Alternative Futures

Prophecy is futile. When I wrote Last and First Men, I missed both Fascism and the Russian Revolution—the two most transformative movements of our century. Let that be a warning against confident predictions.

What we can do is envisage possibilities implicit in humanity's present state. To do this, we must analyze today—understand where we are before asking where we might go.

How did humanity gain its present position? Not merely through weapons, though these played a part. The two great factors are intelligence and sociality. Our future depends on both.

What is intelligence? I define it as insight combined with habit-breaking—the power of dealing with novel situations rather than merely repeating learned responses.

Consider our remote ancestor, the spectral tarsier: a small, weak creature with grasping hands, binocular eyes, and a brain adapted for versatility rather than specialization. From that unpromising beginning came manipulation, precise vision, and flexible behavior.

Humanity has extended these capacities: increased sensory discrimination (we distinguish more than any animal), more delicate manipulation (the human hand is a marvel of precision), and above all, greater versatility in analyzing and relating different aspects of experience.

Human sociality must be distinguished from mere gregariousness—the herd-mentality that produces the will to conform and to enforce conformity on others. In the herd, self and others are not truly realized as distinct individuals; there is only the mass.

Most human sociality, I'm afraid, remains at this level—what Gerald Heard calls "pre-individual." But there is a leaven of something better.

This better thing begins with self-consciousness and other-consciousness: awareness of oneself as an enduring conscious center with particular needs, and corresponding awareness of others as likewise conscious centers. This awareness is typically limited—we truly know only one or two others—and it is fragmentary and precarious. But from it emerges genuine love and hate, as distinct from herd approval and herd hostility.

Genuine community, as I understand it, is fundamentally different from gregariousness. It is based on respect for others as individuals—on mutual enrichment rather than mutual conformity.

I distinguish two forms. First, community of contact: small-scale, based on direct mutual personal awareness. This is the community of mates, family, close friends, the small group or fraternity.

Second, community of principle: large-scale, based on an established will to treat others as individuals even when we don't know them personally. This community respects differences, encourages diversity, seeks mutual enrichment through the synthesis of different perspectives united by common purpose.

The part played by genuine community in human societies is slight and precarious—but in times of crisis, it becomes vitally important.

What does genuine community require? First, a modicum of intelligence and sensibility—without these, people cannot truly perceive one another.

Second, mutual knowledge: accurate information about how others live, what they need, what they value. Third, education oriented not toward mere conformity but toward "personality-in-community"—helping people become themselves while relating to others.

Fourth, freedom of expression: without this, mutual knowledge is impossible. Fifth, mutual acceptance: willingness to live alongside difference.

And crucially, absence of serious frustration—especially economic frustration. When people are desperate, when basic needs are unmet, community collapses into a war of all against all. Economic justice is not a luxury but a precondition of civilization.

The implicit goal of all this is the fulfillment of human capacity: in knowing, in feeling, in willing and doing.

How does history happen? Not by dialectical idealism—not through some logical necessity in the development of ideas. History is not the unfolding of a rational plan.

By dialectical materialism? Yes, if cautiously stated. The key insight is the impact of environment on human nature. But we must remember that human nature itself changes—partly through the force of tradition, which shapes what people want and how they pursue it.

For our present purpose, I distinguish three factors in human nature:

First, herd-mentality—gregariousness, the will to conform and to enforce conformity on others.

Second, individualism—shrewd self-seeking for oneself, one's family, one's group.

Third, the will for community—the true social will that seeks a society of developed individuals mutually enriching one another. Its ideal is personality-in-community.

All three are probably products of past environmental pressure. Individualism is by far the strongest. Economic determinism—the desire for food, comfort, safety—operates on all three.

Individualism is normally dominant now. Herd mentality interferes—wars arise partly from nationalist passions. The will for community interferes rarely and precariously: we see it in Early Christianity, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution—brief flowerings before other forces reassert themselves.

In estimating the future, we must bear all three factors in mind, and their fluctuations. There is no hope unless the community-will wins.

What is the cause of all our present troubles? It is the impact of science and mechanical power on a still-primitive mentality. Traditional behavior is inadequate to the world we have created.

Our new instruments demand, first, a planned world-economy—but ours is haphazard, chaotic, driven by competing nationalisms. Second, they demand a real community will—but ours is weak and intermittent.

Science opens vistas of progress, both material and spiritual. But it also gives power to reactionaries—to the dominant class. The same technology that could liberate us provides unprecedented power of propaganda and oppression.

What are our struggles really about? They are the effort to achieve both unity and diversity, both integration and individuality.

First, integration of the human race: so that peoples shall be organic to the whole, and occupational groups likewise. The parts must function harmoniously—but freely, willingly—for the whole. This is not the integration of an organism where cells have no independent existence. Human individuals are not cells.

Second, fulfillment of individuality. There is a seeming conflict with integration—compare the conflict of State and individual.

But rightly understood, community and individuality involve one another. Real community demands high-grade individuality. The conflict is only between herd-mentality and individualism—between conformity imposed and selfishness unchecked. Genuine community and genuine individuality are allies, not enemies.

The temper of our age is marked by a flight from Liberalism—in policy and in culture. To understand this, we must first understand what Liberalism was.

Its causes: the bourgeois battle for power, at first allied to the proletariat against aristocracy. Puritanism provided its moral backbone; science, its intellectual method.

Its essentials: first, individualism—society as a system of keyed egoisms, each pursuing their own interest. Second, democracy—at least in principle. Third, free intelligence—no authority above reason. Fourth, Christian morality—or at least its humanitarian residue.

Liberalism deserved to fail. But we must keep what was good in it.

