The Image of the Future (con.)


The future of our society is dependent on our hopes, expectations and images of it. I do not mean the long-term future years or even decades ahead, but tomorrow, the short-term future only days, weeks or, at the most, months from now. We can increase the possibility of a more positive future by developing and nurturing positive visions and images of it. F. L. Polak in his book, Images of the Future, said, "Human society and culture are being magnetically pulled towards a future fulfillment of their own idealistic images of the future, as well as being pushed from behind by their own realistic past." Our thoughts and beliefs of what the future will be like can move us toward that future and help to create and affect the present.

While a strong, positive vision of the future does lead to confidence, I'm not talking only about a confidence in the future. Confidence is a reaction to a belief about the coming short-term future, next month or next year. No, what I'm talking about is a people's response to a vision of what the future can be. A image of a future that is as far reaching and challenging as any of the great visions of the past, the type of vision that moves a society and the people within it. When the people begin to believe a vision of this magnitude everything is changed and the world is never the same again.

O. W. Markley of the Stanford Research Institute said, "The development of our societies has been in large part dependent on the creative vision of the great members of the human race, and of the images of the future of the important cultures throughout history." Malachi Martin, a Jesuit priest and student of why societies succeed or fail, in his book The New Castle said, "The greatest heights of culture and civilization were always fashioned, not within the molds of sociological cause and effect, but within a transcendent vision." Finally, the late Ed Lindaman, a past director of program planning for the design and manufacture of the Apollo Spacecraft and President of Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington said, "The believer not only interprets history but, above all, he changes it, because he believes, because he hopes."

Malachi Martin too believes in the power of the image of the future. In his book he speaks of the image of the future as a vision of the "Castle." Different people and different societies throughout history have experienced this vision of the future, of a better world, a world where anything and everything was possible. The Castle was their vision of that ideal state.

For example, there was an obscure Semite nomad, named Abraham, who was the first witness of the Jewish vision and the patriarch of all the major religions of the western world. The power of his vision has lasted for over 5000 years.

How many of you have seen the desert around Salt Lake City, Utah? I don't know how you feel, but I have never seen one more desolate. The legends say there were only seven trees in that whole valley when Brigham Young chose it as the site for the Mormon community. They had no money and very little material goods. Most of them didn't even have horses. But they did have a vision, a vision of a city by the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Only seven years after the first person stepped foot in that area, the foundation to the temple was being laid; and today we have Salt Lake City, Utah, a thriving, green and well planned city, a jewel in the desert.

There have been many visions that have shaped the history and future of our world including the "American dream" that is just slightly over 200 years old. Each of these cultures was/is being driven by a vision, a vision that began with a few people and spread throughout the society, shaping the future and transforming the present.

I feared the future, feared my children's world,

Feared the outcome of the massive changes taking
place in our country.

My imagination ran wild and I had visions of the
breakdown or society,
millions dead and dying,
cities empty and decaying,
our way of life gone for centuries.

The future, for me, a steamroller
rushing madly downhill,
no one at the controls.

Doubt and fear of things to come.

Forward into the unknown.
Hope beckons.

THE END

Copyright 1998, Brad Fregger. All rights reserved.                                                                                               Page 2


     

Harvest Moon Press Essays Brad