Living in the country of the future
By Rosa Alegria
Since I was a child I listened to a repeating adagio:
"Brazil is the country of the future." But the
future has never come. In the early 40´s, Stefan Zweig 1,
a German Brazilianist, came to the country and fell in
love with a utopian civilization. Edited in many
languages, his book was some kind of utopia that has fed
the country with a great contentmentIn the midst of the
turbulent times of the WWII, the pacific, harmonious and
"pure" Brazilian way of living was an answer to
the terrified world at that time. Absolute social and
radical equality was what Zweig perceived, having a good
eye on this emerging society.
Since then, Brazil has been tempted to live this utopia
with generous objectives and few strategies and actions.
The credits of the Brazilian utopia have been in a
weakened state
Sixty years later, some of Zweig´s colors are still vivid
but some of them have faded out. The colourful future
shows a developing economy leading a whole new economic
block G20 to oppose to the richest countries monopoly,
hosted the first global ecology conference Rio 92, founded
the World Social Forum of alternative global thinking as a
new alternative to the Davos-based World Economic Forum,
hosting the first World Culture Forum,
2. and inspired by Hazel Henderson, pioneered a global
conference in Curitiba gathering the most proeminent
statiticians of the world to reflect on new indicators
that go beyond the GNP to measure the wealth of nations.
Now, influencing the world in international cooperation
and peaceful sustainable development.
3. However, the faded colours of the rich and poor gaps
are still at the global agenda concern. In the last 40
years the Brazilian society was devastated by unemployment
and impoverished by the economic policy. People started to
be fearful about the future. In 2002, hope overcame fear
with the election of President Lula who has set up in a
political agreement between the middle class voters and
the worker voters. After 40 years under military
dictatorship regime, Brazil has presented a beautiful
demonstration of democracy to the world.
In fact, hope has never died for the Brazilians, a
civilization easily identified by a great deal of
optimism. By living under such a deep process of social
reforms I see a powerful feeling of hope like a fuel
accelerating the engine of the future.
Living in such a utopian country I have been always moved
by the idea of a positive future that one day would come.
I see that it is coming in a fast pace. that strengthens
my profession as a futurist. But even before working in
the futures field, I have been always in synchrony with
the collective dreams of my people at a subjective level.
How to make powerful dreams viable through an objective
process? Reflecting on new projects for the Brazil of the
21st century, I was not satisfied with utopian visions,
but willing to locate under what circumstances a
conception of the Brasilian future might be thought
through. Then I decided to get into specific knowledge,
expertise, and methodologies to assist governments,
organizations and individuals achieve their fullest..
Moved by this need, I accepted an invitation of Professor
Peter Bishop when he first came to Brazil. The call of the
time: to attend the Masters Program in Studies of The
Future at the University of Houston, Clear Lake.4 This was
the resource I needed to structure futures thinking that
has been always fertilised by the faith in the human
beings.
The unique change makers
The logosophy school believes that humans are the only
beings in nature that can experiment changes by their own
will 5 and that their own capabilities to re-create life
is limitless in a time of socially-driven technological
innovations.
Transformational theories like Ervin Laszlo´s "macro
shift",6 Duane Elgin´s "evolutionary
inflection"7 and Barbara Max Hubbard´s
"conscious evolution"8 are different prisms of
my visionary kaleidoscope in which I can already see the
early birth of a new civilization. My systems radar helps
me understand and perceive a shifting towards a more
ecologically sustainable, equitable forms of human
development advocated and foresighted by Hazel Henderson 9
business becoming agents of the world benefit, a corporate
prophecy of Willis Harman,10 the rebirth of the female
principles who have been officially unseen but
futuristically expressed by Eleonora Masini 11, emerging
future-oriented academic programs, , the decadence of the
traditional media paradigms and evolutionary consumer
cultures, like the cultural creatives.12
The ethics of the positive
The ethics of the positive must be a value that guide
futures research for the re-enchantment of society as we
areliving in a period of transition without utopia. The
founding utopias have lost their prestige either because
they have not kept their promises or because their
references have been erased by modernity. By refusing the
utopian the modern society has renounced the restoration
of the future. There lies the key-role of futures methods.
To help create new utopias that not only must be imagined,
but used effectively in transformational processes. In
this sense, I adopt a constructionist context to help
organizations and individuals contemplate the
possibilities they have to create, plan and anticipate
alternative futures.
