive aspects
of futures work can be very powerful forces for social change. In
other words, the outputs of applied futures work emerge as social
innovations. What is encouraging about the latter is that they can
be undertaken by people of good will anywhere and at any time; they
can succeed in changing social perceptions and practice; and they
can make a difference. Are they enough? Who can say? But it is a
source of (rational) hope that both questions can be answered in the
affirmative. 10
‘Inner’
and ‘outer’ threats to humanity
The
above provides a brief sketch as to why it is that, despite a very
bleak outlook, I do believe that human beings can act to deepen
their perceptions of their historical predicament (what Dror aptly
calls ‘thinking in history’) and then act effectively in order
to change it. The aim here is not to effect a minor course
adjustment, or even a series of them. Rather, the main goal is to
help re-direct the future path of human civilisation toward a new
course. One must necessarily admit that this is an unprecedented
task, and this is partly why I think it will take much longer to
achieve than we might desire. There may be, and probably will be,
immense suffering between where we stand at the dawn of the 21st
century and the kind of ethically-, and technologically-advanced
civilisation that could lead us into new territory. Hence the
existential burdens will continue to grow for some time, as will the
many evidences of disaster and dysfunction around us. 11
The
‘outer’ threats to humanity are at least visible, and therefore
can be approached directly. But the ‘inner’ threats are quite
different and require a different method and approach. Laszlo made
reference to this domain some years ago in his book ‘The Inner
Limits of Mankind’. 12 E.F. Schumacher addressed similar territory
in his final book ‘A Guide for the Perplexed’. 13 But the most
comprehensive Western work that I know of that takes up and
integrates much that is known about the ‘inner path’ is that of
Wilber, whose work on an integral paradigm, integral psychology, the
integration of science and religion, and many other themes, provides
detailed guidance about the grounding of cultural change without
descending to popular ‘how to’ formats. 14 The Eastern
equivalent is P.R. Sarkar, ably summarised by Inayatullah. 15 From
the point of view of this essay, what emerges from both accounts is
a powerful sense that humanity is part-way through a very long
sequence of evolutionary development (both inner and outer). The
drawback is that the time scales are large. But the overall
perspective gives us some clear indications of the underpinnings of
civilisations that potentially lie ahead. The key to these lie in
the development of human consciousness to levels that have already
been pioneered by advanced practitioners around the world. In this
view, the future is not merely a result of present (and projected)
levels of technical capability. More profoundly, it emerges from the
level (and hence capability) of the consciousness that is creating
and directing it.
Such
a view rests on a deep appreciation of ‘inwardness’ that can
only come from immersion in traditions that value it. For many this
suggests some form of inner practice that leads to greater insight
and clarity. A recent example is the story of Diane Perry who,
re-named Tenzin Palmo, became a Buddhist nun and subsequently spent
12 years in a cave in the high Himalayas. When asked to explain why
she took such a drastic course of action she replied that:
it’s
a poverty of our time that so many people can’t see beyond the
material... In this age of darkness with its greed, violence and
ignorance it’s important there are some areas of light in the
gloom, something to balance all the heaviness and darkness. To my
mind the contemplatives and the solitary meditators are like
lighthouses beaming out love and compassion on to the world. They
become like generators - and they are extremely necessary. 16
What
Palmo is expressing, of course, is a contemporary re-statement of
what Huxley termed ‘The Perennial Philosophy’. 17 That is, the
view that humanity shares a common heritage, both ‘inner’ and
‘outer’ and that there are appropriate ways of addressing and
reconciling both. What is significant about this in the present
context is not the idea that large numbers of people could or should
follow Palmo’s path in any literal sense. Rather, it is to remind
us that there are real and vibrant alternatives to the kind of
limited rationality that is currently driving the global system
toward a diminished and unsustainable future. Those alternatives may
be hard to find in Western societies overwhelmed by materialism and
instant gratification. But they can certainly be found elsewhere.