How did it fail? First, it did not deliver the goods. There was no equality of bargaining power; the weak were exploited by the strong. Therefore its morality became insincere—fine words hiding ugly realities.

Second, workers learned that individualism was useless to them. Only through combination could they resist exploitation.

Russia represents the triumph of combination. Individualism was discredited; collectivism rose in its place. There is genuine community—but also herd mentality, and it is not always easy to distinguish them.

Democracy has been postponed—indefinitely? Intelligence is harnessed, but harnessed to the State. There is tyranny for ostensibly good ends.

I call this para-fascism: not fascism in its ideology, but similar in its methods and its suppression of individual freedom.

Italy and Germany have also rejected individualism—capitalism has been harnessed to totalitarianism, the "corporate state."

But they have added something Russia lacks: a rejection of materialism itself—a revulsion from licentiousness and intellectualism, a turn toward mystical cravings and racial divinity.

They reject democracy and glorify discipline. They reject Christian morality—up mastery, up ruthlessness. And critically, they suppress free intelligence. The mind must serve the State and the Race.

Britain shows the same tendencies, less violently expressed.

First, trustification: cartels forming in each industry to keep up prices. Where does this lead? Perhaps to something like a Fascist Grand Council.

Second, failure of democracy: parliament seems increasingly futile, a talking-shop while real decisions are made elsewhere.

Third, curtailment of civil liberties: police encroachments, gas drill in schools, physical culture with militarist overtones, sedition bills.

Fourth, disgust with intellectualism: even scientists like Eddington question the scope of reason. There is a turn toward praxis, toward activism—doing rather than thinking.

Fifth, a change in moral temper: renewed interest in blood sports, fascination with bullfights, the Hemingway cult of violence and "authenticity."

Let me summarize today's tendencies. Economic determinism tends toward: first, unification of control—ultimately world-wide. Second, suppression of individuality, freedom, and free intelligence. Third, ruthlessness.

In short, we are witnessing the loss of intelligence and genuine sociality—the very qualities by which humanity climbed to its present position.

The Marxian says: the dialectic will breed a strong proletariat and a rickety capitalism weakened by trade cycles and wars. Finally: World Communism.

But Marxians overlook several things. First, the power of oppression and propaganda in the modern world—technology has made these far more effective than Marx imagined.

Second, herd mentality—the ease with which masses can be manipulated to support their own oppressors.

Third, and most troubling: after the Revolution—what? Russia shows us the bad side: para-fascism, tyranny in the name of liberation.

Can the will for true community interfere with these dire tendencies? Yes—if we keep essentials in view.

Consider the Left Wing mentality today. There is a heroic aspect to Communism—witness Spain, where people die for their convictions.

But there are problems: doctrine is oversimplified, thinking is partisan (even a glorification of bias), tactics are ruthless.

Righteous indignation is well justified—the Smug deserve contempt, and indignation is a driving force. But do the Left always keep the goal in view? The goal is personality-in-community, not merely victory for one's faction. Too many second-rank Left Wing leaders have forgotten this.

Certain facts must be faced. Britain is essentially "middle class." Therefore the appeal for change must be to middle class people—to their best motives, and to their self-interest for the future.

What does the best of the middle class fear? Not merely loss of privilege—that is the worst of them. The best fear the suppression of kindliness and intelligence. They fear a world without decency, without thought.

Therefore the Left must stress these values: kindliness, intelligence, character, integrity. Without these, revolution produces only a new tyranny.

Aldous Huxley has the core all right. He stresses intelligence, individuality, kindliness—the very things we need.

But he oversimplifies. First, no absolute precept works—his theory of non-violence, however noble, cannot address every situation. Second, his economics are vague; he does not grapple with the concrete problems of production and distribution. Third, his mysticism is too Eastern—it does not connect with the Western temperament. And he idealizes human nature—as if people could be transformed by goodwill alone.

Yet he is right that non-attachment is needed—detachment from ego, from faction, from personal advantage. This provides both strength in crisis and the moral authority to impress the masses.

What we need is a synthesis: Levy plus Huxley. Professor Levy's hard-headed analysis of economic and political realities, combined with Huxley's insistence on spiritual values.

Put it this way: the spirit of Christ combined with the practice of Lenin. John Macmurray has pointed toward this, but too vaguely. We need concrete strategy informed by genuine love.

Now to the alternative futures themselves. Will intelligence and genuine sociality go up—or down?

First: Crash in world war—civilization destroyed, perhaps humanity with it.

Second: Cycles of wars and decline—no final crash, but gradual deterioration over centuries.

Third: World communist revolution—but then what? Community or tyranny?

Fourth: Fascist future—either continued national conflicts, or world fascism as rival totalitarianisms merge.

Fifth: Huxley's future—gradual spiritual awakening and decentralization.

Sixth: Decline of the West—Spengler's vision of inevitable senescence.

Seventh: Falling population—is this good or bad? It might ease resource pressure, or it might signal loss of vitality.

Trouble is certainly ahead. There is no hope without revolution of some sort—whether violent or gradual, whether from the Left or through some unforeseen transformation.

But beyond the trouble? I envision a small world population, unified and classless. All would be aristocrats in the sense that matters: people of developed sensibility and intelligence.

Full mechanization would free humanity from drudgery. Yet the life would be simple—not cluttered with unnecessary goods and distractions.

The concentration would be on what matters: knowing, feeling, willing—the development of human capacity to its fullest.

And then? Toward the stars. A mature humanity might finally be ready for cosmic adventure, for encounter with whatever else exists in this vast universe.

But first we must get through the trouble. And that depends on us.