In everyday life, they are mostly constrained by the
feeling that their realities are limited. This feeling of
impotence is a strong constraint on human imagination,
vision and enterprise. For that reason, it is fundamental
to inquire into the effects of our prevailing images and
vocabularies on human relationships. In this context, I
help organizations cultivate positive images and language
that help create new patterns of life and sustain the
positive energy of making things happen. Contemplative and
appreciative practices have been very successful in
organizational change processes.
To create the future on a positive core, there is nothing
more powerful than the Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a
synthesis of different visioning methods to guide new
approaches of changing and learning, by enhancing the
possibilities rather than the problems, through the
transformative potential of questions. AI was created in
the 80´s by David Cooperrider, at the time, a graduate
student at Case Western Reserve University and now a
well-known consultant all over the world. 13
It is Based on the premise that organizations grow in the
direction of the questions they raise and focus their
attention on. Research in sociology has shown that when
people study problems and conflicts, the number and
severity of the problems they identify actually increase.
But when they study human ideals and achievements, peak
experiences, and best practices, these things-not the
conflicts-tend to flourish. By encouraging people to ask
strategic questions, we create shared meaning through the
answers and act on the responses.
By living in a sceptical and fearful culture, our
attitudes are similar to those of a beginner bicyclist who
tend to steer toward whatever he is looking at most-like a
big rock at the end of the road. By keeping the eyes on
the rock we can miss the ride to the future. That ´s what
I try to do in my work: rather than preventing people from
looking at the stone I nourish and help develop their
imaginative capacity to see the unseen and promising a
long way ahead.14
A new media, a new world
Information that circulates invalidates the imagination of
the old utopias and the reconstruction of human values.
Taking Fred Polak´s 15 premise thatThe potential strength
of a culture could actually be measured by the intensity,
energy, and belief in its images of the future, we are
living in a decaying process of cultural death.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish"
(Proverbs 29:18). As a media activist, I see with much
concern and indignation decaying values of
over-consumerism, violence as entertainment, horrors being
disseminated by the media. The unfair society which the
global economic systems have generated, all these dramatic
realities are being broadcasted and shared by the media
consumers who have been indicating seeds of change in
their attitude towards the messages they are in touch with
everyday. Cultural creatives groups, ecological activism
of the new generations, increasing pacifism movements and
many other evolutionary activist groups are examples for
the dawning of a new society. The noosphere that Teilhard
de Chardin16 have evoked as a new spiritual sphere, that
has been differentiating humans from other species since
ancient times and is now, by the means of technology,
composing a global tissue in a much faster pace of change.
In the technology realm, communications plays a crucial
role.
Communications is a powerful process that promotes
people´s contact with knowledge. The several social
changes that have shaped today's civilization throughout
history were mostly due to different mechanisms and
processes of communication. The pace of the reaction of
society to what has been informed and disseminated varied
according to the progressive access to science and more
recently to technological advances, and this pace is
directly connected to ideological and behavioural aspects
of the individual, which in a collective perspective turns
to be a cultural pattern.
However, what cultural patterns is the contemporary media
creating? Why do bad news take place of the good news?
What kind of world is being portrayed on TV, newspapers,
movies, and arts?
The complexity of these questions must address the
media´s role to transform hopeless realities into. Images
and messages to be crystallized as new breathes of hope
and empowerment.
Mass media is being seen as a positive force of evolution
among many communicators, journalists, publishers,
advertising professionals, photographers, producers,
already accepting the new challenges of the new
millennium. "Objectivity" is being under serious
revision in the name of "human values" and
constructionist principles.
These deep forces are restructuring old media concepts
through technological globalisation and economic
interdependence.
Movements like Media for Peace and Images and Voices of
Hope 17 are spotlights of an optimistic reality of
transformational capabilities that communicators have all
over the world through the powerful purposes of positive
discourses.
More recently, the Alliance for a New Humanity18 debated
in Porto Rico the control and reform of media --- and how
they shaped global issues. Hazel Henderson, the global
futurist voice of the media transformational process was
one of the guest speakers together with representatives
from Latin America, Europe, Asia and North America
discussing new visions of a media that really matters and
the current realities of the "mediocracies"
which Hazel defines "as a new form of government,
dominated by mass media, which emerged technologically in
information-rich OECD countries over the past 30 years,
and is now spreading globally".
19
When will the future become news?
20 What attitude does the media stand regarding the future?
For the sadness of those who bet on what should have
happened and wants dissociate of what has already gone,
the future in no segment whatsoever of the media is still
not as yet a topic of significant importance. Any news of
the innovative cedes its place to news on information in
general And, the information that normally reaches us
reports on the past, without any prospective contemplation
whatsoever of future possibilities and their alternatives.
