An Exercise in Imagination
As I sat down to prepare this talk, I found myself thinking: why bother about the future at all? This present moment is all we have. "Let us eat, drink, and be merry."
We cannot possibly tell what will happen. We know only this: the future will be utterly different from anything we imagine. Is it then useless to speculate?
No—not useless to consider possibilities. The exercise is fascinating in itself, and emotionally educative. By imagining different futures, we clarify what we value, what we fear, what we hope for.
Let me distinguish three degrees of futurity. The near future: the next hundred years. We are as far from our grandchildren as they will be from the Battle of Waterloo. The middle future: one to ten thousand years—the span from before Egypt to now. The far future: a million years and beyond—the time since early humanity first appeared.
Different questions apply to each scale. For the near future: Will England remain a world power? Will Russia? What will happen to the family, to education?
For the middle future: When coal and oil are exhausted, will we have mastered subatomic power? Might there be a huge cultural advance—a new Renaissance?
For the far future: What will humanity become? Will we even exist? Or will we have evolved into something we would now call superman?
Let me make this concrete. Consider this building where we sit. It will not always be a café. Perhaps the site will be cleared for something larger. Perhaps Americans will take it over, or Russians will use it as a child welfare center, or the Japanese or Chinese will occupy it. Perhaps it will be destroyed by bombs, or simply allowed to fall to pieces when no one cares to maintain it.
Consider Liverpool itself. It will not always be a great port. Someday—through deliberate removal or gradual decay—it will cease to function. The river may silt up, as the Dee did. Dock gates will fall to pieces; buildings will crumble. Future archaeologists may puzzle over our ruins as we puzzle over those of Rome.
Nothing we build is permanent. This is not pessimism but realism.
For the near future, let me enumerate the vital questions. First and most important: will the world be better or worse?
"Better" would mean politically unified, socially coherent, happy, and prosperous—enough for everyone, not just the privileged few.
Capitalism is coming to an end; the only question is what replaces it. There is an interesting tension between capitalism and nationalism—theoretically capitalism is international, seeking profit wherever it can be found. But nationalism has proved victorious over capitalist internationalism.
This tells us something important about ourselves: we are still more tribal than self-seeking. The pull of the group is stronger than the pull of individual advantage. Whether this is good or bad depends on what the tribe demands.
Our imaginations are haunted by bogeys and utopias. The bogeys: Bolsheviks in London, Huxley's Brave New World of drugged contentment, a reversion to savagery, the next war, the "Yellow Peril" of Asian dominance.
The utopias: a Young Soviet League spreading socialist ideals, the Ford factory as model of efficient production, a garden world of universal beauty and leisure.
The real future will probably be as shocking as the real past would be if we could visit it. We imagine the past as quaint; it would actually be filthy, brutal, and terrifying. The future—even if better than our present—will be equally alien to our expectations. It is just around the corner, yet utterly unknown.