futures volume 6 issue 5 1974 [doi 10.1016%2f0016-3287%2874%2990064-0] irving h. buchen -- towards a...

8/11/2019 Futures Volume 6 Issue 5 1974 [Doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2874%2990064-0] Irving H. Buchen -- Towards a History of Futurism- The Greeks

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Towards a Hi story of Futut im: The Greeks

429

Though al l deci sions, because of t heir beari ng on the ut ure, necessari l y i nvol ve a measure of

uncert ai nt y, w e ca8 make a broad d~~inc~on here. Same decisions mere appb w ays of th i~ i ng

w it h w hich the ~l iberat or w as a~re~y q e at hog. Ot her ~~~~o~, made at ti mes of crisif

(w hich is but the Greek wordfor f iudgement] . a . involve . . wrays o whi ch t he ~~i b~a~r

w as not accustomed.

Kenneth

Buxke Permanence and Change ( 1935)

Al though onl y a ew may originate a poli cy, w e are all able toudge i t .

PericIes (Athens, circa 430

BC)

TOWARDS A HISTORY OF FUTURISM

THE GREEKS

Irving H Buchen

ON

of the most striking common

characteristics of the present group of

professional prophets is their fascination

with Greek mytholo~. Thus, for

example, one basic forecasting method-

ology is called Delphi ; a telecommunica-

tions data system is designated Oracle;

The Institute of Maryland which is

engaged in grass-roots futures planning

publishes the newsletter

Proteus;

the

programme at Cofumbia University

seeking long-range goals is called The

Prometheus Project and Gerald Fein-

berg published a book with the same

title (a recent anthology is entitled

The Jvew Promet heans) ; the famous film

2001 is subtitled

A Space Odyssey

and

thus picks up all the general references

to Homers epic as well as the Greek

nomenclature of the NASA programme;

the two-way system used by the

University of Illinois Computer Group

uses the acronym PLATO.

To be sure, such historical graftings

are not new. When Machiavelli wished

to dignify politics as a science of power,

he studied various conspiracies in the

Irving H. Buchen is Professor of English at

Fairleigh Dickinson University Madison New

Jersey 07940 USA.

past to codify a set of maxims to

justify the assassination of princes.

Marx saturated himself in the revolu-

tions of history to perfect the technique

of the infallible revolution1 In short,

the pressure of the present compels a

special combing of the past. But the

pressure of the future is not that easily

accommodated because a history of

futurity, anomalous as that may seem,

does not exist. Indeed, the question of

grafting in this instance may be more

rightly interpreted as one of groping.

Nevertheless, it is a happy inadequacy,

for it does urge a re-examination of

past assumptions about futurity as part

of an awareness of current concerns.

The Greek assumptions about futurity

substan~ally shape those of Western

civilisation in general and current

futurists in particular, and also drama-

tise a characteristic compulsion of a

society intimidated by its future: a

preoccupation with origins.

The future is Proteus

Although references to the future

abound in Greek culture and religion,

a minimum representative sample would

FUTURES October 974


2/6

430 Futures Essays

have to include the oracles, the mytho-

logical figures

of Proteus and

Prometheus, the historical and literary

hero, Odysseus, and the p~losophical

contributions of Socrates and Plato.

The best known of many oracles in

ancient Greece were those at Delphi,

associated with Apollo, and at Dodona,

associated with Zeus. Liberally spread

all over Greece and even Asia Minor,

the oracular sites acquired considerable

significance and developed an often

elaborate priestly order of interpreter/

prophets, many of whom are cited in

Greek literature, especially by Homer.

They were often given official state

sanction and support, even later in

Rome, when prophecies of political

significance were sought. Over a period

of time, the various oracular groups

gradually became distinguished by

methodology. Specialisation took the

form of the use of audial means, signs,

dreams and evocation of the dead.

Alth&gh the oracular forecasts were

often enigmatic or entangled riddles

and thus as subject to the interpretation

of the seeker as to that of the prophet,

at least two key Greek assumptions

about futurity emerge clearly. The

first was that the future, for all its

importance to man, was a divine

preserve. As long as it remained so it

ensured the gods eternal durability

over temporary man. Indeed, to seek

to know the future was itself presump-

tuous; and if it was tolerated it was

only so through sacred oracular rituals

which in turn were closely associated

with a god. The future, therefore, was

holy not by appellation alone but out

of the divine perception that only

when one could perceive the end of

things could one comprehend the

whole of things. In short, from the

Greek point of view the terms holy

and

whole have the same root

because they are one and same, sub

speczas et~~~tas

The Greek gods tolerated, with

ritual controls, trafficking with the

future, because they were exonerated

from any of the consequences. All

oracular forecasts, clear or unclear,

were not only subject to the interpre-

tation of the one receiving the forecast;

but encumbered by the burden of his

past and his motives for the future.