Now
for the empirically minded, those in pursuit of share market
dividends, for marketeers more generally, and for all those now
being drawn into an uncritical involvement with the internet and the
wonders of the ‘digital economy’ - to all these folk who are,
perhaps, caught up in their own versions of ‘the way things
are’, such considerations will seem esoteric or irrelevant at
best. Who needs an inner life, who needs values or discriminating
awareness, when you can have Netscape, Windows 2000 and all the
man-made wonders the latest web-browsers can deliver?
It
seems to me that the answer is relatively simple, but the
consequences are not. I believe that a combination of low-level
human motivations and high-powered technology in any realm is likely
to be what I have called elsewhere ‘a continuing disaster’. I
dislike moralising intensely and will not slip into it here. But I
do find it fascinating that what were once called the ‘seven
deadly sins’ (pride, envy, avarice, wrath, gluttony, sloth and
lust) have finally been domesticated within the hyperculture of
consumerism that now rages around as, perhaps, what now might be
called the ‘seven marketing imperatives’. 18 This kind of
inversion of traditional understandings is too significant to be
overlooked. Were it a fully conscious process it would, I suspect,
only be contemplated with enormous caution. But that is not our
situation. In late industrial culture caution has been thrown to the
winds, with the results that we all know so well. ‘Tradition’, I
once read somewhere, ‘should not be sacrosanct, but it is seldom
silly.’ We have lost sight of what that means and re-learning it
will be costly.
The
vast and largely unresolved meta-problem that now confronts us is
that a technological dynamic that acknowledges no limits whatever is
poised to overrun all human cultures and the world in which they are
located. Yet the kinds of values and cultural capabilities that
would, under more ‘normal’ circumstances, be available to
mediate such a dynamic are contested, fragmented, largely
unavailable as a coherent set of policies or responses. As TS
Elliott, that supreme diagnostician of the penalties of modernity,
put it: ‘the best lack conviction; the worst are full of
passionate intensity’. It is, I think, this contradiction between
the likely onset of disastrous or heavily technically-modified
futures moving inexorably toward us, set against the more
down-to-earth needs of real people living lives amidst great
contradictions and uncertainty, that stimulated the emergence of
Futures Studies in the 20th century. Whatever else it might be as
well, the latter is an attempt to re-assert human agency in the face
of dehumanisation and the destruction of all that we hold dear. And
here, perhaps, is the essential clue to finding our collective way
forward.
An
emerging ‘congruence of insight’?
I
suggested above that futures work falls within the domain of
interpretative knowledge and succeeds or fails according to whether
or not particular interpretations find echoes in other human minds
and proceed toward action, or not. However, it seems to me that, as
I look around the mind-space that is FS, and, indeed, the wider
world in which it is located, that a number of insights and ideas
are gaining currency. They are, perhaps, evidence of an emerging
‘congruence of insight’. If that is the case, if, indeed, they
are widely shared, then the knitting together of these ideas may
well form part of the basis for many forms of cultural creativity,
including a variety of social innovations and a recovery of
politics, that may together be brought into being to re-assert the
primacy of human agency, human needs, in the face of the emerging
high-tech nightmare. 19 A few strands in this complex, many-layered,
debate are as follows.
*
We should remember (indeed, re-member) how healthy cultures work,
from what features they are constituted, and the kinds of perennial
human values they embody. A healthy culture would re-assert limits
and understand that there are some technological possibilities that
should not be pursued under any circumstances.
*
We could do worse than to regard people as ‘layered beings’ with
a range of attributes, capabilities and needs at different levels.
Material wealth does not, by any means, exhaust the span of human
need or capability - it can be actively limiting. Inner wealth and
outer wealth should be in balance. But this does not mean that there
is anything honourable about extreme poverty.
*
We need to recover a set of social values and embody them in
socially-validated forms such that they can be available to moderate
other powerful forces including those of technology, finance and
commerce. Progressive social values depend on people’s ability to
enter into, and be nourished by, a rich inner life. But they also
must be reinforced by appropriate institutions (such as IOFs and
NGOs).
