Stewarding the future

摘要

Concern for the future is vital to individual and social existence, but its nature and intensity vary from person to person, culture to culture, and epoch to epoch. Some exhibit primary interest in their own longevity or afterlife, others in that of their offspring and descendants, still others in humanity or all life, the earth or the cosmos as a whole. This article traces the history of feelings about the future. Christian and medieval apocalyptic preoccupations with the world to come gave way to the secular concerns of Enlightenment and Victorian times. As the known history of mankind and of life on earth reached ever farther back into antiquity, devotion to civilized progress expanded to embrace an ever farther future. Since the mid-20th century, however, future horizons have shrunk to the shortest imaginable term. Primary among the causes for this is anxiety about the far-reaching effects of our military and industrial technology, which threatens to poison or even exterminate all life. Having lost faith in progress, we dwell increasingly on the immediate present and the solaces of a nostalgized past. I discuss the parlous consequences of this trend and argue that a concern for posterity is essential to contemporary well-being.