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Wendell Bell and Oliver W. Markley: Two Futurists' Views of the Preferable, the Possible and the Probable
Abstract
Abstract William Bell (Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University) and Oliver W. Markley (Emeritus Professor of Human Sciences and Studies of the Future, University of Houston-Clear Lake) are two of the great thinkers and practitioners in the discipline of Futures Studies. In this essay, these two eminent futurists are introduced and their works summarized in terms of their images of the future, theories of social change, methods of forecasting, and preferred futures. Although differences are evident in both the theoretical and practical aspects of their work and contributions, both offer an optimistic view of the potential for Futures Studies to bring about positive social change. Keywords: images of the future, social change, forecasting, preferable, possible, probable Delphi method, simulation and modeling, gaming, monitoring, scanning, participatory
... This way of cathedral thinking [15] transcends the focus on shortsighted instant satisfaction and gives cities the opportunity to provide the basis and conditions for livability and survival of the urban society for many generations to come. In this context, it is valuable to consider that the future is often not adhering to careful planning, but that a single, totally unforeseen event can shape the future in a direction that cannot be expected [106]. The agility to adjust future visions is not supported by rigidity and short-term gains. ...
Current planning of urban landscapes is dominated by a human-centric view. This leads to short-term orientation, predictable planning outcomes, and decisions being taken by a small group of humans. Alternatively, a symbiotic human–nature relationship could be a prelude to a balanced future in which sustaining all living organisms prevails. In this article, a novel approach to designing such an urban landscape is presented: the Eco-cathedric City. In this proposition, the design process thrives on high complexity, deep uncertainty, contingent nature–human relations, slow urbanism, and imaginability. It is concluded that three mechanisms should be core to this approach: (eco-)cathedral thinking, considering the impact of current decisions on seven future generations; (eco-)acupuncturist design, which plans for the process by igniting a single small intervention; and (eco-)cracy, in which a variety of actors, human and non-human organisms, co-decide. In a practical sense, the Eco-cathedric City finds its foundation in understanding local ecosystems and using this knowledge to design a self-organizing ecosystem in which regenerative resource management is prioritized, after which social constructs are formed to support this design and to fit human uses within the boundaries of this framework to conclude with an evolving belief system in which reciprocity and symbiocity are the core values.
... Futurist Darrell Kicker (2009) Bell's (2002, p. 37) theory of social change is human agency whereby people are "active, purposeful, responsible, and creative beings whose future-oriented behaviour has consequences for their own lives and for social structures and cultures". ...
This thesis is an account of Utopoly, a new utopian research method that incorporates a game. It is the result of research provoked by a question concerning the validity of using games in the field of utopian studies. My research set out to develop methods that would complement utopian literary fiction by providing more concrete rather than abstract utopian conceptualisations. Speculative forms of utopian discourse are brought into explicitly social, political and economic configurations of utopian thought. Through the Utopoly method participants can experience utopia-as-practice by co-constructing and encountering their own vision of a utopian future. Utopoly evolved through collaborative practice-based research over several years. It was collectively imagined and improvised through a series of public workshops in which Utopoly was enacted, critiqued and subsequently modified. The method incorporates an adapted Future Workshop where participants critique and analyse established political, socioeconomic, environmental situations and then engage their imagination to produce possibilities for a better society. The architecture of the board game Monopoly is then cooperatively 'hacked' to incorporate these visions as alternative features, including values, currencies and rules. Participants then play the new game to negotiate, interact with and evaluate the utopian possibilities they have created. An important realisation for the method during the research was that the creative and utopian practices that emerged during its development should be incorporated into the method itself. The method then includes various utopian processes such as: critique, improvisation, imagination, playfulness and hopeful narratives of a better future. By enacting the method, a creative event is produced where new knowledge emerges through praxis. Utopoly contributes to the imaginary reconstitution of society. This thesis concludes with a detailed set of guidelines-like those to enable a game to be played-to allow the reproduction of the method. The method developed has already been used independently by other research groups in diverse contexts. Utopoly therefore creates utopian moments and temporary utopians and is presented as a new utopian research method in the field of utopian studies and beyond.
... This is where strategic foresight comes in: strategic foresight accommodates the normative needs of context while entertaining a range of alternative futures. For me this means that good foresight work combines both the normative needs of context with the transformative possibilities posed by optimal future environments (Kicker, 2009). Thus the emphasis in security work and strategic analysis should be equally on risk detection and mitigation on the one hand and opportunity enhancement on the other 2 . ...
In this piece-meal essay I wish to make a case for futurist as bridge builder. By this I mean
that the futurist enables those in contexts to begin to move in directions that are optimal visà-
vis the goals of their organisation or community. The construction of such pathways, as
bridges, to the future is a work of hands, heads and hearts and thus requires craft, theoretical
knowledge and love. This amalgam comes together and is expressed as a form of practical
imagination in which the futurist holds a creative space that enables clients to see things, as
the poet Wallace Stevens said, “beyond us, yet ourselves”. It is this seeing things ‘beyond us’
that enables a richer sense making to come into effect and opens up reality to alternatives that
generate multiple possibilities and offer a greater level of congruence between aspiration and
the everyday.
