Possible Futures

The title sheet records “Possible Futures” and lists several bodies before which versions of the lecture were apparently delivered.

When we begin to talk about the future, most of us find ourselves thinking either of bogeys or of utopias. The bogeys are familiar enough. There are the Bolshies in London; there is the prospect suggested by Brave New World; there is a relapse into savagery; there is the next war; and there is the Yellow Peril. But on the other side there are the utopias: the Young Soviet League, perhaps, or a world like a Ford factory, or a garden world.

Let us begin nearer home, with the future of this very building. It will not always be a café. The site may be cleared for a bigger building. The place may be taken over by Americans. At some later time it may be used by Russians as a child-welfare centre, or by Japanese or Chinese. It may be destroyed by bombs. Or, without any such dramatic event, it may simply be allowed to fall to pieces.

Then consider the future of Liverpool. Liverpool will not always be a great port. Think, too, of the crossing of the Mersey. Someday the port may be deliberately removed; or it may merely decay. The river may silt up, as the Dee has silted. The dock gates may fall to pieces, and the buildings crumble.

We are repeatedly shocked by the reality of the past. Well, the real future will give shocks of precisely the same order. And some of them are just round the corner.

Why bother about foreseeing at all? As I sat down just now, thinking of this moment, it occurred to me that perhaps the proper maxim was simply, “Let us eat, drink and be merry.” We cannot possibly tell what will happen. Indeed, almost the only safe prediction is that the future will be utterly different. Does it follow that the whole inquiry is useless?

I think not. We must distinguish between prophesying what will happen and considering what may happen. Prophecy is futile. But the consideration of possibilities is both fascinating and educative—educative, I mean, emotionally.

For my present purpose I shall distinguish three degrees of futurity. By the near future I mean roughly the next hundred years. Waterloo is already more than a century behind us. By the middle future I mean anything from one thousand to ten thousand years. Ten thousand years takes us back beyond Egypt. By the far future I mean a million years and onward. A million years takes us back toward early man.

The questions appropriate to these periods are of different orders. In the near future we may ask whether England will still be a world power, what will have happened to Russia, and what changes will have occurred in the family and in education. In the middle future we must ask about coal, oil and subatomic power, and whether there may have been some huge cultural advance. We must ask what man himself will be like. Will he be extinct? Or will he have become some kind of superman?

One possibility is the end of capitalism. Capitalism and nationalism are incompatible.

Of the two, nationalism will be victorious. That is, we are still more tribal than self-seeking.

Let us turn now to the near future. I want quite deliberately to enumerate the vital questions.

The first is this: will the world be better or worse? By “better” I mean, first, politically unified; secondly, socially coherent, happy and rich; and thirdly, culturally more vital.

By “worse” I mean a world in which civilisation is breaking up through successive wars; a world without effective unity, or perhaps a world unified only through economic slavery, something after the fashion of Brave New World; a world impoverished and ultimately degenerate. But we must not suppose that the alternatives will present themselves so neatly. The future may be better-worse: better in certain respects and worse in others.

The second question is whether England will still be a great power. I see no possibility of it. England’s peculiar advantage is over, and she must lose her trade. But what matter? We ought to think cosmopolitanly. England may be the better for it.

Compare the Scandinavian countries. England might become a quieter and more thoughtful country, with a smaller population.

The third question is whether the United States will become dominant, and whether its characteristic individualism will spread over the planet. We can imagine an Americanised world; and we can already observe America in Asia today. But the United States itself is now in the throes of profound disorder. Financially, its system is collapsing. Culturally, there are signs of insincerity, graft and rackets, and even the universities are not exempt from the general trouble. There is also the possibility of a kind of Balkanisation. The danger is that the whole world may be infected by the defects of an Americanised civilisation.

The fourth question concerns Russia. Will the present order last? If it does last, will it be modified in the direction of capitalism? Or will there be a counter-revolution? There may be an anti-Russian war. There are also the questions of population and of culture. Russia herself might be Americanised; or, contrariwise, the world might be Russified.

The fifth group of questions concerns the East. Japan is expanding, though this expansion will become stationary. India also, with its population, must be reckoned with. And there is China, with its vast potentiality and a more sane mentality. We cannot rule out a war of East and West.

The sixth question is internationalism. Is the world to be divided among rival empires, or is there to be a world state? Nationalism may collapse. We must remember that nationalism is not an instinct.

On the other hand, if culture declines, there will be more nationalism.

The seventh group consists of cultural questions. What will be the influence of science? Here one thinks of Russell and of Huxley. But will science itself become more humane?

What will happen to religion? Will there be a new religion? What will happen to the family and to the position of women? Will the inhabitants of the future be free citizens or slaves? Even if they are politically free, will they have free minds? And there are the technical questions.

Let us pass to the middle future, by which I mean a period between one thousand and ten thousand years hence. At that distance all present states will have disappeared, and so will our present culture.

Will there have been continuous progress? There is the possibility of extinction. Mankind might become extinct through an atomic explosion, through bad eugenics, or through lack of essential chemicals.

Oil and coal will no longer be available. Power may have to come from the tides or from subatomic sources. And there is the question of the ether, and of voyaging.

But what of human nature? Will it remain fundamentally the same? Or will it, perhaps, have been improved? Or, again, will it have degenerated?

Finally there is the far future: a million years hence and onward. The earth itself may remain much as it is now, unless it has been burnt. But there will be fluctuations of climate and shifts of the continents.

Will there be men? Certainly there will not be men precisely like ourselves. Things now move too fast for that. Indeed, they may move ever faster. Or there may be a long stagnation. Intelligence might pass to some new species; or humanity might be improved until it became a very different kind of creature.

Such an improved humanity might possess altered senses, perhaps far more efficient eyes. The hand may not always be necessary. Above all, there may be a transformed brain: a super-intellect, together with a far higher power of coordination.

There is also the opposite possibility, the decay of the human stock. Some new dominant species might then arise. One is tempted to mention the rat. There is also the possibility of combining human and animal stocks, and so producing a new species.

At this point several wider speculations crowd upon us. There is Spengler’s conception of the decay of cultures. There is the relation of Russia and the East, and the significance of Russian plans both for the present and for the far future. There is the possibility of new worlds. And there is the question whether our own civilisation is unique, either on this earth or more widely.

Much will depend upon fertility, upon the development of the brain, upon whether there is life on other planets, and upon the increase of population. Whatever happens, are we moving toward the domination of one people or power? For Japan, the question is economic. On these scales a thousand years may seem almost a day, while a hundred years may scarcely matter.

And what of the British future? What would be the finest British future? There is the Irish problem. Looking farther afield, we may ask, first, whether Japan may ultimately be Sinified; secondly, whether there may arise a group consciousness; and thirdly, whether there may be an emotional advance.

There is the problem of neurosis: aggressiveness must be given a normal environment. Nations also may suffer from something like neurosis.