This article is from the August/September 2005 issue of Free Inquiry
The combination of humanism, science, and futurism represents the holy grail of twenty-first-century rational thinkers. We who seek objective truths in all fields-including ethics, religion, social behavior, long-range planning, and research-need to work together on the key issues that will confront our planet during the next fifty years. We face challenges that could spell our destruction as a species . . . or our emergence into a glorious world of undreamed-of greatness and prosperity. I submit that there is a very fine line between these two outcomes. Small choices made today may have enormous impact a half-century from today.
A list of the key issues for tomorrow follows. These are critical concerns that we must tackle aggressively and very soon, using a long-range planning process rooted in humanist values.
Population
The population explosion will continue, fueled by advances in technology, medicine, biology, and productivity-and, perhaps disastrously, by prolife attitudes championed by religious conservatives. Overcrowding will lead to increased poverty, civil strife, and war in underdeveloped regions. The risks include not only severe, negative environmental impacts but the potential ruin of our planet as a haven for life. This concern must be taken very seriously.
Science and Ethics vs. Religion
Obsolete, literally medieval religious mythology continues to delay progress in ethics, culture, and the sciences. It must be replaced wherever possible by the humanist outlook.
Religious institutions should be viewed as historical and ceremonial artifacts only-as ancient legacies on a par with European royalty and breathtaking old cathedrals: charming, perhaps, but ultimately without purpose except as tourist attractions. Already, very few citizens of developed countries take their religion seriously-with the glaring exception of the United States. An argument can therefore be made that the United States represents a backward intellectual culture.
Religious institutions should be accountable for their finances like other philanthropic entities. In return for tax-exempt status, they should be required to report annually on their tangible (i.e. this-worldly) charitable activities. Moreover, they should take the lead in trying to alleviate social problems such as poverty, homelessness, hunger, drug addiction, and ignorance without additional government financing. Their own charitable traditions should be incentive enough.
As the human race evolves, individuals must develop a heightened ethical consciousness based not on the Ten Commandments or other supposed commands of God but on the consequences of human actions in this world.
Nationalism vs. Planetary Loyalty
In the future, international competition must take place not on the battlefield but in the economic arena. Open communication, information sharing, open borders, and, of course, free trade will be needed.
Our pride should rest in planet Earth, our true home, not in our separate nations. We must come to see ourselves as the inhabitants and stewards of one planet, completely interrelated and codependent. This insight could elim-inate war as we know it today.
The United Nations should displace individual nations as the focal point of human political activity.
Education
Student grades are meaningless! The future will demand creative thinking, not the ability to memorize facts. Emphasis should be upon math, science, reading skills, and especially upon long-range, futurist thinking.
Energy
Oil will become an obsolete energy source. We must strive to discover a new source. A new energy source will be discovered that is nonpolluting, effectively inexhaustible, inexpensive, and readily available. It will usher in a new, post-technological revolution.
Wealth Accumulation
In the future, such accomplishments as artistic, creative, and intellectual contributions to society will be esteemed more highly than the accumulation of wealth. We will begin to question the value to societies of excessive personal wealth accumulation and examine its negative side effects (i.e., wasteful consumption, self-serving objectives, and excessive power vested in a few individuals). Some individuals today are becoming more powerful than nations.
Lifestyle Alternatives
"Family values," as politicians and religious demagogues have defined them, are obsolete. Both the nuclear and the extended family have been in decline for decades, and the trend will continue. More flexible relationship structures will unlock new forms of human self-actualization.
Relationship types other than lifelong monogamy will continue to gain acceptance, including serial monogamy, multiple partners, open marriage, gay coupling, and so on.
Social and economic equality for women will spread worldwide. Demand for alternatives to traditional marriage and child rearing will increase sharply. In some regions, parenting may be professionalized, a welcome option in a society where so many lack well-developed parenting skills.
For most individuals, our chosen "family of friends" will come to have equal or greater impact in our daily lives than our biological families. In the future, the emphasis will be on a fulfilling lifestyle, with increased leisure, more play time, and less work time.
The Post-industrial Revolution
Technological advances have been very effective in increasing productivity, efficiency, access to information, travel, and quality of life. How we translate these remarkable advances into maximum benefit for all humankind represents an exciting challenge for the twenty-first century.
The Biomedical Revolution
Relentless medical advances put stem-cell therapies, cloning, replacement body parts, the conquest of many diseases, and further increases in longevity on a very near horizon. Average human life span will reach and exceed one hundred years. Medically mediated immortality will emerge as at least a scientific possibility. The impact on retirement trends, overall population size, and humanity's environmental footprint will be profound and must be addressed very soon, before these changes become reality.
How We Must Prepare
Each of these changes is approaching rapidly. Powerful trends have been set in motion and have gathered momentum. Over the long term, they cannot be stopped-only delayed.
For this reason, I would like to see major universities offer graduate degree programs for the study of futurism, which will encompass such subjects as I have outlined above. The time to do this is upon us-indeed, it is already overdue, if we are to be ready for these changes rather than be overwhelmed by them.
Above all, we must start thinking globally for the well-being of our planet. The age of self-serving nationalism is past; we are all brothers and sisters, and we share the same home-planet Earth.
Louis J. Appignani heads the Appignani Foundation, which supports secular humanist causes.
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