Thus, when Agammemnon hastened

to fulfil a prophecy of sacrificing his

daughter, Iphigenia, his previous viola-

tion against the goddess Artemis reared

its bloody head from the past; and

his secret desire to obtain glory for

himself at Troy drew him rapidly to the

future. In other words, the oracular

situation converged the divine and the

mortal, the theological and the psycho-

logical. The former did not fuse with

or guide the latter, for the gods dis-

played all the stinginess and detach-

ment of the powerful and the com-

placent. They could never be held

responsible or accountable for what

happened.

Nor could the Greek attitude be

summed up as the future is what you

make it. For man would never be

granted that much power. While the

gods jealously presided over the future

as their exclusive domain, they also

had an exacting and eternal memory of

the past. Indeed, because every single

judgement is so inextricably enmeshed

in previous judgements it would be

more accurate to describe every inter-

pretation or decision as generational

rather than individualistic in nature.

In other words, Greek man was both

a prisoner of the past and an outcast

from the future. The most that an

oracle offered was a nexus in the

present whereby his imp~sonment

could be acknowledged and thereby

lessened and whereby a threshold to

the future could be accommodated.

The stark and often capricious

expectations of the future, embodied

anthropomorphically in the attitudes

of the gods, contrasts with Judaism and

Christianity. The Prophets of the Old

Testament, though far from gentle in

their forecasts, always prophesied on

behalf of the Family of Israel. The

FUTURES October t674


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Towards a History of Futurism : The Greeks

43

precise nature of the future might be

mysterious but it was assured and

accessible because the world was given

to the end of days. Jesus went even

further because He was openly an

advocate and the supreme interven-

tionist. Surprises on Judgement Day

were never claimed to be capricious

or wilful. But to the Greeks the future

was not that sweet in its promise or

that available in its form. Dreadful

consequences in the future would be

doubly dreadful: they would be the

result of ones personal ignorance of

his past, and of the general ignorance

that flesh is heir to. Given such a

circumscribed and tough view of the

future, it is not surprising that the

Greeks created and

revered the

hero.

Proteus, like his father Poseidon

and many other water deities, possessed

the gift of prophecy; but he alone

bore the most ingenious and perhaps

diabolical Greek image of the future.

Proteus had no fixed shape. As a

result, he was capable of an infinite

number of combinations of the inter-

sects of time and space: from solid to

liquid, from aerial to fiery, from

gigantic to puny. As such, he was in

comic terms the image of the clever

trickster and master of disguises; in

philosophical terms he was the supreme

image of the future as Heraclitean flux.

The major contribution of Proteus is

the extent to which he dramatised the

Greek perception of reality as basically

transformational. Indeed, more than

any other deity, Proteus provided the

organisational key to the first major

literary chronicle of change, Ovids

Metamorphosis AD 8). The coupling of

metamorphosis with futurity finally

suggests that for the Greeks the future

was the supreme version of change-

the future is Proteus. That symbolism

alone would help to explain why

current futurists favour the Greeks

almost exclusively, for the figure of

Proteus is without parallel in Judaism

or Christianity.

FUTURES October 8 4

ialogue with the gods

The importance of Proteus is matched

only by that of Prometheus, who

extends further and in different direc-

tions the Greek attitude towards futur-

ity. Prometheus was and perhaps still

is the first god of technology. But what

is often rightly stressed in the extensive

literature that later regarded him

alternately as the benefactor of man-

kind and the ultimate overreacher are

two concomitant attributes. First, all

science and science-based technology

that men seek to comprehend and wrest

from Nature already exists in compre-

hensible and implementable forms in

Olympus. Almost mystically, all move-

ment from the known to the unknown,

according to the Greeks, was structured

along a line that moved from the

mortal to the divine. The discovery of

any secret was thus the discovery of a

divine secret. In this coupling, science

and religion are one. Second, in name

and action Prometheus epitomised the

supreme condition of forethought. Un-

like his backward brother, he demon-

strated his capacity for generational

far-sightedness by warning his son,

Decalion, sufficiently in advance to

survive, like Noah, the destruction of

mankind by a flood and the subsequent

recreation of the race. The lesson is

clear: whatever is wrested from the

divine futures of the Olympians must

be redeemed by being given back to

the future-to preserve for the future,

as it were, a future.

Failure to embody the principle of

forethought, however, is a human

characteristic, and this is why Odysseus

has been identified as the human

Proteus.

Odysseus,

more than any other

Greek hero, is closer to the patriarchs

of the Old Testament in bringing to

futurity the blend of human fallibility

and heroic persistence. He is the maxi-

mum mortal because he is the maxi-

mum survivor. He is inseparable from

the Odyssean quest. Unlike Proteus


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432 Fut ures Essay s

and more like Plato, Odysseus bears

on his shoulders not only his personal

survival but the future of civilisation.

