Recently, I was talking to a new friend who works as a futurist with a consulting firm, and the topic of the connection between Futures Studies and spirituality came up. Part of the interest was in the fact that futurists often avoid this subject, considering it to be contrary to a rationalistic view of foresight that seeks to understand future possibilities through a transdisciplinary science. Add to that the fact that I have at times tied Futures Studies to the driver of faith and, viola! Instant curiosity!
Simply put, this part of human thought and existence cannot be separated from social connection, organizational strategy, or questions about the future. Intuition is important to the pursuit of positive aspirations and visionary foresight, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Marcus Bussey noted in an article from the professional journal Futures, “For Futures Studies to have a future that is relevant to current shifts in meaning and consciousness, then it must incorporate into its methods and practices a sense of mystery founded on a critically spiritual sensability.”
Even the topic of sustainability has recieved a fresh outlook through the addition of the spiritual element. Bell and Morse have noted that,
“Placing sustainable development between the often-competing demands of Anthropo centric and Cosmo centric worldviews has produced a rich literature focused on the secular contest between the needs of both planet and humankind. What can best be described as an unholy management of expectations has arisen as competing demands of natural balance and human ambition have been compromised—often to the mutual discontent of each group of proponents. This apparent duality of the needs of cosmos and humanity provides a model of opposites in conflict. How far should the pursuit of human well-being be allowed to influence decisions that have a negative impact on the cosmos?… A possible synthesis which points to issues operative at a deeper level of human experience and impinges on what can best be described as the spiritual needs of mankind is ignored or dealt with under a variety of inadequate titles variously defined as “culture” or subsumed to corners of “well being.” After all, such spiritual needs are not quantifiable and in the North we live in a society that increasingly wants targets and goals, with sanctions for those who fail to meet them. The notion that sustainable development can be perceived from a Theocentric worldview is relegated to the reports of special interest groups working on unheralded projects for “minority interests”… The notion of sustainability is not contemporary in flavour or in substance. Rather it relates back historically to a wide range of human endeavours and inspirations which can be traced back in the traditions of Europe, Asia, India, China, and North America. Throughout them all runs a common, golden thread of wider inclusion and sensitivity to matters of an integral nature… All of these traditions speak of a far richer vision of the world as an object worthy of sustaining. They speak of harmonies deeper and richer than those which appeal to more basic human appetites. They address humanity at a different level and provide coherent and lasting reasons for care. They go beyond human selfinterest (“enlightened” or not) and the ecological equilibrium of the cosmos. They address the fundamental issues of why we are, what we are, and where we think we are going. These things in themselves provide us with, we would argue, a better grounding for sustainability in that they provide a higher point of thought with which to begin considering just what is meant by sustainability. Even for the worldly and the atheist they provide room for a deeper consideration of what it means to be human. It is perhaps surprising to think that those perhaps best placed to understand and appreciate the complexities of sustainability are those who have striven to understand the human spirit and how we have arrived at where we are today. After all our past was once someone’s future.”
In this holistic view, we can see the need for the triple elements of anthropology, cosmology, and spirituality in defining a sustainability that satifies the totality of human existence. Here, Futures Studies becomes a practice that deals with much more than finding ways to mitigate risk or confront challenges. Rather, the central idea of foresight encompasses the interconnected relationships between all things, suggesting a higher order of existence and purpose that results from the sum of these connections.
References:
Bussey, M. (2002, April/May). From change to progress: critical spirituality and the future of futures studies. Futures, 34(3,4), 303. Retrieved on November 30th, 2007 from Proquest.
0 Responses to “Spirituality and Futures Studies”