The future holds immense power. As such, it’s always been something capable of being hijacked and wielded for particular ends, to be shaped by those with authority or the desire to possess it. Throughout history there’s been a tension between future-tellers and those who look on, waiting for their visions to come true. As Hannah Arendt put it in On Violence (1970), there’s a skepticism that calcifies: “Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens.” In other words, you cannot trust a futurist.
Futurology, as it is sometimes known, is the practice of making predictions about the future according to one’s claim to it. A futurist, then, not only imagines what the future might look or be like, as a philosopher or science-fiction writer may, but imbues their predictions with a paternalistic authority over the future that they envision, an assurance of its inevitability, and, in some cases, access to the means and the resources to make it happen. As such, there’s an expectation, often eagerly taken up by governments and corporations, that their predictions influence policy decisions and economic development.
This idea of futurism holds a strong presence in our lives today, just as it has through different periods of history and in various contexts. By taking a closer look at these moments of futurist influence, from the proto-utopian socialism of Henri de Saint-Simon in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to the Italian Fascist Futurists of the early twentieth to our current-day tech overlords, we can see that this conception of the future and how to make use of it has been key to understanding particular dynamics of power in the world for centuries. As we find ourselves under the futurist thumb of tech evangelists seizing the means of prediction, it’s instructive to look to history’s future-tellers for insight into who has been able, or allowed, to shape what is to come.
Let’s first make a distinction between political, social, and economic futurism and the longer, larger history of prophecy. From the astrological practices of Babylonians in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago to the divination of oracles in Egypt or China centuries later, prophecy was a sacred practice across geographic regions and religious beliefs, and only the most trusted readers of the stars or tea leaves were able to advise emperors, rulers, and tyrants. Of course, elements of this kind of prophecy live on today around the world.