*
In late industrial culture, people are searching for meaning, vision
and leadership. On the whole, what they are getting is vacuity,
illusion and administration. However, there are plentiful grounds
for the recovery of meaning and value once these tasks are fully
engaged. 20
*
Institutions of foresight (IOFs) are social innovations that are, in
some sense, ‘called forth’ by this time. They can be created in
many places to serve a range of purposes and networked
internationally to provide humankind with an ‘early warning
system’ to help stimulate its creativity and give it time to
respond and act. IOFs should not only serve limited interests but
universal ones as well. Both are valid; the latter are more needed
at this time.
*
Human beings possess significant reflexive powers; they can look
afresh upon the world (inner and outer), revise assumptions, explore
others and, together, re-invent their worldview by consciously
incorporating other components.
Obstacles
and contradictions
It
is not to be expected that the kind of ‘cultural agenda’ I have
tried to characterise above will be universally welcomed or
implemented. It is, as I’ve noted, a quintessentially collective
process. But there is certain to be opposition from those with
interests bound up in the status quo. For example, present political
leaders, financial speculators and the CEOs and boards of
trans-national companies who see a world of ‘opportunity’ in the
21st century.
Anyone
calling for a moderation of the present unquestioned technological
dynamic will face opposition from those who are creating it. It
seems to me that Silicon Valley, as the heartland of the emerging
‘digital economy’ has been termed, shows no interest at all in
the well-being or the future of humankind. Rather, its focus is
determined by the powerful alliance of capital and compulsive
technological innovation. I wonder how long it will take us to wake
up to the fact that these clean-looking labs are actually the source
of the widespread disruptions that, if given free reign, will
annihilate what remains of our inherited culture and heritage and
consign them to a ‘virtual’ realm from which they may never
emerge? Those who oppose or question this process are bound to be
called ‘Luddites’ after the 18th century movement against
spinning machines that deprived a class of workers of their
livelihood. 21 The difference, this time, is that our world is being
transformed ‘under our feet’, but far there are very, very few
people who are willing or able to call the entire process to
account.
Those
who follow conventional ‘mainstream’ economics will not welcome
the suggestions set out here. The former still believe that
‘economic growth is good’ despite decades of work which
demonstrates that it is not. 22 So any perspective that calls for a
revision of what have become standard ‘growthist’ assumptions
will attract opprobrium: ‘How can you generate wealth, pay for
social programs, without economic growth?’ In such cases it is the
frameworks of assumptions that are in contest, not so much the
individuals taking sides on such an issue. But too few have the
time, capability or inclination to ‘dig out’ the insights that
show why ‘growthist’ assumptions need to be abandoned and how a
whole other world of options lies beyond them.
Any
thorough-going attempt to bring about cultural change should be
cautioned by what has happened before. So many initiatives become
subverted by their own blindnesses, weak spots and contradictions:
the Third Reich, Stalin’s terror, the killing fields of Cambodia,
Kosovo. So what contradictions may be embedded in the above account?
There are perhaps three things to beware of.
1.
In all of our utterances, some of our own deepest interests remain
hidden. If, as is likely, we are unaware of these, such interests
could derail all our well-meaning attempts to bring about change.
The solution, perhaps, is to regard critique as an essential
component of any such process and, indeed, a prime futures
methodology in its own right. Critique must be applied internally
within FS every bit as much as to external subjects.
2.
The above was written by a Western writer in a comfortable study in
one of the most affluent countries in the world. Out of such comfort
there is bound to be missed much that would be the common experience
of the poor majority in the world. For whom, then, does this text
speak? Is it only for the already-privileged? Or are more universal
concerns embedded within it? How can futures practitioners admit
their debt to particular cultural sources yet be open to, and
supportive of, others that they have never experienced?
3.
It is a characteristic of the human mind that themes are often cast
in opposites. This is known as enantiodromia. To what extent,
therefore, has this text assembled a cast of ‘saints’ and
‘sinners’ according to the author’s own predispositions? That
is for the reader to decide and, more widely, for those who inhabit
the futures arena to come to judgement upon in time. In a wider view
we all and always inhabit both categories.
