Johan Peter Paludan’s column Utopians - our closest colleagues u In case the editor hasn’t already mentioned it elsewhere in this <strong>issue</strong>, the word utopia has its origin in Greek and means a place that isn’t real. The concept continues to play a big role in contemporary discourse, and this must be because it represents our aspirations to make not-real place real. There’s nothing wrong with that. When utopian visions are at times discredited, it is less because of their content than because of the way we seek to implement them. The end justifies the means, as Lenin and his cronies said – and we know the result of that. Utopias aren’t real, but if they are to be realized, it must be in the future. You don’t construct utopian visions <strong>for</strong> the past, so utopias belong to the ‘futures people’. One way to systematize the ‘future people’ is to place them along two dimensions. First: do they approach the future with intuition or through methods And second: do they view the future as something given, or is the future ‘something we create’ This provides the basis <strong>for</strong> four types of ‘futures people’: 1. They who think the future is given and can be seen through intuition: prophets, such as the Old Testament kind. They were given visions of the future. So are business managers today, but it isn’t quite the same thing. 2. They who think the future is given and can be revealed through methods: <strong>for</strong>tune tellers. You may think what you will about crystal balls, tea leaves, etc., but they are methods of a kind. 3. They who think the future can be created and that you can be methodical in your approach to this future. In this group we find planners and their helpers: futurists. 4. Finally, they who think the future can be created and that you can determine the ideal future through intuition: utopians. As can be seen, the future-oriented field is crowded. Fortune tellers are flourishing. When the Copenhagen Institute <strong>for</strong> Futures Studies was established 40 years ago, there were only a few willing to accept being described this way. Since then, the number has skyrocketed, and if we extrapolate the trend – and perhaps we should be reluctant to do so – it is possible to <strong>for</strong>esee the time when we all become futurists. There may be some poetic justice in that, since we should all think about the future. The Old Testament isn’t as powerful as it once was, but <strong>for</strong> all the old prophets that have fallen, new ones have cropped up everywhere in the neo-religious movements. Vile tongues suggest that the climate debate has also spawned a number of prophets who, through more or less doctored studies, can see the future. And then there are the utopians: They who dream of a better world and know what it looks like. In this schema, futurists are placed between utopians and <strong>for</strong>tune tellers. As Your Columnist see it, futurists should stay away from constructing utopian dreams, but may take part in establishing scenarios <strong>for</strong> how such visions could be realized. Futurists should also refrain from making cocksure statements about the future. Though Your Columnist generally praises a professional lack of opinion, I must remark that utopians are preferable to <strong>for</strong>tune tellers. Utopians dream. Fortune tellers deceive either themselves or their customers or both. Like so much else, utopias are time bound and are generally expressions of what is seen as the greatest lack in the time in which they are <strong>for</strong>mulated. The Garden of Eden, and later Cockayne, are utopias <strong>for</strong>med during a time in which work was hard and there was too little to eat. Socialist utopias arise in societies with too little equality and justice. The question of whether the utopia that focuses on access to a high number of virgins in paradise can be similarly explained we will leave unanswered. What, then, is the characteristic modern utopia The answer is obvious, given the recently held COP15 conference in Copenhagen: a clean environment without climate changes. This is rather conservative, one could think. Another utopia is the one known at the Copenhagen Institute <strong>for</strong> Futures Studies as OFF, which often accompanies ideas such as simple living. This utopia is a response to a perceived gross lack of leisure time, togetherness and quality of life. Both these utopias represent dreams of something that doesn’t exist (yet). We shall see if these utopias will remain merely utopian. JOHAN PETER PALUDAN is the director of the Copenhagen Institute <strong>for</strong> Futures Studies. He mainly works to communicate the Institute’s results through lectures and courses in Denmark, the Nordic countries, greater Europe, and vthe United States. 46 fo#01 2010 www.iff.dk/FO
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