TEN QUESTIONS TO GUIDE FUTURE STUDIES AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Published In Futures Research Quarterly, World Future Society

Article by Herb Rubenstein
CEO, Growth Strategies Inc.

Introduction

Every discipline has one or more organizing prin-ciples. In physics, the cornerstones to that profes-sion are the interrelated studies of energy, force, mass, accelera-tion and work. In economics, we study the produc-tion and distribution of material and intellectual “goods.” In chemistry, an organizing principle is gaining under-standing and insight into the combination of known elements, and the develop-ment of new elements and physical structures to meet human and planetary needs.

When it comes to the discipline of futurism, our field is often in search of an organizing principle to distinguish itself from other disciplines. At one time in the 1970s and 1980s, the organizing principle of futurism was the improved ability to predict the future. The Hudson Institute, Toffler, Naisbitt and others were predictors at both the macro level and the micro level.

Today, there is a call for the study of futurism or “future studies” to be considered as a separate discipline in higher education. The old organizing principle, the prediction of the future, has been all but abandoned and has been replaced with a new principle to guide future studies. That principle appears to be that the discipline of future studies is about the organizing of data and analyzing of trends and developments to assist planners and all of us prepare for the most likely scenarios that we will encounter in the future.

Within this new context of “future studies” is the principle that “future studies is an intellectual discipline designed to assist society in preparing for the future.” This shift leads us to an impor-tant, new question. Simply put, that question is: What are the types of questions that futurists should be address-ing and how should we, as an orga-nized group of futurists, decide what types of questions we should be addressing?

First, I believe that preparing a list of the ten or twenty or top one hundred questions that we should study as futurists is a useful exercise to help focus the discipline.

Second, I believe there might be significant agreement on important elements to consider in develop-ing a list of questions that “future studies” should tackle. Below is a first cut at creating some agreement. Future studies' questions should contain the follow-ing characteristics:

• They should cross subject matter boundaries and standard intellectual disciplines.
• They should focus on issues that cross social class and involve the whole of society.
• They should be relevant and significant, not only to policy makers, but also to the concerns of the man and woman on the street.
• They should have the potential for being an enabling type of question that opens up new thinking and possibilities.
• They should not only be interesting, but be capable of generating and framing large scale debate, communication and writing.
• They should focus on time periods that are relevant to our lives, rather than 1,000 years out.

This list is not exhaustive nor is it meant to exclude questions from the discipline of future studies that do not fit precisely within these categories. This list serves as a background for ten questions that I believe “future studies” should seriously consider at the turn of the century. It is my hope that as futurists we debate the “top ten” questions for our profession regularly, perhaps once a year.

The Ten Questions

1. What will be the impact of technology on democracy and political behavior?
2. How will the freer distribution of ideas and knowledge impact on the evolution of capitalism and the distribution of wealth and income?
3. How can intergenerational transfer of knowledge become a universal ideal, so that everyone is guaranteed a certain knowledge base and societies do not lose valuable knowledge?
4. How can a certain level of knowledge and resources become a right throughout the world, rather than a privilege for the few?
5. What does it mean to move from the knowledge era to the leadership era, where leadership is considered as essential a skill as reading and writing?
6. What forces are most likely to promote international conflict and how can they be best identified early and dealt with successfully?
7. How can the waste apparently inherent in the capitalist model be reduced to promote greater efficiency?
8. What will be the future benefits and costs of the increasing longevity of the world’s population?
9. What is the future of racial, sexual, religious and ethnic discrimination as the world moves toward more open systems?
10. What is the future of illiteracy and languages in the connected world?

Bonus Question—What are the optimal future roles of govern-ment, NPOs and corpora-tions in the 21st century and where and how do we draw the new line between the government, business and the non-profit sectors?

The quest for the “top ten questions” in the field of future studies is certainly a search for the holy grail. Each year a new question or set of questions could enter into the top ten list and thus the field of future studies would continue to be strengthened.

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