The American futures studies movement (1965-1975); its roots, motivations, and influences

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s many Americans of widely dissimilar motivations used the study of possible futures as an open forum to express their desires, fears, and visions. Their efforts led to new organizations, publications, conferences, and university programs, which constituted an intellectual movement with far-reaching influences. The emergence of post-WWII futurism is a multi-stranded history involving people with diverse motivations and backgrounds who aspired to revolutionize policymaking at all levels. Their efforts crossed national borders and often transcended Cold War divisions. Many futurists hailed from governmental, business, or scientific backgrounds and advocated for issues ranging from national economic planning boards, or "future-consciousness" at corporate levels of decision-making, to sustainable ecological practices. One of their many historical strands went back to the early Cold War years and the philosopher-mathematicians employed by the RAND Corporation. Given the sensitive forecasting challenges brought by Cold War unknowns, these architects of futurist methodologies believed they needed to devise bettermore scientificopinion technologies. Their search for improving the tools, such as the Delphi method, of future-minded decisionmaking continued into the 1960s and 1970s. While qualitative assessments still reigned supreme in the social sciences, quantitative analysis became increasingly important during the 1960s. Futurists used social, political, and economic indicators to study alternative futures and comment on their presents. These futures researchers prized the quantification of past and present values both for physical and social concepts. From these numbers, they aspired to clarify the future: how to predict and understand it, and ultimately how to change it for the better. v Futurists cared about many things, not only about perfecting their methodologies or epistemic foundations, but also about addressing current, pragmatic, and popular issues. The desire to disseminate their ideas more widely and have their methodology gain greater influence compelled futurists to organize and formalize their field. The field"s momentum slowed down by the 1980s as many critics disapproved of futurist methods and the deterministic, wishful, or simplistic outlooks that some futurists imagined. Although the movement in the United States was unique, other international case-studies developed in distinct yet comparable ways. Although futures researchers around the globe for centuries had enjoyed speculating about the future, this twentieth-century movement promised better predictions that were more systematic, detailed, controlled, quantitative, and expert.

How to train your oracle: The Delphi method and its turbulent youth in operations research and the policy sciences

“…Jardini, 2000; Light, 2003; Sapolsky, 2004). More precisely, the intended audience of the new Delphi was a subfield of policy science that itself was only in its infancy, future studies (Andersson, 2012; Tolon, 2011, 2012) Over the 1960s, Helmer had grown increasingly annoyed with the decisions taken by RAND management in its attempts to develop the organization. There was an increasing influx of private research contracts, which in Helmer’s perspective reduced the degree of freedom of research.…”

“…That was the reason why, since we couldn’t persuade the RAND management at the time, I decided together with some of my colleagues that maybe we should set up our own organization and pursue that idea to pursue some of the rand techniques in areas applicable to social problems. (Interview with Helmer by Kaya Tolon, in Tolon, 2011: 198)…”

When Did It Start? Origin of the Foresight Field

“…Kaya Tolon (2011, 20) notes the arms and space races prompting the needs to see the future and puts the “birth of futures studies during the early Cold War era.”…”

“…General Curtis Lemay refined the concept as new Deputy Head of R&D saying the aim of Project RAND was to conduct: “long-range research that might form the basis for a future military requirement” (Bell 2003). Tolon (2011) notes the “highly influential memo asked for a report on future techniques, weapons, ways of training pilots, and securing sufficient funding after WWII ended.”…”