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Introduction: Futures Studies and Professional Legitimization

After the utopian excesses of the late 1970s, futures studies in the early 21st century is undergoing a process of academic and professional legitimization. Debate about the status of futures discourse, usually framed as an art-science schism, remains an important conflict where different cultural meanings are negotiated. (Slaughter, 1999: 232-233). Attempts to build consensus have largely occurred through membership in the major professional institutes (the World Futures Society, the World Futures Study Federation, the Futuribles group and the Global Business Network), by discussion in journals and university courses, and by adherence to specific methods and tools. The art-science schism can serve as a useful lens to view the development of futures studies and the multi-layered approach (or not) of individual theorists and groups. Wendell Bell was optimistic when he observed that "Everyone involved in the futurist enterprise--and, for that matter, nonfuturist consumers of futures work--has a stake in the discussion." (Bell, 1997: 168).

North American and European Traditions

The debate about futures as an art or science highlights the different views held by North American and European practitioners. Influenced by Hermann Kahn and Edward Cornish, the North American trajectory ". . . reflects a sense of optimism and power which is, perhaps, central to the American experience." (Slaughter, 1988: 7). Kahn and Cornish's emphasis on quantitative methodologies and technocratic scenarios thrived in the post-World War II climate of 'big science', argues Jerry Ravetz, an era exemplified by the 1960s Space Race and fears of thermonuclear Mutually Assured Destruction (Ravetz, 2002: 201). The 'forward view' was co-opted in America by portfolio-driven conglomerates during a frenzied period of vertical integration, and by state institutions for budgetary planning and to inaugurate the utopian ideals of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The contrasting European tradition, exemplified by Robert Jungk and Eleonora Masini's visioning workshops, Bertrand de Jouvenal's The Art of Conjecture (1967), and Johann Galtung's peace studies, developed an activist-emancipatory tradition (Slaughter, 1988: 19) which resonated with the trans-Atlantic counterculture and antiwar movements. This bifurcation reflected the historical matrix of differing post-World War II experiences: the Holocaust's ravages and Marshall Plan nation-rebuilding (Europe) versus laissez-faire economic prosperity (North America).

American technocratic mind-sets were soon challenged by blowback from geopolitical crises, including the Vietnam conflict and the 1973 OPEC oil crisis. Management by Objectives gave way to scenario-driven planning and computer simulations. 'Big science' was simultaneously facing a post-positivist revolt, which began trickling with Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), (Bell, 1997: 198), grew with Paul Feyrabend's Against Method (1975) and became a flood of postmodernist critiques. This philosophical battle would be repeated, during the following decades, in the controversies regarding the epistemological status of sociobiology, memetics and evolutionary psychology.

While these debates created the social space for futures as a "transdisciplinary social science" (Bell, 1997: 186-187), they also undermined the epistemological assumptions of the American tradition. The 1990s popularity of complexity theory and Eastern pantheism heralded the demise of Cartesian dualism: ". . . the Western/industrial worldview based on certainty, predictability, control and instrumental rationality has become fractured and incoherent." (Slaughter, 1988: 102).

Art and Science: A Cognitive Split

The Enlightenment's cognitive split of art and science, for Wendell Bell, is the historical nexus of the current debate. "The problem," Bell observes, "is that the distinctions are false." (Bell, 1997: 168). Western intellectual history evolved through the counterpoint of scientific rationality with Romanticist inspiration, organic nature by non-natural intellect. Yet when faced with the global problematique, many futurists felt that this progression had led to a scientific-industrial cul-de-sac (Slaughter, 1988: 101). This realization fueled a revisionist climate that enabled Michel Foucault's view that Western science was just another meta-narrative to flourish. Finally, the American emphasis on quantitative methodologies, risk management and utilitarian application by think-tanks had contributed to an over-simplistic public image of how scientific research was actually being conducted. "It should be remembered," Ikka Niiniluoto notes, "that creative imagination is needed in the discovery of scientific theories as well." (Niiniluoto, 2001: 373).

This over-simplistic image of science has contributed to several narrow definitions of the telos of futures studies. Jerry Ravetz warns that this image was "constructed for the needs of particular ideological struggles" and that the sociopolitical transformation of science was now dominated by "total commodification" (Ravetz, 2002: 201). This reductionist logic is evident in the commercialization of the Human Genome Project, the late 1990s dotcom consultancies, and the labyrinth patent wars being fought in biotech and nanotechnology. Critique of individual tools needs to be extended to the sociopolitical imperatives of futures institutes: ". . . many of the major institutional centres of futures activity have tended to maintain close links with the centres of social and economic power." (Slaughter, 1988: 18).

Is Futures Studies a Decision Science?

Ikka Niiniluoto's argument for futures studies as a "decision science" is plausible for proponents of "total modification". Herbert Simon's "design science"--the systematic deployment of optimal means for utilitarian ends--is contrasted with activist views that emphasized sociopolitical engagement and philosophical views that cultivated self-reflexive awareness (Niiniluoto, 2001: 373). Acceptance of humanistic values, Niiniluoto fears, may endanger the normative status of scientific discourse (Niiniluoto, 2001: 374). The multi-motivational strategies of futures practitioners--"a mixture of theoretical and empirical research, methodology, philosophy, and political action"--results from the creative tension of probable versus preferable futures (Niiniluoto, 2001: 376).

Niinuluoto shares Ravetz's concerns that elites may use futures research to manufacture the "consent of the governed" (Ravetz, 2002: 202) and prevent people from making "their own morally and politically relevant choices." (Niiniluoto, 2001: 373). While Ravetz, alongside Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, frames this confrontation as a renegotiated "postwar social contract" (Ravetz, 2002: 201), Niinuluoto is more concerned with ethical implications for the futurist's employer (Niinuluoto, 2001: 374). Richard Slaughter observes that "All science, all futures work is committed," (Slaughter, 1988: 17), yet by focusing on different layers, Niinuluoto and Ravetz show that the nature of this commitment and to who it is given remains varied.

Ars, Scienta and Techne