Past predictions have foreclosed genuinely open futures
Evidence
The great irony is that although we seem to be living through the anticipa- tory “age of the future,” there is no real future left open to us as a viable site. For the past projections of the future, in their influence as an ideational power- house on the course of policy and history, have foreclosed the formerly available futures filled with variable choices and exhausted the once rich cultural and natural resources that might have provided the basis in the past for a humane future in a livable landscape. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 751
Categorization
- SEED: An essay angle: how decades of technological ‘inevitability’ narratives have narrowed actual policy choices, not expanded them.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 751
- XREF: connects to: Failed predictions merely trigger appeals to yet another new future. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 682; Posing a question of the future risks immediately foreclosing that future.
Related
- Failed predictions merely trigger appeals to yet another new future. (similarity 0.88)
- The future is unknowable by definition, so prediction is only practical action. (similarity 0.82)
- Future-oriented discourse evades present political participation (similarity 0.81)
- The future now plays the same rhetorical role the pastoral past once played (similarity 0.81)
- Posing a question of the future risks immediately foreclosing that future. (similarity 0.80)
- Future literature mobilizes people toward predetermined ends (similarity 0.80)
- Futurist prophecy can never be falsified by events (similarity 0.79)
- Prediction of historical events is a practical act, not a scientific act of knowledge. (similarity 0.78)