Do Ideas Have Consequences?

Contemporary Theory -- Sociology of the Future

Lauren Schuivens
USA, 2011

"You can be a twig in the ocean, subject to the vagaries of the tides.
Or you can swim."
- Jack Harris
Technology has been developing with an increasing pace. This is seen as progress. However, progress
does not always lead to something better, as Postman rightly points out. He uses the following
definition of progress an interpretation of history which regards men as slowly advancing () in a
definite and desirable direction, and infers that this progress will continue indefinitely (J.B. Bury, The
Idea of Progress, cited in Postman, 1999, p.26). This definition raises the question about the presumed
inevitability of progress.
I believe that any idea bears consequences with it. Since consequences take place in the future,
this topic is closely linked with the concept of futuring. Futuring is the art and science of exploring
future possibilities (). It offers methods and techniques that can help us understand trends, identify
opportunities and avoid dangers (Cornish, p.23). However, the goal of futuring is not to predict the
future, but to make it better. Predicting the future is only the means to an end.
The concept of futuring is interpreted and analyzed from a sociological perspective. Since
futuring is such an important tool, the thesis of this paper is: Progress that is not reflected upon can be
dangerous to the world. In the first part I give five arguments for my thesis, namely (1) that not all
progress is good, (2) we are developing solutions for non-existing problems, which in the end creates
real problems, (3) we are losing our morals by relying so heavily on technology, (4) the amount of
information we are exposed to is increasing, but the amount of knowledge is sharply decreasing, and (5)
there is a dangerous link between knowledge and interests, which can work against us if we do not deal
with it careful enough. I try to explore the roles of the past and future with regards to this issue by
pointing at the weakness of futuring in relation to this topic in the second part of the paper, after which
I explore another solution to the danger of progress.

Do Ideas Have Consequences?

The definition of progress by Postman given in the introduction implies that progress is inevitable. I
agree with this. Even though the concept of progress did not exist before the eighteenth century, human
beings have always come up with new ideas. If there would be no progress, time would stand still.
However, the mere fact that there is progress is not the main problem. The problem is that people
believe the best thing to do is to adapt to the changes progress brings about, since they believe that
progress always makes things better (except for when you are a Mennonite). This is in line with Darwins
survival of the fittest Dinosaurs became extinct because they could not adapt and is also reflected
in the story of Henry and the Great Society (Roush, 1969). However, linking the concept of progress to
betterment is a teleological view, which is the belief that there is a purpose (telos in Greek) in anything.
To state it in other words, when one puts the goal before the study, the study will always verify the goal
(Boas, cited in Kottak, 2009). I think this makes people blind sighted and trusting in progress. This is
dangerous, because progress is not always good. Cornish (2005) argues we are experiencing a Great
Transformation, which involves an accelerating pace of change. He says that we live in a world of
interlaced systems, where everything is connected to everything else (p.42). There is an incorporation
of all interlinked changes in life: technological changes lead to economic changes, which again lead to
environmental changes, et cetera. This of course affects nature, but also ourselves. The Great
Transformation consists of six Super Trends, which summarize a key category of change and act as a
key force in human life today (Cornish, p.43). These trends, like technological revolutions, improvement
of human health and increasing mobility, give us a bridge from the past to the future. However, no
matter how wonderful these trends may sound, they also have their negative consequences. Think
about environmental decline. Nowadays we are facing overfishing, pollution and global warming.
Furthermore, we are getting a better health, but at the same time we are not, since we are solving the
diseases we created ourselves (think of obesity). Thus, chances that may seem so good at first sight are
in fact not always good. They can lead to unforeseen consequences that are difficult to take care of once
occurred. I believe that we should reflect upon progress from different viewpoints and this way filter out
the good and bad forms of it. As Postman states it: What new problems might be created because we
have solved this problem? (p.48). His question steers us in the direction of his main argument: we need
futuring to be able to predict possible good and bad consequences of innovations and new ideas. Since
trends are not static they can change course, be weakened or reversed we can anticipate the future

Do Ideas Have Consequences?

