The Case for Post Future History

From Justice Leage America #56, 1991
General Glory: I know son -- you want to pitch in and help too! Well, you'll get your chance, I promise you. Together, we'll prove that being a superhero isn't just about brawn and battling. Its about decency... simple acts of kindness! And that li'l pal -- is the American way!
Soup kitchener: Actually... it's socialism.

Obviously I have some kind of aura that sends out the “I am a bit of a commie” (small c, not a big Stalinist Communist, please) signal. Perhaps it is the influence of the French side of the family, perhaps it is the red star I wore at high school, perhaps it is that I look mildly deranged.

Whatever it was, a lovely person at work loaned me a book that, on the dust jacket, claimed to be all about the impact of the Internet on creating the future (the book is called Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village, by Richard Barbrook, and there is even a website at www.imaginaryfutures.net), but which is, apart from the final 30-odd pages, more a description of how communism/socialism has been repackaged to be acceptable to the American public (and inspirational to other nations) in a vision where the future where people are freed from manual labour by robots and able to visit the far reaches of the solar system through cheap fusion power (ah, the 1960s!) is disassociated from ideology of the society in which these “wealth for all” notions would work. And in the end, the internet, allowing everyone to participate with an equal voice and with equal knowledge, is seen as offering the ultimate communisitic tool. The book describes how the totalitarian Communist (big C) states abandoned their own internet-like developments because of the power it would bring every individual, whereas the USA saw the potential of the free-flowing of ideas in technological innovation and thus pushed forward with this “great leveller”.

There are lots of really interesting ideas in the book – how the liberalism (i.e., small government) that the USA was founded upon had to make way for the Keynesian principle of “guiding” government intervention in stimulation and regulation of the economy, most notably in the USA through the government support of the military industrial complex which flowed through to the general public with its job creation and non-military consumer spin off developments. However, the nature of the New Deal and the increase in the size of the government to increase wealth for business and (ultimately) citizens has been successfully separated from the reviled “socialist” way of doing things – a very interesting phenomenon considering the vitriol in the USA at the moment over Health Care reform.

There is also the observation that the technological utopia of the future envisaged in the 1960s, where automation freed men and women from work and raising living standards for all, has not met the reality of machines replacing people with those people becoming unemployed and (worst case scenario) living in poverty.

The book itself is written as a series of essays – well, at least it feels that way considering some things are repeated over and over and over again. There are lots of repeated “catch phrases” that, when strung into a sentence, sound highly impressive but are not terribly easy (at least for my poor brain) to understand. And, even though the ideas are interesting right from the start, I was not a fan of its style, nor completely convinced of its argument – or of what it was actually arguing (is this book really about the internet?).

I suppose the problem I have is how the author treats people in the book. There are an awful lot of little “vanguards” all over the place, harkening a new era and plagarising and paraphrasing Marx for the digestion of Republican Americans, but the main thing missing from the analysis is the will of the people. As much as I think that there can be great leaders with great ideas, I also happen (as a bit of a commie) to believe that the great ideas have to be accepted by the people to be successful – otherwise, the “great leader” is wheeled off to the loony bin.

So for 20th Century post World War two East v West struggle to be reduced to the battling and subversion of a few disgruntled communists with wildly divergent opinions seems to be a bit disingenuous. And then to throw in the internet as the ultimate communist tool realised after 100 years of technological struggle again seems to be overstating things a bit.

There are many things I can agree with: I definitely accept the Cold War kept the peace between the nations of the West (and the East, to a lesser degree), and shifted the battle to supporting sides in the conflict of 3rd World nations (called the South in the book, though being from the Antipodes, I found this description inaccurate). Whereas direct conflict would have been MAD, the blocs competed technologically, economically and athletic competitions, with the ultimate goal of winning hearts and minds through propaganda.

I suppose then I have no real problems with what the book covers, more of the emphasis. For example, most “western” nations may admire and respect the power of the USA, but its another thing altogether to say that the American version of democracy and the social welfare system (which, according to the book, has been constructed to be the “ultimate” society) is seen as “the best” by the rest of the world – in fact, I would argue the contrary. I doubt France, Canada or the Scandanavian countries (to name a few) want to go down that route. So, if the USA is not seen as the “social model” for all to follow, then “the west” is not following the USA to a brighter future, but creating their own future in the confines of the “freedoms” permitted by the world’s current superpower.

It’s a very American/British view of the future, with the Muslim world thrown into the “backwards” role now that the Communist threat has passed. Fascinating for all the issues and links it makes in how we got to here, the book is also frustrating in its spectacularly narrow focus, which it then generalises to all of society – all of the world, in fact. I am not a sociologist, but it would depress me – and perhaps insult me – to think that what I think, feel and believe about the future could be reduced to a few vanguard Marxist radicals and their attempted manipulations rather than the will of the people, the ultimate commune.

Verdict: Very interesting thoughts and conclusions collide with jargon, repetition and whole lot of assumption. In the Imaginary Future world, society seems to be divorced from the theory that explains and perhaps drives it. It should be a self-evident truth that people are impressed by an attractive version of the future: whether it be the glory of an “eternal” Empire, the promise of an afterlife or a future free from hunger, disease and toil. How those desires change and can be manipulated by a select few is the real revelation, though as always, they need the support of the masses and/or the powerful to get their way, a point which (to me) this book seems to overlook. 6.5 fists raised in protest out of 10.