Saturday, August 23, 2008

FUTURE HISTORY - AN OXYMORON?

Futurists attempt to predict the world as it might appear in the unwritten history books that generations to come will read. Perhaps the details of mankind's impact may not be known, just as the details of nature's fury cannot be foretold. However, the forces of mankind and the forces of nature are presently known to a great extent. When and where the third atom bomb will burst and who will initiate its explosion may not be known. But those are minor details of future history just as the timing and targets of a tsunami or an asteroid impact on earth are not known.

Is there any difference between the forces of nature and the forces of man? I postulate not. Darwin's theory - more factual than theoretical - of "Survival of the Fittest," provides the futurist foundation for prediction. From the time that humankind gave up its independence as hunter gatherers in exchange for structured societies, the script was ordained that power wielded by the powerful in the variegated forms of those societies would determine the course of events leading to survival of the fittest, in effect, survival of the most powerful.

The vast majority of the billions who populate this planet are mere pawns in struggles waged by power elites in all societies. From the most primitive to the most sophisticated of those human groupings united by language, geography, religion, race, skin color, education, tribe, family, history, or any other tie, the people are divided numerically into a pyramid by the power exercised by each of them with power divided inversely to their numbers.

Future history will be determined by the power elites at the top of the pyramid at any point in time. The shifting of power between and among those elites will make little difference and have only marginal impact on the masses that sustain them in their struggles to aggrandize, protect, and acquire power. The masses will be indoctrinated and propagandized to believe in their religion and God, be patriotic, love their leaders, fear and hate the "others," and lay down their lives, all in the belief and hope that their lot in life will be benefitted by such loyalty.

The past and the present are the future. Future history can be written today.