or maybe even develop the opinion that the change that is ahead of us is not a good one, and stop it if
possible.
My next argument for the danger of technology is an expansion of the previous one and is in line
with one of Postmans statements: we as human beings are inventing solutions for non-existing
problems. Since the innovations do not serve as real problem-solvers, we can keep going on with
inventing new things, because there is an endless amount of possible innovations. To put it in Postmans
words: There are technologies that are () invented to solve problems that no normal person would
regard as significant (p.42). This implies that since we are developing those technologies we are
crazy. I argue that we are indeed, in some aspects. For instance, consider the large amount of devices
that we create to save time, like the automatic coffee machine. By the end of the day we may have
saved ourselves ten seconds or maybe one full minute. In one year we will have saved a couple of hours.
What do we spend those hours on? Watching television, as statistics reveal (there has been an increase
in the amount of hours of watching television) (Fukinuki, 1998). While watching television, most people
eat snacks, which on the long run can lead to obesity. Thus, solutions for non-existing problems can
create real problems.
As a consequence of all these innovations, I argue that we are losing our morals. Since as
pointed at before the question of what makes us better seems too hard for us to address, we leave
the matter to our machinery and start seeing technological innovation as synonymous with moral
progress (Postman, p.41). Postman calls this the reductionist view. The nineteenth century, however,
brought forward skepticism about progress, particularly the doubt that technological progress goes
hand in hand with moral progress (Postman, p.40). Indeed, I do not think technological progress
automatically leads to a development of morality. Think of World War II: we developed nuclear
weapons, but did not use them in a moral way. Instead, we completely turned against our moral that
killing people is not a good thing to do. We seemed to think so big about ourselves, that we saw the
wrong thing as being good for us. Technology makes us lose our minds. As a consequence, I believe that
we are reaching technological singularity, in other words, that we are becoming one with our
machines. This is not a good development, because we need a moral context to give meaning to our
lives. This context (called a narrative by Postman) explains why we are here and what our future is to
be (p.9). Moreover, narratives construct ideals, prescribe rules of conduct, specify sources of
authority, and, in doing all this, provides a sense of continuity and purpose (Postman, p.101). I believe a
lot of people think they have found the narrative of their life with technological development, since
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Do Ideas Have Consequences?

technological innovation filled the air with the promise of new freedoms and new forms of social
organization (Postman, p.38). I think, however, that this narrative of technological development is
only a temporary one, and that we are actually lost souls seeking for a good narrative at the moment.
Thus, we just keep on developing new ideas and technologies, until we found the life we are striving for.
Nevertheless, since the idea that progress makes us better is not fulfilled, this will be a long road. I thus
think we are heading in the wrong direction. People think they have control over technology, but I think
they (and I) do not, and herein lies a very great danger.
Since there is so much happening in todays world, and people have so little time to become
informed, there is a widening knowledge gap that may pose serious problems for democratic societies
dependent on the people to make responsible public choices (Postman, p.143). In other words: we are
getting ahead of ourselves. Moreover, I think that people in this world (including myself) are
information-addicts. There is an oversupply of sources of information (Postman), which is the result of
being able to move information so fast nowadays: we have telephones, internet, and sometimes even
internet on our mobile phones. However, as Postman rightly points out, there is a decrease in
knowledge. Information consists of statements about the facts of the world (p.91). Information can be
wrong. Knowledge, on the contrary, is organized information: information that is provided within a
framework or context. For instance, knowing what is happening in Egypt is information, while knowing
why it is important to know about this situation is knowledge. Nowadays, information is simply for its
own sake. And again, a new problem arises by solving an old one: garbage information comes into
existence, which can be defined as information divorced from purpose and even meaning (Postman,
p.89). This leads to incoherence and confusion. Science depends on information, not on knowledge: it
can only tell us how it works, not why or whether it is a good thing. So in this sense progress is
dangerous, because we will slowly become dumber. Our opinions are created for us, while we lack the
knowledge to actually understand what we believe (Postman). I believe we do not know how to ask
(non-technical) questions anymore, and because of this widening knowledge gap we certainly do not
know which questions to ask about the increasing speed of technological development, which means we
will lose ourselves in the end. Critical thinking is not stimulated in our society: it is seen as a threat to the
nation-state, since it can undermine the values a state relies on. Parents fail to stimulate critical thinking
as well, since they are afraid it may alienate their children from them. The problem is how to transform
information into knowledge, and how to transform knowledge into wisdom. If we can solve that
problem, all the rest will take care of itself (Postman, p.98).

Do Ideas Have Consequences?

