I've been kicking around some new career ideas lately, and a new one dawned on me. I think I should be a futurist. How does one go about becoming a Futurist? Actually, I don't care. Because I can plausibly guarantee you that my Futurist career is not going to extend beyond this blog post. But no matter.
Here's what I know about Futurism: (1) They have names like Alvin and Newt; (2) they think human remains should be shot into space rather than being buried here (my dad believes this, I think); (3) they think the Dow will hit 36,000 by the year 2007.
With that trusty data under my belt, I'd like to pitch my Futurism paradigm on you. But first we need to travel back in time, to 1989. I was a high sophomore, and my religion teacher was Sister Peggy. Sister Peggy was wise in many ways. Her prior gig had been as a chaplain at Rutgers and she admitted to keeping condoms in her sweater pockets to give to undergrads. This shocked the shit out of me in high school, but that's not the point of this story. Sister Peggy once said something along the lines of "In order for the Third World to become Second World, to First World must also become Second World." Her view of Christ ran along the same lines - that he didn't call on us to all become poverty-stricken beggars swearing off the pleasures of capitalism (or whatever gives us our pleasure), just that we all had to strive for some kind of equitable middle class for everyone. Her theories on this have knocked around in my head all these years, and I agree with them.
My Futurist theory is that Sister Peggy could be right, and that we could all gravitate towards a more equitable middle ground. And I think that the global climate crisis will facilitate it. I have read two articles in the past week about European towns who have shifted the use of their energy. Add it to Al Gore's challenge. Let me be totally pie-in-the-sky optimistic here and argue that, if we achieve this weaning, it could have dramatically positive effects on the economies of underdeveloped countries (in addition to the global benefits) because they can skip the nasty coal-burning industrial revolutions and move directly to cleaner, cheaper, more renewable resources. Jobs will be created, standards of living raised. While we in the US are powering down our voracious consumption, others can join the grid.
I recognize that I have some very cynical readers out there. And that its a stretch to convince y'all that going green is god's work, so I will lay off now. Plus, I have run out of Futuristic ideas for the moment.
4 comments:
From what I understand, in the distant future, the humans are dead. That's right they are dead. I believe that the robots used poisonous gasses, and they poisoned their asses.
Actually, more and more, our clients (Bay Area churches, generally) are saying that they feel that being green is doing God's work. Its one of the reasons that our firm is going green and doing more sustainable projects. So you are not alone in saying that.
And Sr. Peggy was pretty great.
Is there another meaning of Second World that I don't understand? Especially in 1989 the meaning of Second World was generally agreed upon not as "more developed than the third world while less developed than the first world" but instead "under Soviet influence".
I like the larger point of the post. The recent Time/Rockefeller poll on the economy showed very strong promise for reversing attitudes regarding the economy and government's role in it. Something like 80% of people said that America needed large government spending.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1823668,00.html
HA! Sister Peggy. I think about her pretty often too everytime I think about the fact that I'm not "supposed" to be pro-choice.
I also think about Sister Mona and "Rebecca" (red rhododendrons and brushing hair)
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