It’s that time of year again: when the last of the leaves have fallen from the trees, the chill in the air has settled in for the winter, the first snow graces the mountaintops… and the annual parade of snarky “how bad were futurists’ predictions this year?” articles begin to appear.  Deputy Editor of the Economist Robert Cottrell leads this year’s procession with this article, “The Future of Futurology.”

As Cottrell demonstrates, this refrain has become a favorite ritual of bored and deadline-weary journalists who are more interested in sipping eggnog and doing their holiday shopping than in conducting proper research for an article. Even the most rudimentary Google search would have shown proof that the futurists are not, in fact, extinct.  Had he sent an email to the Association of Professional Futurists I would have gladly pointed him to any of our global members working in corporate functions, consulting or academia. Ah, but this is the perennial “dead time” in the news cycle, the journalistic equivalent of summer re-runs. Editors know that we readers are too pre-occupied to pay close attention to anything beyond the headlines and so they forgo research in favor of hyperbole and sloppy reporting. In Cottrell’s case it’s a good thing spell check is automated.

Cottrell’s article represents the worst kind of cynicism, a sour-grapes approach to the future: “if we can’t predict what will happen in the future, why bother thinking about it?”  And: “anyone who tries to think about the future must be either a crackpot, a snake-oil salesman or named Faith Popcorn.”  (The ultimate irony is that Cottrell, who decries the modern utility of futurists, is listed as a speaker for hire under the “Futurists and Technology” section of the London Speakers Bureau.  Talk about biting the hand that pays your five-figure speaking fee).

Cottrell’s diatribe against futurists is a particularly malevolent form of propaganda, a social poisoning that has infected society at all levels, making us immune to long-term thinking and thus unprotected against complex threats such as climate change, terrorism or future pandemics.  This type of thinking isn’t just stupid, it’s dangerous.

Predicting the future isn’t difficult - it’s impossible. Yet just because we can’t predict what will happen doesn’t mean that we should abandon the effort. What we can know about the future is directly proportional to our capacity - as individuals, organizations and societies - to see change and to imagine possibilities.  Cottrell’s argument that we should stick to what we can see in the short-term is ridiculously absurd today, when given the scope of the challenges we face, what we most urgently need is to think consistently, creatively and rigorously about what lies far ahead. 

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