Future research of the future: From technocracy to new models of sociality

Abstract

The article is a review of the book by J. Urry Kak vyglyadit budushchee? [What is the Future?] (Trans. by A. Matvienko; ed. by S. Shchukina. Moscow: Delo; 2018. 320 pp.] which describes multiple discourses of the social future and methods for its research. Its author, the co-director of the Lancaster’s Institute for Social Futures, believes that futurologists focus on new technologies but the key element of crucial innovations is social phenomena. The book presents the following main aspects of the contemporary research of the future: the social future is multiple, and its various images are supported by different actors and compete; all stakeholders should take part in discussions of the future - states, markets, civil society institutions, individuals; as a rule, three methods are used to study the future - individualistic, structural and based on the theory of complex systems; the future needs not to be planned but rather coordinated. The book proves the necessity to study the future to correct the present by creating and transforming social norms, practices and value orientations.

Keywords

• future
• utopia
• dystopia
• norm-creating
• discourse of the future
• theory of complex systems
• coordination of the future