Conclusion
One
thing is certain, ‘creating a worthwhile future’ is an easy
phrase to write or speak, but historically it is an unprecedented
and very challenging task. To have any chance of re-directing this
over-heated global 'megaculture' toward more life-affirming paths is
quintessentially a collective process. It follows that the more
people who will join in this critically vital ‘futures
conversation’, the better. To achieve this we need to ensure that
futures work is taken up and practiced far more widely than at
present. 23
The
emergence of ‘new voices’ may well be more significant than the
continued declarations of those that have been around for some time!
Notes
and references
1.
Duncan J. The Calendar. London: Fourth Estate, 1998. P 101.
2.
Broderick D. The Spike: Accelerating into an Unimaginable Future.
Melbourne: Reed Books, 1997.
3.
Michael D. Concerning a missing elephant. ABN Report 1999;
3(2): 7-11.
4.
Dozois G. & Schmidt S. (eds) Roads not taken: Tales of
alternate history. New York: Ballentine Books, 1998.
5.
Mumford L. The Pentagon of Power. London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1971. 172-3.
6.
Castells M. The Rise of the Network Society. London:
Blackwell, 1996. Saul JR. The Unconscious Civilisation.
Melbourne: Penguin, 1997. Scruton R. An Intelligent Person’s
Guide to Modern Culture. London: Duckworth, 1998.
7.
Slaughter R. The foresight principle. Futures 1990; 22(8):
801-820.
8.
Slaughter R. The foresight principle: Cultural Recovery in the 21st
Century. London: Adamantine, 1995.
9.
Slaughter R. Lessons from Australia’s Commission for the Future:
1986-98. Futures 1999; 31(1): 91-99.
10.
Henderson H. Building a win-win world: life beyond global
economic warfare. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1996.
11.
Lusetich R. Suicide massacre. The Australian April 22 1999
(news report on the student massacre at Columbine High School,
Colorado).
12.
Laszlo E. The inner limits of mankind. Oxford: Pergamon,
1978.
13.
Schumacher EF. A guide for the perplexed. London: Faber,
1977.
14.
Wilber K. Sex, ecology, spirituality: the spirit of evolution.
Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala, 1995.
15.
Inaytullah S. Sarkar’s spiritual dialectics: an unconventional
view of the future. Futures 1988: 20(1): 54-65.
16.
Mackenzie V. Cave in the Snow. London: Bloomsbury, 1998.
17.
Huxley A. The Perennial Philosophy. London: Chatto &
Windus, 1946.
18.
Eckersley R. Running on Empty. ABN Report 1999; 7(2): 3-6.
19.
Kurzweil R. The age of spiritual machines. Sydney: Allen
& Unwin, 1999.
20.
See Wilber op cit 1995 (note 14).
21.
Sale K. Rebels against the future: lessons for the computer age.
New York: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
22.
Hellyer P. Stop: Think. Toronto: Chimo Media, 1999.
23.
Sardar Z. (ed) Rescuing all our futures. Adamantine: London,
1999.
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This
paper was published by Elsevier in Futures, Vol 32, No 1,
February 2000, pp 43-54.
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This
paper is copyright © Richard A. Slaughter, 2000. All rights
reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof.
Richard Alan Slaughter
Richard
A. Slaughter is Foundation Professor of Foresight at Swinburne
University of Technology in Melbourne and co-director of Foresight
International in Brisbane. He is a consulting futurist who has
worked with a wide range of organisations in many countries and at
all educational levels. He completed a PhD in Futures Studies at the
University of Lancaster in 1982. He has since built a solid
international reputation through futures scholarship, educational
innovation, strategic foresight and the identification of a
knowledge base for Futures Studies. He is a fellow of the World
Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) and a professional member of the
World Future Society. In 1997 he was elected to the executive
council of the WFSF.
He
is a prolific writer and holds several editorial positions. His most
recent books are Futures for the Third Millennium - Enabling the
Forward View (Sydney: Prospect, 1999) and
Gone Today, Here Tomorrow - Millennium Previews (Sydney:
Prospect, 2000)
