Futurology (redirected from futurologist)

futurology

Study of current trends in order to forecast future developments. The field originated in the “technological forecasting” developed near the end of World War II and in studies examining the consequences of nuclear conflict. Studies in the 1960s sought to anticipate future social patterns and needs. The Limits of Growth by Dennis Meadows, et al. (1972), focused on global socioeconomic trends, projecting a Malthusian vision in which the collapse of the world order would result if population growth, industrial expansion, pollution, food production, and natural-resource use continued at current rates. Later reports reiterated many of these concerns, with critics contending that futurologists' models were flawed and futurologists responding that their analytic techniques were becoming increasingly sophisticated. Other notable works include Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970), Daniel Bell's The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth (1982), and Nigel Calder's The Green Machines (1986).

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futurology

the study or prediction of the future of mankind

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Futurology 

a term broadly used to indicate the entire range of conceptions about the future of the earth and of mankind; in its more narrow sense, futurology is that field of inquiry that deals with prospective social processes—a synonym for prognosis or prognostication. In the USSR the term is generally used to designate contemporary non-Marxist conceptions of the future, or bourgeois futurology.

The term “futurology” was coined in 1943 by the German sociologist O. Flechtheim to denote a kind of supraclass “philosophy of the future,” which he contrasted to ideology as well as to utopia. In the early 1960’s the term gained currency in the West, in the sense of “history of the future” or “science of the future,” and futurology was called on to monopolize the prognostic, or forecasting, functions of existing scientific disciplines. But beginning in the late 1960’s, in view of the fact that prospective social processes are studied by many different sciences, the term “futurology,” because of its vagueness and multiplicity of meanings, was gradually replaced by “the study of the future,” a term implying the totality of prognostic theory and practice. It is in this sense—namely, as a descriptive synonym for “the study of the future”—that futurology is still generally understood in the West. The World Future Studies Federation was formed in 1973; its membership includes various scientific societies that make forecasting studies, such as the research committee on futurology of the International Sociological Association.

Several tendencies may be distinguished in bourgeois futurology, including those of the apologists, the reformists, and the left radicals. The 1960’s were dominated by the outright apologists, whose ideas were based on a variety of technological theories (such as the concept of the postindustrial society) and who sought to demonstrate the viability of state-monopoly capitalism and its potential for modernization. Representatives of this trend in the United States are D. Bell and H. Kahn; in France, R. Aron and B. de Jouvenel. The reformist position is based on the theory that capitalism and socialism must converge; its adherents include F. Baade in the Federal Republic of Germany, R. Jungk in Austria, F. Polak in the Netherlands, and J. Galtung in Norway. The left radicals, on the other hand—such as A. Waskow in the United States—maintain that the scientific and technological revolution will inevitably result in catastrophe for “Western civilization.”

The late 1960’s marked the beginning of a critical period in bourgeois futurology. The leading current in the early 1970’s was represented by those who believed a “global catastrophe” to be inevitable in view of the current direction of social development. A group calling itself the Club of Rome, whose membership includes prominent Western scholars, politicians, and businessmen, has played a very influential role in this complex and essentially apologist current. On the initiative of the Club of Rome, computer data were made the basis of a “global modeling” of mankind’s future. Those participating in such research represent two basic tendencies: social pessimism characterizes the ideas of J. Forrester, D. Meadows, and R. Heilbroner of the United States, while the position of the “technological optimists” is based on the possibility of preventing catastrophe by “optimizing” state-monopoly capitalism—as proposed, for example, by A. Toffler, M. Mesaroviɣ, and E. Laszlo of the USA, E. Pestel of the Federal Republic of Germany, C. Freeman and V. Ferkiss of Great Britain, I. Kaiya of Japan, H. Linnemann of the Netherlands, and A. Herrera of Argentina.

In contrast to the varied and contradictory conceptions of bourgeois futurology, the scientific predictions of Marxism-Leninism are based on the theoretical propositions of dialectical and historical materialism.

REFERENCES

Marx, K., F. Engels, and V. I. Lenin. O nauchnom kommunizme. Moscow, 1963. (Collection of articles.)
Kakoe budushchee ozhidaet chelovechestvo? Prague, 1964.
Edeling, G. Prognozirovanie i sotsializm. Moscow, 1970. (Translated from German.)
Budushchee chelovecheskogo obshchestva. Moscow, 1971.
Ozhegov, Iu. P. Problema predvideniia v sovremennoi burzhuaznoi ideologii. Novosibirsk, 1971.
Ozhegov, Iu. P. Sotsial’noe prognozirovanie i ideologicheskaia bor’ba. Moscow, 1975.
Arab-Ogly, E. A. Vlabirinteprorochestv. Moscow, 1973.
Lavallée, L. Za marksistskoe issledovanie budushchego. Moscow, 1974. (Translated from French.)
Jungk, R. Die Zukunft hat schon begonnen. Hamburg, 1964.
Jouvenel des Ursins, B. de. L’Art de la conjecture. Monaco, 1964.
Flechtheim, O. K. Futurologie: Der Kampf um die Zukunft. Cologne, 1970.
Toffler, A. Future Shock. New York, 1970.
Bell, D. The Coming of Post-industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York, 1973.
The Limits to Growth. New York, 1972.
Mesarović, M., and E. Pestel. Mankind at the Turning Point. New York, 1974.

I. V. BESTUZHEV-LADA