The Promethean pattern is to keep the

fires of civilisation burning and to fuse

science and religion. The Odyssean

pattern is to keep the social contract

binding and to begin the gradual

separation of history from mythology,

civilisation from religion.

Platos political vision of futurity

was one of temporary perfection and

his acceptance of a cyclical view of

history was perhaps one of the most

generous Greek attitudes towards futur-

ity. His bequest to posterity is a more

politicised version of Odysseus commit-

ment to societal futurity. Specifically,

he intensified the gradual secularisation

of the future; created a partnership

between philosophy and politics as a

substitute for religion; and imparted

to the tradition of the Golden Age the

prospect of a man-made world and

morality. Although these are no mean

contributions, the methodology of dia-

logue overshadowed i%e

Republic

in

importance to subsequent generations

and especially to contemporary futur-

ists.

In the context of the Greek attitudes

towards futurity the dialogue metho-

dology introduces the novel notion that

the future is to be negotiated; and not

between men and the gods but men

and men. In fact in these terms it

would have been more accurate to

designate the Delphi method the Plato

method for, as noted, the former was

more a unilateral monologue than a

transactional exchange. In addition,

although Socrates and Plato and their

friends were not ordinary men and

initially or finally came to value

philosopher kings, the dialogue method-

ology itself is antithetical to the

traditional Greek distinction between

heroes and the masses. If heroes or

masses remain relevant at all to the

process, then the method is the hero;

and those who emerge from the process

as intact as when they entered deserve

to be called masses in Ortegas defini-

tion: they are inert. Although those

who participated in the ancient dia-

logues might be called elitists today,

what was crucially antidotal was that

the method itself was created as a

corrective lest the powerful or the

eloquent overwhelm reason with force

and dazzle. Moreover, the very spread

of different ages and different points

of view, and the granting to each

separate voice, created an epistemology

of mutuality

:

it was a process of

knowing and being known. Above all,

it imparted to all negotiation about the

future what would be called today both

a cross-generational and cross-ideologi-

cal range. In effect, Platonic dialogue

seeks to miniaturise society; as such,

it on the one hand represents the first

task-force approach to a multi-disciplin-

ary think-tank; and on the other, a

dramatic microcosm which Skinner

used,

no matter how clumsily, in

Walden Two and which Owen Barfield

used with greater distinction in Worlds

At art : A D ial ogue of the

1960s (1963).

If the pronouncements of the oracles

were haunted by the persistence of

ghosts from the past seeking incarnation

in the present, then the negotiations

and the exchanges in the present

compelled by Platonic methodology

accommodated the visits of the voices

of the future. If McLuhan is right in

maintaining that Propaganda ends

where dialogue begins, then it also

might be claimed that the genuinely

participatory is inevitably anticipatory.

Odyssean

man

The essential Hellenic assumptions

about futurity are not static and subject

to evolution, but perhaps the most

obvious, with some adjustments, is that

futurity is inevitably entangled in

geneology. As a result, all progression

is simultaneously regression; as Plato

noted,

The unexamined life is not

worth living.

The future is never

totally free from the past; indeed, the

FUTURES October lW4


5/6

degree to which it is new at all is

contingent on the degree to which the

old is acknowledged. The future thus

serves to determine the parameters of

free will. If one assumes it is totally a

blank slate, one tragically may reap

the full force of deter~~sm of the

future by the unexamined and un-

acknowledged past. If one despairs of

any novelty, then he reaps the equally

deterministic harvest of his own

impotence of termination. The gods

are stingy and jealous of their secrets,

and tricky in their shapes; but if any-

one can find a way it is the daring and

chameleon-like heroes.

Change is accepted by the Greeks

not as an exception but as a norm of

reality. For the materialist philosophers

the only issue was which irreducible

form of matter or energy constituted

the essence of essences. Even Plato who

valued the absolute constancy of all

forms postulated change as the central

illusion of reality. In other words, to

the Greeks it is in the nature of things

to be on-going. Moreover, because that

assumption was extended totally-to

the gods, to Nature, to man and to the

future-the centrality of flux was thus

not only constantly reinforced at all

levels, but also established a life

imperative positioned between the im-

mortal gods and the recurrent im-

mortality of the diurnal round in order

to invite its fullest expression in

Odysseus as the maximum mortal.