Postman states that without a sense of purpose, we are left with only power as the source of
authority (p.106). Money is power, and money comes from technology. Therefore, I argue we should
be careful in simply accepting technological advances the way they are presented to us. It is important
that we are skeptical of authority. Habermas argues knowledge and interest are linked. He urges us to
reflect upon whether there is a problem, and if yes, whose problem it is. He brings up Marxs false

consciousness to strengthen this point: people take over the interest of those who have power.
Therefore, an important question to ask is who makes the decisions about the future and what his (or
their) point of reference is. If one sees statements in their frame of reference, one will know whether
the statement is made with or without additional interest. Hermeneutics (interpretation) and
communicative interaction are two of the most important terms in this sense. We should ask ourselves
Who will benefit from that technology or even make money when we use it? Postman supports this
statement by saying that in the eighteenth century, men did not link progress with power, which is an
idea that may be useful to us. Nowadays we do link those two concepts, which makes innovations that
are not reflected upon so dangerous. I am certain that there are a lot of people in this world who are not
scared of misusing others in order to get money and power.
Postman argues that he does not understand what they mean when they say, we must look ahead to
see where we are going. What is it they wish us to look at? There is nothing to see yet in the future
(p.13). Thus far I argued that I think futuring is important in our lives, so I disagree with Postmans
statement. After foresight is developed, predictions can be made. Foresight sharpens our ability to
assess probabilities, anticipate consequences, and choose ever-wiser courses of action that can lead us
to the best possible future. I think this is highly necessary nowadays, because there is a huge increase in
human possibilities and our world is shrinking due to globalization, which brings us back to the
interlinked feature of our lives. Even though the future is unsure, we can have a better chance of
succeeding if we prepare ourselves as well as possible. Although we can only predict the future
sometimes (most of what will happen is beyond our power to predict), we can forecast some future
events fairly accurate (Cornish, p.147). If we practice this skill accurately, we may be able to halt certain
changes and eventually live better lives than we expect to have when we let progress take control of us.
Nevertheless, I also think we have to be careful when using the concept of futuring. There is
namely another side of futuring: normative forecasting. In this case we do not start with the present,
but start with where we want to be or might be at some future date (Cornish, p.100). First we set a
future goal or event, then the steps about how to get there. I believe this is not what we should look for:
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normative forecasting makes us look for solutions for problems that do not even exist, which relates to
the first argument brought up. If we would apply normative forecasting regularly, I think we would
create even more non-existing problems, which would work against instead of for us.
Postman prefers focusing on the past, rather than the future. He argues we should build a
bridge to the eighteenth century. No matter which manner you choose to solve a problem, one thing is
always important according to him: knowing about important things that happened in the past, and
relating them to our current circumstances (Postman, p.133). He says the eighteenth century more
specifically the Enlightenment period carries a lot of ideas that offer a humane direction to the
future, ideas that we can carry with confidence and dignity across the bridge to the twenty-first century
(p.17). I agree with his view, on the condition that indeed only some ideas can be helpful during the
twenty-first century. For instance, the gift of the eighteenth century is to be found in the intelligence
and vigor of the questions it raised about progress () (Postman, p.36). Another example of a lesson we
can adopt from the eighteenth century is linked to the argument about the increase of information and
the decrease of knowledge. In the eighteenth century, information equaled knowledge, since
information was always linked to a context. If we would take up that idea, our world would look much
better according to me.
Concluding, since not all progress is good, it would be wrong to blindly accept any ideas and innovations
that come our way. We have to be critical and reflect on changes. The path we are currently taking is
not the right one: we are creating new problems by presumably solving non-existing ones, we are losing
our morals, and our knowledge and critical questioning is insufficient. The way we are treating
innovations nowadays makes us very vulnerable to people who are willing to abuse us in order to get
power and money. Therefore, futuring is important, so we can anticipate upcoming problems and seek
for an appropriate solution before encountering the problem. However, we should now lose ourselves in
normative forecasting. It is better to take a critical look at the eighteenth century and see what lessons
we could use from that time period. Of course, there are many more proposed solutions. Some of them
are proposed by Postman as well, such as critical thinking, lessons in histories (history from different
viewpoints), scientific thinking, and technology education, which is about the psychological, social and
political effects of new technologies and has the goal of teaching students to use technology rather
than to be used by it (p.171). Exploring these proposals would be a nice topic for further study.

Do Ideas Have Consequences?

Bibliography
Cornish, E. (2005) Futuring. The exploration of the future. Maryland: World Future Society
Fukinuki, T. (1998). Television: Past, Present, And Future. University of Katakura
Habermas, J. Knowledge and Human Interests. Appendix
Kottak, C.P. (2009). Cultural Anthropology, 13th ed. University of Michigan
Postman, N. (1999). Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth century. Vintage Books
Roush, (1969). Henry and the Great Society. Pathway Publishers