Futures and Enlightment

Since the public realisation to climate change and over consumption ‘the benighted “science” of futurology has come back into style.’¹ We live in times of uncertain futures as the rate of ‘predicted futures’ arising and then being discarded is relentless. ‘As if following a kind of Moore’s Law scaling principle, futures today seem to be reproducing themselves faster and more cheaply than ever. At the same time, their shelf lives appear to be getting shorter.’¹ As I discussed in my first blog about climate change, it is difficult to determine what to believe to the point that now we accept the fast rate of changing opinions, due to media spin and attention, and approach most futures with scepticism. ‘From a formal point of view, future-nostalgia reminds us that the future is not, and has never been, an empty category. Even as we accept a skeptical critique of prophecy, we must acknowledge that for us the future is not so much underdetermined as overdetermined. Our lives are constructed around knowledges of the future that are as full (and flawed) as our knowledges of the past.’¹ This has become the case since the time of Enlightenment which began with ‘the rise of modern science, culminated in the French Revolution and then dwindled in a wave after wave of yearning, hope and doubt. It was characterised by a scepticism towards authority, a respect for reason, an advocacy of individual freedom rather than divine command as the basis of moral and political order.’ ²

Design is concerned with the future in order to produce work that is consistent with the latest ‘future’ predictions and trends. Design and media also has influence on how these ‘futures’ are made. ‘In the arena of fiction, for example, the late eighteenth century saw an efflorescence of future fantasies. And for the first time in literary history, these futures took place not in some vague hereafter but in a chronological expanse freed from the finitude of sacred history, in the profane historical future, in the years 2440, 1850, 1900, and 7308.’¹ In present day we as a society have become so used to the coming and going of different future predictions that we seem to loose all sense of urgency towards change and it therefore is necessary for designers to approach this communication project from different creative angles to re-create the sense of urgency and power of scientific authority, such as the Enlightenment movement, so changes can be made.

¹ Histories of the Futures by Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding – Durham 2005

²Modern Culture by Roger Scruton – Continuum 2007

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