‘The moment of truth on automation is coming—a lot sooner than most people realize. The shattering fact is that the U.S. is still almost totally unprepared for the approaching crisis.’
W. H. Ferry, “Further Reflections on the Triple Revolution,” Fellowship, January, 1965.
It seems incredible that any intelligent man can view with complacency the slowness with which we are changing to meet the challenge of the world that lies ahead of us. Dandridge M. Cole has pointed out that,
“It has already been noted that technical knowledge is doubling every seven years (the doubling time is decreasing), and that ninety percent of all the scientists who ever lived are alive right now. Without assuming any reduction in doubling time it can be estimated that our total of technical knowledge in fifty years will exceed the present level by a factor of 27 or 256.”
Dandridge M. Cole, Beyond Tomorrow (Amherst, Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1965), pp. 87–90.
“In the past most individuals were able to go through life with the set of attitudes and beliefs appropriate to the age in which they were brought up,” wrote Robert Theobald:
The rate of change in science, in technology, in the beliefs and ideals of man was sufficiently slow to ensure that they remained relatively appropriate. Even then the older generation expressed its dissatisfaction in the phrase: ‘I don’t know what the world is coming to.’ Nowadays it is recognized that the attitudes appropriate to the beginning of the twenty-first century will be totally different from those now accepted, but little attempt is made to look ahead. Indeed, much education is based on the ideas of past scholars; as a result theories are taught to generations of students long after they have been recognized by the leaders in the field of study to be incorrect.
Robert Theobald, The Rich and the Poor (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1960), pp. 139–140.
Every kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college in the nation should help students anticipate the changes that lie in their future. It should challenge them to seek new ways of thinking and feeling—of reorganizing their society to make the most of man’s potential for happiness in the new age. Instead, most of our public and private schools prepare the students to live with the values and folkways of our ancestors.
Ready or Not
Ready or not, we are rapidly launching into a period of tremendous change. This is obvious on a technological level with satellites orbiting the earth, color television in our homes, and the government computers checking up on our income tax. But we are just now beginning an era in which social change must keep pace with technological change. The social patterns which we have inherited from ancient Mesopotamia will not give us happiness in the world of the future. The turmoil, insecurity, unhappiness, and conflict that are experienced today will increase unbearably if we are slow in inventing new ways of living, thinking, and feeling. Humanity is now entering into its adolescent phase. If we’re going to come through our teen years without too many scars, the human race had better learn how to mature.
Perhaps the greatest threat that faces us at this moment is the fragmentation of humanity into over 100 egocentric national boundary lines. These paranoid nationalities claim the sovereign right to use weapons that can kill millions of people in other countries. If we continue improving our atomic weapons for another twenty years, it is possible that a flare-up of a dictator’s temper could bring on a chain of events that would wipe out every human being.
No one can predict the future with certainty. One thing, however, seems highly probable. Things are moving so fast that in a hundred years our society will bear little resemblance to the economic, social, and political patterns of today. We suggest that whatever the future brings, it will represent a pattern spun out by the “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” value structure, the scientific method as a thinking technique, and the cornucopia flowing from automated and computerized tools.
The future holds great stress and threat to individuals who do not have flexible nervous systems. It also offers a limitless challenge to those who can use their intelligence for its primary evolutionary function: to adapt to changing conditions. Greater wisdom, fantastic accomplishments, and enormously increased happiness may be ours in the humanistic, scientific, cybernated world of tomorrow.
Your Participation Is Needed
“In world leaders and individual citizens alike,” advises Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, “old habits and customs stand in the way of adaptation to a new world. We are only beginning to study these habits and customs, to seek new ways of using our intelligence in order to preserve the species. In this effort the best thinking of every man and woman is needed.” *
* Change, (Santa Barbara, California: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, February, 1965), Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 1.
Dr. George Gallup in The Miracle Ahead points out that we can not rely on our economic and political leaders to help us respond dynamically to the challenge of the future. Dr. Gallup suggests:
... change can not be brought about easily by its leaders, except in those situations in which the changes advocated do not disturb present relationships. In fact, it is the leaders who typically become the most bitter and the most effective foes of change. The public, therefore, must take the initiative and assume responsibility for progress in the affairs of man. The public must force change upon its leaders.
George Gallup, The Miracle Ahead (New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 201.
In the history of man, no generation has been educated to expect social change and creatively adapt to it. In a very real sense we back into the future hoping we don’t get our behinds chewed off. We eagerly seek new medicines for our physical ailments even before these have been thoroughly tested. But when it comes to political, social,
