Vincent K. Pollard on Futures

Contentious Politics & Large-scale Social Change:
How Much Will Futurists Contribute to Improving Society by 2041?


Vincent K. Pollard
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~pollard/

A familiar axiom of the Manoa School of futurists is that, at first glance, any useful idea about the future is likely to seem ridiculous.

The converse, however, is not necessarily true. That is, just because something fails to pass the laugh test does not mean it should be embraced and championed. After all, derisive reactions are at least partly based on one's values. And not everyone shares the same values.

With the latter qualification, a persistent but risible idea is the utterly silly notion that anyone can or should design a preferred future on a basis other than the implicit or explicit use and threat of deadly violence, that is, of killing people.

Many futurists and others who advocate preferred futures are displeased by the direction in which the world is headed is headed, as well as society in specific countries. But how much difference will futurists actually make?

That question is related to a second one: How far are futurists willing to proceed in examining, questioning and rejecting presuppositions that inject added vitality into the very social and political systems which are causing us problems?

Most futurists recognize the need to study politics -- power at the micro and macro levels of society. However, as Korean War veteran (artillery communications officer) and peace studies scholar Glenn Paige warns, basic beliefs of political science are flawed.

That claim is argued, articulated and documented in Nonkilling Global Political Science (Philadelphia: XLibris, 2002). For Paige, the foundational classics of political science -- and the convictions held by most political scientists -- covertly, tacitly or openly -- embrace the axiom that official governments deserve to monopolize legal violence.

So, is everyday governmental killing acceptable forever? "Legal violence" simply means the thread and the use of violence and killing by police, courts, jails, judges, prisons, armies, executions, and in declared and undeclared wars. In a nutshell, political scientists generally *believe* that there is no less violent basis on which society can be organized.

With these challenges in mind, how might one likely history of the future be written 35 years from now? How will preferred futures be written today so that there will likely be less deadly violence then?

In 2041 A.D., younger survivors of the 2006 UH futures studies graduate student cohort will be in their mid-to-late-fifties. Indeed, some will even more senior yet! How will the preferred futures that they wrote in 2006 and 2007 look in 2041?

By 2041, futurists unable or unwilling to break from violence-accepting assumptions will have hampered their own efforts with unnecessary political baggage. It retarded the envisioning and realization of radically improved future societies.

Glenn Paige is not a futurist. His Nonkilling Global Political Science does not clearly articulate a preferred future. Nonetheless, Paige poses an important challenge to futurists. And while I disagree with the way in which Dr. Paige frames parts of his argument and while I do not accept some of his inferences. many of his examples are leading indicators of emerging trends. Are the people already engaged in this discussion already overtaking most futurists?

Futurists should read and grapple with the first 2 chapters of Nonkilling Global Political Science. Free copies are available at http://www.globalnonviolence.org/nonkilling.htm

If my first-year undergraduates have been doing this since 2002, you can, too. These students have collectively wrestled with emerging issues targeted in Paige's book. They discuss, debate and write a paper with their preferred future which includes a plan to reduce violence of some type somewhere. By the way, this is much more practical and testable than vaguely operationalized notions of "violence versus nonviolence."

The most recent version of my study guide for these chapters is online at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~pollard/gpkcc1.html

Also, in 2002, a team of 5 undergraduate students of were selected by their classmates to challenge and debate Dr. Paige for 50 minutes prior to a general Q&A session. In the following year, a similar group of students questioned Paige online. The students' questions and Paige's answers are preserved online at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~pollard/gpkcc.html

Finally, a literary indicator of an emerging trend underlines Paige's challenge: Nonkilling Global Political Science has been translated into more than 25 major and minor global languages within the past four years.