All Greek modes, outlets, figures,

divine or human, associated with

futurity are characterised by multi-

plicity. The Olympian stamp of many

gods and goddesses; the oracular

proliferation sustained by allegiances

to different deities and specialised

modes of foretelling; the generational

concerns of Prometheus; the many

adventures of Odysseus; the multiple

spread of ages and ideologies in

Platonic dialogue-all these find sup-

reme expression in the myriad shapes

of Proteus. Such pervasive variegation,

while reflecting the multiple uncertain-

FUTURES October 974

ties of the future, should not be read

solely that way; for there are many

religions and cultures that share the

same dreads about the future but did

not develop the alternative approaches

of the Greeks. Thus Greek multi-

plicity proceeds out of the recognition

that the future, whatever it will be, is

inherently recalcitrant towards singu-

lar strategies or interpretations. Agam-

memnons tragic sacrifice of his daugh-

ter, and Oedipus incest, both following

o

the heels of oracular riddles, are

seen by the Greek dramatists as mani-

festing not just the sin of ignorance but

of monomania. The antidote regularly

available and disdained by both Agam-

memnon and Oedipus is offered by the

Greek chorus. Indeed, one can maintain

just as the Platonic dialogue supports

the collective multiplicity of its cross-

generational and cross-ideological par-

ticipants, so genuine prophecy to the

Greeks is always choral in nature. Even

if one truly knew what was to be, the

Greeks equated such singular certainty

with lunacy. The classic case is pro-

vided by the prophetess Cassandra who

because of treachery was punished by

Apollo. Her punishment was that

although she spoke the truth she would

be disbelieved by her listeners and

laughed to scorn as a mad woman.

Many centuries later, Turgot confirmed

the Greek sense of ironic justice: If a

man could foresee with certainty all

the events which depend on chance and

if he directed his conduct in the light

of this knowledge, he would pass for a

lunatic. . . .

The Greeks did not create any major

messianic or millenarian doctrines or

support beliefs in apocalyptic deliv-

erance. Even Prometheus does not

qualify, the various Christelogical ref-

erences of later periods not~ths~nding,

as a divine intermediary. His gift of

fire was a terminal gift and not con-

tingent on any providential continu-

ance. His own subsequent story was

essentially an Olympian one and

although destruction on high was a

11


6/6

4 4 Futuresessays

threatened outcome, it was entangled

in removed machinations. The absence

of the apocalyptic is correlated with the

general absence of the perfectionist in

the Greeks; the attitude that the future

would not terminate precluded the

notion that it could ever be perfect.

What the Greeks did create was the

heroic as the maximum concession to

the absolutist or perfectionist; but even

here the ideal hero (who never really

existed) was subject to the same kinds

of metamorphoses the gods themselves

engaged in. Their superiority resided

in their greater knowledge and control

but especially in their eternal change-

ability; being limited in the last, even

Odysseus had to be limited in the first

two. The Greek stress thus on sequel,

like the emphasis on the choral, found

expression in the picaresque journey

of Odysseus and cylical historicity of

the

Republic;

and presents an image of

the future which is as unfinished,

imperfect and unresolved as the nature

of Platonic dialogue; and which is

finally antithetical to the notion

of

messianic termination.

The essential Greek strategy towards

the future distils to readiness being all.

The threshold for the future to the

Greeks is always the present, but a

specially saturated view of the present.

On the one hand, it must be open but

not overwhelmed by the past. On the

other, it must be receptive but sus-

picious of the future. The Greek hero

who epitomises the saturated state

displays a mind braced by the fortitude

of past examples, self-possessed by the

ingenuities of his present capacities and

stirred into vivid expectations by

emulating Promethean forethought.

Two examples, one ancient, the other

modern, perhaps best sum up the

attitude.

Although Odysseus frequently an-

noyed Pallas Athene by his many

questions, she finally admitted, with

begrudging admiration, that what she

admired most about Odysseus was his

suspicious nature because that is the

sign of a civilised man. Equally

revealing is the codification Nikos

Kazantzakis provides of the commands

given at the three gates to God. The

first is Dare The second is Dare

again.

The third is No further

Kazantzakis concludes: heroes--Greek

ones at least-never listen to the last.

The Rome Worid Special Conference on FuturesResearch 1973

humdnfutures

needs societies ~ecbno~o4ies

Introduction by Bertrand e ouvene l

Futures critical-a review. lohn McHole

The great imbalance, Maurice Guernier

Technics end human culture. Lewis Mumford

Computer models for world problems and policy

formation, Sam Cole end Craig Slnckir

Neither there nor then-e eutopian alternative to the

development model of future society,

Jim ator

Reflections on the relationship between the individual

and society. William Simon

A focus on action, Harold A. Linrtone

Futures studies-quo vadis? Yehezkel Dror

t5.50 or 14.00

IPC Science end Technology Prpss Ltd.,

lPPIHl~~, 32 High Street , Guddford, Surrey.

UK,

Telephone: Guildford 71661

Telex: Scitechpreu Gd. 85556

FUTURES October 1874

futures volume 6 issue 5 1974 [doi 10.1016%2f0016-3287%2874%2990064-0] irving h. buchen -- towards a...

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