| Abstract: | Throughout history, perceptions and experiences in the present have shaped different images of the future. Today, we are living in an increasingly complex world, one which has brought as much consternation as hope. Technology-aided exploitation of the natural environment has made us fearful of irreversible damage to the ecosystem, generating bleak predictions for human survival. As the pace of economic, political, and social change increases, confounding the process of prediction, how do such changes shape our present visions of the future, and how do they contrast with those of previous eras? This article shows how optimistic and pessimistic images of the future evolved from presumptions of unchanging order and apocalyptic destinies to techologically inspired Utopian visions, and how such images now reflect our present anxieties. |