The world craves for possibilities and alternatives, and
it is not by reporting only past facts that the media will
join forces with the others in the construction of the
future
To help create the new, it is imperative that the media
traverse the apocalyptic frontier of the old economical
projections, the amorphous financial balance sheets, and
the socially unfair profit margins. There is more than
ample space for issues that help to imagine and create the
future, such as, by giving cover and stress to trends
like; the propagation of numerous and ample more research
data, providing the indicators that involve up-and-coming
matters, such as the preserving of environment, the
impacts of technology on the population and possible
scenarios that could indeed shudder or rescue the world
This of course would require a new teaching area in
communication schools and in other means of information as
a whole. Notwithstanding the swift changes that affect us,
many sectors of the media still look upon the world
through the surpassed conventional filters, such as,
exposing the worldwide wretchedness, startling news,
negativism and the past.
A prevailing and continuous searching for alternatives in
the news can accelerate change. By adopting a prospective
trend of thought, media enterprises should call futurists
to devote all efforts to create new images of the future,
mainly by pursuing the possible, studying the probable and
evaluating the most favoured. By adopting a prospective
contemplation of future possibilities and their
alternatives, television, radio, newscasts, publicity and
videogames would traverse the apocalyptic frontiers of
economical projections, the amorphous financial balance
sheets, the socially unfair profit margins, as well as all
violence, scepticism and reductionism that inhibits
cultural change. We need to create a new story for the
world.
By including the future in relevant news, like stamped
trends and visions as headlines on every daily newspaper,
magazine covers and the so called newscasts. Futures
approach must be included in the communicators agenda as a
vital part of disseminating proactive and positive images
of the future.
A female future
No one can share the future as women can do. The future
has a more legitimate meaning for those who breed, feed
and create.21 Family environment, early childhood school
setting and community as the three main leverage points
(E. Masini) of the feminist utopias make women strong and
make them nourish the future of others, those who they
gave life to, those who they care for. The world I dream
of in the next 30 years is a female oriented world, guided
by the Goddess principles of Unity, Caring and Connection,
where hope, peace, justice and harmony prevails. 22 To
reach the female future some partnerships will have to be
established to compensate the unbalanced deals of the
feminist movement. Praises to the diversity male and
female, humanity will have understood that all causes of
the civilizational crisis were rooted in the detachment of
Mother Nature and the despise towards the female
principles around 4.000 BC. 23
A divine harmony will prevail: Shiva and Shakti; Mother
and Father; Heaven and Earth; Female and Male principles,
that will lead us to the Sacred Unity. Embodiments of
Divine Love, Politics with principles, Education with
character, Science with humanity, and Commerce with
morality. A positive media will be creating a new history,
with no more dark and gloomy futures. Science fictions
will be narrated with hopeful tales of living utopias of
spiritual upheavals and female-oriented plots revealing a
new world order that is continuously working for the
sustainable development of civilization.
Latin America in the lapse and at the threshold of
time
Latin America entered in the 21st century without knowing
what to do with many of its libertarian ideas having to
face the fragility of its utopia, a theme that presided
over the birth of the continent and that is strong in
BrazilAs an "utopian global Latin-American Brazilian
futures thinker" I dream with the unity of all
Latin-American nations in the new millennium. By living
under a devastating colonization process we lost our
identity and have lived under a cultural memetic
evolutionary process. As an emerging continent in the new
world order of the 21st century, we need first to identity
our face in the global mirror and have a shared vision of
the future, by overcoming cultural frontiers and learning
with lapses of time of the 20th century, Mostly free from
the authoritarian political systems we are still not free
from the ties imposed by the global economy. This is a
precious time to rethink the paths we should go through
together to help create a new social and economic order to
the world. All Latin America, hands in hands, Brazil,
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Paraguay, Cuba,
Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay,
Uruguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Porto Rico, Costa Rica and
other nations that must be part of this Bolivar dream.24
"The birth of a world has been held back for a
moment; a brief lapse of time; a second of the universe.
...What shines with self-light, no one can blow out, its
light can reach the obscurity of other things" 25
Hope as the matrix of the future
The new generations cannot see the feasibility of change
without hope and a positive image of the future. In a
systemic process change depends on their self-confidence
and on many steps beyond the sceptical views that
television, movies and all media productions are creating.
The convergence of all media are leading to a two-way
communication system, with interactivity, participation
and public conversations that will help share solutions
and new visions for a sustainable society.
