Foresight is a dimension of every proper form of expertise. Just as "The Future" does not exist, neither does the "foresight" claimed by the futurist as their unique expertise.
There is no "knowing The Future" that can yield useful knowledges otherwise. There is no-one "coming from The Future" to lead the way. To "know the future" is to admit to ignoring and disdaining the present and the open futurity arising out of the presence of the diversity of stakeholders to the making and meaning-making of the world, peer to peer. To "come from The Future" is to admit to a delusive inhabitation of a wish-fulfillment fantasy at the expense of the world, a derisive repudiation of one's peers for an imaginary species of angels or monsters elsewhere.
There can be no special futurological expertise that generates "foresight" as such, divorced from all the separate disciplines and knowledges out of which partial, contingent foresights emerge. The Hegelian understanding of philosophy as the project to hold the spirit of the age in thought comes closest to this kind of generality, if only in a superficial way, which may explain why so much futurology amounts to cheap pseudo-philosophizing (another point of contact explaining the family resemblance between superlative futurological sub(cult)ures like transhumanism and Singularitarianism and the very American enthusiasm for anti-intellectual pseudo-philosophical handwaving in the Randian Objectivist and L. Ron Hubbard Scientology vein).
The intuitive plausibility of futurological narratives derives in no small part from their activation of primary passions (the usual fears of impotence and fantasies of omnipotence that always freight the technoscientific imaginary of agency) but also deep discursive formations, whether the irreconcilable omni-predication of transcendent agency, omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence -- or dredging up an oceanic archive that has shaped so many of our intuitive understandings (from Eve to Icarus, from the golem to the Sorcerer's apprentice, from Frankenstein to the Philosopher's Stone, from the Fountain of Youth to Brave New World). What must be grasped is the extent to which futurology is not providing insights, but selling sensations and reassurances.
Further, it is crucial to grasp that not only does the futurological lack an expertise but it relies for its force on a repudiation of expertise, that not only does the futurological provide no real knowledge but it demands a repudiation of knowledge, that not only does the futurological provide no insights but requires the substitution of cheap thrills and easy consolations for insight and understanding, that not only does the futurological deceive when it claims to know of "The Future" but it relies for the plausibility of its deception on the repudiation of the present, emphatically including the open futurity arising indispensably out of the present. Futurology feeds on the substance of the present, peddling the profound deception that marketing and promotion is one and the same as knowledge-making and meaning-making, peer to peer, futurology feeds on the substance of freedom in the present, peddling the profound deception that the amplification of given force is one and the same as the elaboration of freedom, peer to peer.
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2 comments:
Thinking about plausible technological developments isn't fundamentally different from taking global warming seriously. Upon what grounds do you separate futurology from disciplines that offer partial and contingent foresight?
Upon what grounds do you separate futurology from disciplines that offer partial and contingent foresight?
The answer is contained in the actual post to which you are responding, paragraph three: There can be no special futurological expertise that generates "foresight" as such, divorced from all the separate disciplines and knowledges out of which partial, contingent foresights emerge.
Surely, graduate students should have better reading skills. I know mine do. But I'll provide you yet another quick summary of the key issue here: "The Future" doesn't exist, and neither does "technology" exist at the level of generality with which futurologists pretend to concern themselves. These things matter.
We take global warming seriously because the consensus of actual climate scientists have given us good reasons to do so. Futurologists aren't expert in anything except fleecing flocks of True Believers of money and attention mostly because these True Believers are skeered stoopid of death or greedy stoopid for geno-robo-nano get rich quick schemes.
By the way, since you have indicated to me that you think it is a knock-down drag-out argument against my critique to declare I cannot prove you are NOT immortal, I can't say I have high hopes of convincing you of much of anything anymore. Do please prove me wrong.
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