I can think of a few things: the emphasis on foresight as a tool for competitive advantage in a market economy, emphasis on innovation, markets etc. De Jouvenel tellingly describes foresight a kind of “commerce with the future”...

04.04.2025 08:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

But what about Western foresight, which prided itself on being explorative and open-ended - how much of it was deliberately ideological rather than ‘scientific’, designed to support ideological commitments to Western free market liberalism?

04.04.2025 08:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

It made me think of the role of ideology in shaping not just the application of futures studies/foresight but also its methods. In the USSR, any kind of futures work had to align with Marxist teleology (scenarios don’t sit well with that). We can see how ideologically rigid this is.

04.04.2025 08:44 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

To give one example, Futuribles, the organisation and research network de Jouvenel founded in the early 60s, was backed by the Congress of Cultural Freedom, a CIA-supported, anti-communist propaganda front enlisting intellectuals in the war of ideas against communism in cold war Europe.

04.04.2025 08:44 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Was reading the classic Art of Conjecture by Bertrand de Jouvenel this morning. He was a French futurist who did a lot to cement futures studies in Europe in the 60s. Between him and Herman Kahn (the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove) it’s safe to say the field has some... interesting origins.

04.04.2025 08:44 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Thanks for the good company, Anders. We don't use that term lightly!

04.02.2025 19:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0