The choice is in our hands and in our heads. As a previous
transformational process, hopeful and new values must be
the matrix of the future generations movements towards a
process of sustainability consciousness mobilized by their
social brains on behalf of their survival. Let´s help
them look at the world with appreciative eyes
Another fundamental call of the times comes from the
developing world. The second world f future is not anymore
as it used to be. I remember one day listening to a first
world - American colleague asking me in the classroom of
the MS Futures Studies Program in Houston:
- Why on earth someone from Brazil is interested in
studying the future?
- Because in the second world there is still hope - and
hope is what makes us believe in the future
About the author
Rosa Alegria is an independent consultant, futurist,
lecturer, media activist and communications strategist.
Specialist on alternative media, branding, gender issues
and consumer relations. Research Director of the Brazilian
Futures Studies Centre at the Sao Paulo Catholic
University, co-chair of the Brazilian Node of the
Millennium Project, BA in English, Portuguese and
Brazilian language and literature, completing her MS in
Studies of the Future, University of Houston, Clear Lake,
founder of the Movement Media for Peace
www.midiadapaz.com.br and of the Society of Feminine
Knowledge www.ssf3.org
Former counsellor of the Women
Condition Council of Sao Paulo and vice-president of the
Brazilian Sales and Marketing Association.
1. Zweig, Stefan: Brazil the country of the future. Editora
Brasiliense, 1941
2. World Cultural Forum to be hosted by Sao Paulo in from
June 26 to July4 - www.forumculturalmundial.org
3. ICONS International Conference on Indicators of
Sustainability and Quality of Life
www.sustentabilidade.org.br
4. M.S. Program in Studies of the Future. University of
Houston, Clear Lake www.cl.uh.edu/futureweb
5. The logosophy science and methods were introduced in
1930 by the Argentinean philosopher Carlos Gonzalez
Pecotche
6. Laszlo, Ervin: Navigating the macroshift - our evolution
in our hands. Axis Mundi, 2001. Brazilian Edition
7. Elgin, Duane: The Evolutionary Inflection and
Species-Awakening www.awakeningearth.org
8. Max Hubbard, Barbara: Conscious Evolution, awakening the
power of our social potential. New World Library, 1998
9. Henderson, Hazel: Building a Win-Win World. Sao Paulo,
Editora Cultrix, Brazilian edition, 1996
10. Harman, Willis: Global Mind Change: the promise of the
21st century. Berrett-Koehler Pub; 2nd edition, 1998
11. Masini, Eleonora: The household, gender, and age
project.
12. Ray, Paul: The cultural creatives: how 50 million
people are changing the e world. New York, Harmony
Books,2000
13. Cooperrider, David: Appreciative Inquiry - the
handbook. Lakeshore Communications, 2003
14. Mohr, Bernard J: Igniting Transformative Action. The
Systems Thinker, vol. 12 No. 1 Jan/Feb 2001
15. Polak, Fred: The image of the future. Oceana, 1961
16. Chardin, Teilhard de: The Phenomenon of Man. Perennial,
1976
17. Both movements were launched in 1999 simultaneously in
Sao Paulo and in New York. Internet based on Media for
peace www.midiadapaz.com.br and Images and Voices of Hope
www.ivofhope.org
18. Alliance for the NewHumanity Conference held in
december 2004, San Juan, Puerto Rico. www.anhglobal.org)
19. Henderson, Hazel. Paradigms in Progress: Life beyond
economics. Sao Paulo, Editora Cultrix, Brazilian edition,
1998
20. Alegria, Rosa: When will the future become news? 2002,
article submitted to the MS Program - University of
Houston, Clear Lake and posted at Novae Magazine -
www.novae.inf.br/rosaalegria/futuro.htm
21. Milojevic, Ivana: Feminism, Futures Studies and the
Futures of Feminist Research
-www.metafuture.org/articlesbycolleagues/IvanaMilojevic/FeministFutures.htm
22. Ouriques, Evandro. The Sacred Unity. From the book
Yoga, Tradition and Science, Rio, 2001
23. Alegria, Rosa. Female Future. 2003, Article posted in
the Society of Feminine Knowledge www.ssf3.org -
Portuguese version
24. Simon Bolivar is a historical leader who since 1813
leaded the independence revolution of South America.
25. From Canción para la Unidad Latinoamericana (Song for
the Latin-American Unity) - composed in the 80´s by the
Cuban poet and musician Pablo Milanes
|
