Future Shock
Posted by Robert Bruce Baird on: 2005-08-01 21:29:13
Futurists like Alvin Toffler and his wife are important parts of any informed citizens reading. Naisbitt’s forward to Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy was part of my introduction to other futurists. I am not sure that the New Age has advanced a great deal since he wrote that forward for her book however. Let me assure you there is nothing ‘new’ about the New World Order or the New Age philosophies. From the days of the Antonines in the first century BCE the local authority and borders have been established in ever-increasing bureaucracy. The Oxford History of the Roman World goes on to say: “More significant is the interference in the financial affairs of cities which became widespread during the second century AD… we find a momentous departure from the traditional laissez-faire attitude toward government which had hitherto prevailed.”
Toffler appears to have been right about the formation of Economic Unions and more International co-operation but I think the corporate behemoths are more responsible for it than any real effort at efficiency. Bureaucracy might be increasing a great deal more once sentient robots make it unnecessary to have people doing much of the menial labor they now perform. All in all I can assure you there are very few people who understand the Physiocrats and the Hegelian Dialectic and I am not convinced that futurists are looking into clear crystal balls. In fact the Mayans seem to be more correct. The ethical malaise that includes secret agencies and clubs for men whose nature requires more power rather than more abundance for all life on earth is not being addressed. Most people are unwilling to do any real learning about the controls that are increasing through better science and all manner of immoral attitudes. Justice is a hard thing to find in our present world.
About the Author
Author of Diverse Druids, Columnist for The ES Press Magazine, Guest writer at World-Mysteries.com