Minimizing Shock: Reimagining a More Equitable Future

Alisha Bhagat

Who Makes the Future?¹ Living in the future is not all it’s cracked up to be. That statement might have surprised Alvin and Heidi Toffler, because many of their predictions, made in 1970, have come true. Since the publication of Future Shock we have seen great advancements in technology, but many of the problems of that era, such as economic inequality, have in fact worsened. In their book, the Tofflers took multiple forms of inequality as givens, and from there structured visions of the future without questioning them. To better understand the present-day implications of future shock, we have to challenge these assumptions.

The Tofflers thought the world population was structured into three different classes: 70 percent of people who live in the past, over 25 percent of people who live in the present, and the remaining 2 or 3 percent who live in the future². People who live in the past are based in traditional societies, living the same life that their parents and grandparents did. People in the present live in modern industrial societies, and are “molded by mechanization and mass education.” People living in the future comprise a small portion of the population. They live in the main urban centers of global and technological change, and are wealthy, well-educated, and mobile.

The people depicted as living in the future appear to be “highly privileged members of society.” Based on the examples given, it is implied that these people are mainly cisgender, white, hetero, wealthy, able-bodied men without caregiving responsibilities³. They thrive in global urban centers, and withstand a rapid pace of change—one that would unsettle other types of people. The rest of us, who are not living in the future, are doomed to live in a state of “future shock” where we experience the fast pace of technological, social, and economic change, but are helpless and overwhelmed as familiar structures shift around us. As society evolves, a feedback loop is created as those people with economic and technological power create tools and systems that benefit people like themselves.

I see future shock as one outcome of a broken economic system that produces miraculous technology but fails to prioritize fundamental human needs and values. Both in the past and today, what makes people anxious, overwhelmed, and unable to weather change is not the historical transition from industrialism to post-industrialism. It is a deep malaise related to a hostile world that still fails to provide enough food, shelter, and security to millions of people. Young people can see how much suffering remains, that society produces incredible gadgets but not solutions to real problems. Who your parents were, your skin color, and the school you went to still play an outsized role in your ability to succeed in this future. Indeed, in some parts of the world, this is even more true than it was in Toffler’s time.

Who Wants this Future?

One of the Tofflers’ examples of a person “living in the future” is a Wall Street executive named Bruce Robe, who works in New York City and whose family lives in Columbus, Ohio. Every weekend he boards a jet and commutes home. This example is meant to showcase the impressiveness of jet travel and the rise of a global nomad class. However, we never see the human costs of such opportunities. Is this the world this man wants to live in? How does he feel not seeing his family? How do his wife and children feel about his long absences? Does this future work for them?

For the Tofflers, it was easier to imagine quick-fix technical interventions that shape the future (the jet), rather than to investigate the structural issues that gave rise to the problem in the first place (unlivable cities). They did not at the time anticipate the environmental impact caused by jet travel or the social impact of long-distance commuting.

We could imagine a different scenario, one in which an improved future for the executive and his family might include affordable housing in a safe and family-friendly New York City. Or perhaps one in which economic opportunities are more evenly distributed across the country and he could find employment in the thriving business community of Columbus.

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I see future shock as one outcome of a broken economic system that produces miraculous technology but fails to prioritize fundamental human needs and values.

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In another section, the Tofflers discuss the future of human reproduction. In this vision, biotechnology enables women to pre-select an embryo, then use a mechanical womb in a lab to incubate the baby until the time of birth. Here, again, it is unclear who actually wants this future. While some women might find childbirth unpleasant enough to warrant this solution, it doesn’t seem like a widespread problem compared with the reality of raising children in a heavily gendered and unequal society with inadequate childcare support. What use is a mechanical uterus if parents still cannot access affordable childcare?

Once again, technological innovations seem to improve a situation, but the underlying challenge is unaddressed. Universal childcare would require a revaluation of caregiving work. Caregiving work, both then and now, is done predominantly by women, people of color, and immigrants. It isn’t seen as prestigious, nor is it well compensated. Investing in a technological solution to the rigors of childbirth, rather than changing the way we structure society to care for the child after it is born, seems a pointless exercise. Planners and futurists traditionally don’t focus on this topic, primarily because it puzzlingly isn’t seen as futuristic. Yet childcare providers are perhaps the people most immersed in raising future generations.

Who Broke the Future?

We still live in a world where lots of key groups are left out of visions of the future. Though this is changing, there is still work to be done to ensure that diverse views of the future are generated and heard. When people are excluded from creating the future and seeing themselves in it, they are often forced to claim space for themselves using whatever rough tools they can access. These can take many forms, including revolution, violence, disengagement, mass exodus, and suicide.