... However, despite considerable effort the field's response generally boils down to some variant of how to grasp "the possible, the probable, and the preferable." (Kicker, 2009). A stance that more often than not then reverts to a definition of the future (the ontological choice) that Wendell Bell put succinctly in his seminal Foundations of Future Studies (Vol. 1) " Present possibilities for the future are real (Bell, 1997, p.74). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to put the paper by Jay Ogilvy in the context of current debates around the philosophical foundations of future studies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes the form of a review and analyzes the current literature on foresight and philosophy of the future.
Findings
The paper finds that the practical challenge of taking a “scenaric stance”, as articulated in “Facing the fold”, cannot be addressed without going beyond the typically epistemological solutions proposed by most futurists.
Research limitations/implications
The challenge is not finding ways to “know” the future, rather to find ways to live and act with not‐knowing the future.
Practical implications
The “scenaric stance” points to a way of embracing what Henri Bergson calls “the continuous creation of unforeseeable novelty.”
Social implications
The “scenaric stance” offers one way of addressing the difficult, often deeply painful challenge of reconciling the desire for certainty with the desire to “be free” – in the Senian sense of capacity – by providing a way to embrace ambiguity and spontaneity.
Originality/value
The emergence of new solutions to how people think about the future rather than what kind of future reflects a confluence of events in the realms of theory and practice. The reason why one needs to and can rethink how one thinks about the future is original to the present conjuncture.
... The term foresight was first introduced in the early 1930s (Sardar, 2010), but it became to be used in academic literature more prominently only in the 1980s (Martin, 2010;Miles, 2010). Foresight (FS) is not bound to any core academic discipline, but typically uses and adapts methods from a number of disciplines, such as economics, business Bell (2003, p. 73), one of the authorities in the field, "the purpose of futures studies is to discover or invent, examine and evaluate, and propose possible, probable and preferable futures" (see also Kicker, 2009 andAligica, 2011). ...
Relying only on explanations based on impersonal social forces and cultural imperatives that are viewed as inevitably leading to particular human behaviors is incomplete social analysis. Any adequate theory of modern society must include people as active, purposeful, and innovative beings whose future-oriented behavior helps create not only their own future but also the social order itself. Social research directed at the investigation of such human agency contributes to our knowledge of futures thinking and accountability. Although people produce consequences for which they ought to be held accountable, they often do so only more or less competently. Their competence can be improved by teaching them the principles of futures thinking. They can become more responsible actors by learning to search more fully for possible futures, to forecast probable futures more accurately, and to make judgments of preferable futures more objectively.
Members of the World Futures Studies Federation share not only the usual professional goals of advancing and developing their field, but also an extraordinary commitment to envisioning and creating a future world of increasing human freedom and well-being. Both aims, obviously, would be moved forward if futurists could establish more futures studies courses, departments, and research centers than now exist at colleges and universities. To do so requires vigor, creativity, and élan, which futurists seem to have in abundance, but it also demands more logical and empirical rigor, skepticism, and critical capacity in futures work.
Twenty-five years ago, the publication of The limits to growth marked a period of accomplishments in the futures field. Today, futures studies is experiencing another burst of development and is ready to move more fully into mainstream intellectual life and the standard educational curriculum. In addition to continued work on methods, theory, and empirical research, the resolution of three issues might help persuade established academic communities of the serious purposes and sound intellectual contributions of futurists. They are (1) the adoption of an adequate theory of knowledge (critical realism is proposed), (2) the recognition that prediction does play a role in futures studies (so we can deal explicitly with the philosophical challenges it poses), and (3) the formulation and justification of core values (so we have a valid basis by which to judge the desirability of alternative futures). I propose a critical discourse among futurists in order to resolve each issue. The desire to make futures thinking a part of everyone's education is not, of course, mere futurist chauvinism, but is based on the conviction that futures studies has important contributions to make to human well-being.
Mental time travel is a futures research method using focused imagination in the “theater of the mind” to visualize and explore contingent future patterns. It is a practical approach for wise choosing, and represents a clear way to improve conventional scenario forecasting, strategic planning and marketing research methods—especially when dealing with just in time (JiT) business environments. The questions to be proactively explored in mental time travel can take many forms, depending on the purpose of the researcher and/or client. For example:•“What may happen if “X” (a decision or policy option) is chosen, versus is not chosen and implemented? In particular, how would it feel to live in each such contingent future?•“Which of two policy options or possible decisions looks and feels better, “X” or “Y”?•“In a future involving a specific scenario [specified in advance], what significant impacts are likely, but perhaps are as yet unrecognized?” How would such impacts feel? Furthermore, how might these impacts manifest at various levels of aggregation, such as individual, family, work group, subculture/ecology, global culture/ecology?.The purpose of this paper is to present a working set of ideas and methodological guidelines to enable professional futurists, market researchers and other professionals to try the method of Mental Time Travel for themselves and their clients. For the convenience of users new to this type of methodology, a “turn-key” script is appended to the main text. Assuming an appropriate set and setting, this script should be feasible to implement by any professional familiar with group facilitation methods.