What we bring the futures?

I'm anxious to grasp the world. I'm learning to understand its course. Then I see that all things are well-grounded. If I take all circumstances into my considerations, all events prove to be necessary. This is the "logic of constraints". Then I needn't do anything.

The German philosopher Schelling said (1804) that therefore philosophers should not pity suffering.

But I don't think so. "Let it be" is not my motto. I want to determine my course myself.

Another opinion is seeing all processes as self-organizing. There are objective chances with a choice between alternatives, but also the possibility to create the new.

Time comes into being throughirreversible changes of things. Past is determined, future is undecided, open. Present is a short space, in which we decide and create.

But who is "we"? Who can decide and create? The means to do something are unevenly distributed. However, if we don't know where to go - we couldn't go, even if we had the means.

We shouldn't give "experts" the authority to usurp our futures.

Yes, future is constrained by the past. We can see trends and lawfulness in evolution. We create future by choosing between existing alternatives and creating new ones. In the present there are always "futures" for us.

How we can mediate lawfulness and openness? How we can interweave our self-evolution and the evolution of others (co-evolution)?

We have to connect our knowledge about (often contrary) trends in our environment with our wishes, which deviate more or less from the trends.

A well-tried method for this is the "scenario-workshop". Visions and trends, desirable futures and the "logic of constraints" are so connected, that we get orientations for our actions.

First there is an imaginative introduction. Than we "lift-off" and we feel and grasp our wishes and visions. After this we gain ground in the reality and we investigate the trends with their conditions.
By connecting visions and trends we develop a model ("Leitbild") and then concrete action-goals and projects.

Visions shouldn't be impossible "utopias" (like wild dreams). They have to seem practicable. Scenarios are graphic, fairly coherent and contradiction-less descriptions of possible futures. Quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (wishes, fears) factors have equal rights.

There are several stages i.e. for a company. It is important that all involved persons are included.

We discuss goals and can put our acting to the test (imagining). We can take into consideration disturbances too. We can think about risks and chances, which are connected with these disturbances.

In this way we can reach more goals in our company or club or... than if we pragmatically do something.

This requires that all people through their experiences are connected with the reality. Prognoses about trends from non-experts are astonishly correct. Experience-knowledge and wishes lead to orientation of present behavior and creating of desirable futures.

Within this method there are other forms to develop visions in groups, i.e. future-workshops (R.Jungk) and future-conferences.

The method of scenario-workshop was developed from the Institut für Arbeit und Technik e.V. in Hamburg. As an alternative to the "social plan" the employees can develop new tasks and jobs for their company after an concurs (?).

We are the subject of interactions between our wishes/goals and outer factors. Self- and Other-Evolution interweave.

We can see aspects of a "Hegelian" evolution. In a "Hegelian" evolution inner contradictions arise and urge their resolution. Other aspects are "non-Hegelian" (if not mediated by inner dialectic).

Evolution links essential connections (laws) of several spheres. The notion of "qualitative-statistical law" (by H.Hörz) includes the possibility to understand interweaving essential connections in several spheres (systems) in evolution.

In this way we can create desirable futures by doing step by step conscious (?).

addresses:

future-scenarios

future-conferences
and future-workshops

future-studies

futures in communes:

Alfred Frosch
(Institut für Arbeit und Technik e.V.)

Glockengießerwall 20
20095 Hamburg

Dr. Walter Häcker
(Beratung für Organisationen und Unternehmen)
Mühlstr. 8
73650 Winterbach
Dr. Karlheinz Steinmüller (Sekretariat für Zukunftsforschung)
Munscheidstr. 14
45889 Gelsenkirchen
Kommune
Niederkaufungen

Kirchweg 1
34260 Kaufungen



(thoughts after a workshop about "Partizipative Zukunftsforschung" of the Stiftung Mitarbeit
in the Commune Niederkaufungen -
v. Annette Schlemm)

- This page is a part of "Annettes Philosophenstübchen" © 1997 - http://www.thur.de/philo/aszu1e.htm -