Millennials in the US (like myself), are economically worse off than their parents, and simply cannot afford some of the basic elements of life—in the present or for the future (for example, houses and savings accounts).⁴ The future we inherited—our present—is more polluted, more unequal, and more precarious than the world our parents knew. Through the lens of Future Shock it is easy to proclaim that what is needed is adaptation to the new reality and acceptance of change. However, it seems unfair to blame an entire generation for failure to adapt to the future in a broken world of climate change, growing nationalism, and rising economic inequality.

Who can Change the Future?

For the past 50 years, our world has incentivized and valued technological fixes but has not invested in tackling fundamental issues of equality or forging a sustainable path forward. The underlying structure of inequality has shaped the path of societal evolution and contributed to many of the problems we see today. We have failed to take action on critical issues, such as climate change. Rather than restructure our businesses and societies around planetary boundaries, we hope that scientific innovation and geoengineering will bail us out.

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We still live in a world where lots of key groups are left out of visions of the future. Though this is changing, there is still work to be done to ensure that diverse views of the future are generated and heard.

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Many of the people who have been excluded from living in the Tofflers’ future are the people who are most impacted by inequalities today. We need to heed their voices and distill their messages, as they have firsthand appreciation of the problems that must be addressed and, as a result, the incentive to lead grassroots movements that can change the existing systems.”

Around the world, young people are striking for climate justice and for their governments to decarbonize. Groups such as Black Lives Matter fight against systemic racism. People are fighting for the right to have clean water, healthcare, and a living wage. Citizens are pushing back, governments are changing, and norms are shifting. This is happening because people who traditionally have been denied a share in the future are fighting for a future vision that is intersectional, sustainable, and equitable.

Young people want to fix the system, starting with core values: a thriving environment, investment in future generations, and the dismantling of structures like colonialism and white supremacy. Futures tools should be used to challenge assumptions about what the world can be, and to make sure we aren’t applying solutions that benefit only a small group. One way they can continue to do so is by helping our thinking go deeper. Only by first interrogating the “why” behind the way things are can we figure out the “how” for the way things could be.

But power never concedes without a fight. Fossil fuel companies continue to control major parts of the world economy, nationalism is spreading across the world, and multinational corporations are buying up the world’s water. It sometimes feels as if we are living out our last days on a dying planet. Maybe we will be unable to adequately address the problems we face, but it is no longer possible to naively assume they will go away on their own.

Fixing Everyday Futures

Popular conceptions of futuristic space colonies and dazzling new technology ignore structural societal problems. They also ignore the mundane ways in which the future often plays out. Even the 2 percent of people “living in the future” don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the future, as modern technology quickly becomes routine. Humans are and will be concerned with the same things that have always concerned us—basic needs, love, community, and simply getting through each day.

For me, a future that honors and values the mundane lived experience of the billions of people of the world is a better vision. If we can imagine life on Mars, we can imagine a functioning economic system that treats people with dignity. I think that future generations will look back at today’s world in shock that we let things get so bad and that it took so long for us to build a sustainable and equitable world.

Alisha Bhagat is a futurist and senior strategist whose work focuses on the creative use of futures tools to impact long-term positive change, particularly around social justice and equality. For the past six years, she has worked at Forum for the Future, a nonprofit that helps organizations think systemically and sustainably about the future. Alisha brings a broad toolkit to her work, and designs games, creates immersive experiences, and brings the future to life. Prior to joining Forum, Alisha was a foreign policy consultant for the US government and a fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu. Alisha holds an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a BS in anthropology and history from Carnegie Mellon University. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2005. When not thinking about the future, Alisha is an avid gamer and science fiction enthusiast. She also serves on the board of BitchMedia, a feminist media organization. Alisha lives in Brooklyn with her partner, two daughters, and loving cat. You can find her @alishabhagat.

1. Thank you to Mark Egerman, Francesca Chubb-Confer, and Anna Warrington for providing feedback on this piece.

2. Interestingly, Toffler’s math doesn’t add up. It is unclear if the missing 2 to 3 percent are in a separate category of people or are omitted to indicate a small buffer.

3. Toffler writes “by comparison with almost anyone else, white Americans and Canadians are regarded as hustling, fast moving go-getters.” Future Shock, p 41.

4. There are a number of indicators as to why Millennials are worse off than their parents. Home ownership is one example. Home ownership among Millennials remains significantly lower than other generations. (https://www.urban.org/research/publication/millennial-homeownership)