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Who will craft the future? Prediction is difficult. [1]

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Date: 2023-02-22  

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future” - Niels Bohr. (1) Despite that caveat, according to another professor, learned in such things, “The future is already here, it started a few years ago, it’s just that we cannot see it because of all the froth of current events.” (2)

Long ago and far away, I read that “When power transfers unwillingly from one group to another, a lot of heat is produced.” (3) I think we can agree that here in the U.S. we are seeing a lot of heat produced right now in our cultural and political skirmishes. The vitriolic and, at times, violent backlash to the Obama presidency, female reproductive rights, the rise in power and visibility of LGBTQIA+ individuals, the growing economic and political power of minorities and immigrants, increasing secularism, etc., has polarized and divided the nation.

This backlash is real. Female reproductive rights have been severely compromised. Studies of Black history are under attack. Books are being banned and burned. School board meetings are becoming fractious, to name just a few examples. Therefore, can we flip the previous assertion and posit that the generation of all this cultural and political heat is evidence that an unwilling shift in power has indeed been set in motion? A change from the protestant white male-dominated society to a more fluid, pluralistic, inclusive future? Perhaps my conclusion is just wishful thinking because that is what I fervently want to happen.

Any optimism should be guarded; such progress may be only temporary. Will movement towards a pluralistic society be squelched out of existence by the hard fist of right wing/fascist authoritarians? It is sobering to remember that the entrenched powers extinguished the Arab Spring and Iranian authorities are currently clamping down hard on women’s rights demonstrations in that country.

Of course, the froth of current events may be distorting my view and facilitating my misinterpretation of events.

Taking a more pro-active approach to the future, computer scientist Alan Kay said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”(4) Similarly, management consultant Peter Drucker believed, “The est way to predict your future is to create it.” (5) “Lateral thinker” Edward do Bono also chimed in with “If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.”(6)

The anti-abortion activists certainly conceived the future that they wanted and then relentlessly pursued it. They pounded away for almost half a century to reverse the 1973 Roe versus Wade decision. They played the Long Game. Senator Mitch McConnell is similarly applauded, or reviled, for skillfully playing the Long Game in the U.S. Senate regarding court appointments and voting rights.

Considering these issues, to me, they beg the question, who is going to create the future we want? Who amongst the Democrats is playing the Long Game for us? Who will guide and nurture a shift in power over the next couple of generations to provide inclusiveness and social justice? Whom do I think are trying to craft and invent an inclusive and caring future, not just for Democrats, but for all Americans?

Black women.

Black women, women of color and their allies, especially the younger ones just entering the political arena. Such women are already standing and being elected at all levels of government. To site a few examples around Metro Atlanta: Nicole Love Hendrickson is Chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, (7) Nabilah Islam was recently elected as State Senator, Ga 7th district (8) and Representative Lucy McBath, US Ga 7th (9) has just started her third term in Congress.

You are well aware of other prominent women of color, for example Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib plus Vice President Kamala Harris. Also, let us not forget two Black women who heft mighty cudgels, Fani Willis, the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia (10) and Letitia James, Attorney General for the State of New York. (11) Both of these women are conducting investigations into the potentially nefarious activities of a certain former president and his minions.

Read the positions of these women in their manifestos. They tend to be progressive, looking to build a better future and not harking back to a cruel past. All such powerful and successful Black women and the changes they portend strike real fear into conservative men down to the depths of their squiggly epididymides. The pathetic attempts to repress all women by Republican legislators amply demonstrate this fear.

One of the purposes of DK is to facilitate the election of Democratic candidates. I propose that we should unite and support women such as those described above to achieve elected office at all levels of government. If the future is currently here, it may well be obscured. However, that does not mean that we should not try to wrestle and create the future that we want from the froth of current events. Let us assist and enlist Black women in that fight, the battle to win the Long Game.

Upon sober reflection, taking one, two, three steps back from this discussion, I do see a massive, proverbial Elephant in the Room that has the potential to wreck everything that I have considered. And I do not mean the Republican pachyderm. This critical issue was most probably not even in the consciousness of those futurists whom I cited above. I am referring to anthropogenic climate change and its potentially profound effects on societies and economies. I have absolutely no idea how these social and geo-physical forces will play out and interact - as others have noted, “Prediction is very difficult.” Therefore, let us, right now, support Black Women and strive for the best while being prepared and flexible to deal with the worst.

1. Niels Bohr, though possibly quoting an old Danish saying. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/

2. Quoting by memory from an interview that I read on the BBC website a few years ago.

3. Quoting by memory from an article that I read in one of the major U.K. newspapers (The Times, The Guardian, The Observer) in the mid to late 1970s.

4. Alan Kay https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/304595.Alan_Kay

5. Peter Drucker https://www.azquotes.com/author/4147-Peter_Drucker

6. Edward De Bono https://www.inspirationalstories.com/quotes/edward-de-bono-if-you-do-not-design-the-future/

7. Nicole Love Hendrickson: https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/web/gwinnett/departments/boardofcommissioners/aboutyourcommissioners/chairwomannicolehendrickson

8. Nabilah Islam: https://www.nabilahislam.com/

9. Lucy McBath: https://mcbath.house.gov/

10. Fani Willis: https://fultoncountyga.gov/districtattorney

11. Letitia James: https://ag.ny.gov/

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