Civilizational futures within the integral
futures framework: the plural quadrants
Dennis R. Morgan
Dennis R. Morgan is
Associate Professor at the
Hankuk University of
Foreign Studies, Yong-in,
South Korea.
Abstract
Purpose – Expanding on the findings of the SOPIFF research project, this paper aims to identify eight
futures schools of thought, which are analyzed and critiqued through an integral framework. As ‘‘Part II’’
of a previous publication, it seeks to focus on the lower (plural) quadrants.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper adapts Ken Wilber’s integral theory to clarify various
philosophical orientations to the future. It also adapts Fredrich Polak’s approach to futures as a matter of
‘‘social critique and reconstruction’’; however, the approach is global, civilizational, and integral, so it
proposes civilizational critique and integral reconstruction as a method for evaluating futures schools of
thought.
Findings – The IF framework is found to be a valuable theoretical and analytical tool for clarifying
images of the future; it shows lines of development within each quadrant and interactions between
quadrants, illustrating the effectiveness of the four-quadrant approach.
Research limitations/implications – It further illuminates the ‘‘global problematique’’ expressed in the
SOPIFF project and proposes the IF framework as a way to interpret those research findings.
Practical implications – This approach to futures/foresight studies broadens the range and offers more
depth to conceptions of the future, so it should help to develop/improve futures methodologies/practices
in general.
Social implications – Civilizational critique and integral reconstruction of images of the future imply
unprecedented social change.
Originality/value – The paper should help futurists to see and interpret the ‘‘bigger picture’’ of
civilizational futures through revealing the ‘‘crack’’ of the modern image of the future, how it relates to the
current world crisis, and what is needed to heal the crack, so a new vision of a preferred future can
emerge.
Keywords Society, Social change, Philosophical concepts
Paper type Research paper
Futures schools of thought as shifting images of the future
Received: 10 January 2010
Revised 19 June 2010
Accepted 13 July 2010
This work was supported by the
Hankuk University of Foreign
Studies Research Fund of
2010..
DOI 10.1108/14636681011089998
Because of his ground-breaking, monumental study on the relationship of a society’s image
of the future to the rise and fall of civilizations, Fred Polak (1971) is often considered to be the
ideological ‘‘father’’ of futures studies. In The Image of the Future, Polak was greatly
concerned that the modern image of the future was ‘‘under attack’’ and thus unable to propel
human civilization forward into the realm of the ‘‘other.’’ In effect, for Polak, the modern image
of the future was ‘‘severely dislocated’’ or ‘‘cracked’’ while the prospects for healing this
crack did not seem propitious. Thus, wondered Polak, without a viable image of the future,
how could a society or civilization meet the challenge of the future to realize itself in time?
(Polak, 1971, p. 14, 222)[1].
Polak’s philosophical turmoil about the fractured image of the future in modern times is
reflected in the birth of futures studies in the 1950s. In the US the emerging
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military-industrial complex of the Pentagon viewed the future through the lens of
developing a long-term strategy to win the Cold War. Also, the rapid acceleration of the rise
and fall of corporations brought about the realization of the corporate need to capture
future markets as a means of long-term survival. At the same time, advances in science
and technology were also rapidly accelerating to bring about profound social changes; the
future seemed imminent, and those who could not adapt to these changes were trapped in
a state of ‘‘future shock.’’
While Polak was writing his treatise on the importance of the image of the future, Harrison
Brown (1956), a professor of geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, in The
Challenge of Man’s Future, from an entirely different perspective, focused on the material
conditions within industrial civilization through the dynamic interactions of population
growth, the depletion of natural resources, and the accumulation of destructive impacts on
the environment. Then with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, the
environmental movement was born, and many became concerned about the long-term
effects of the ‘‘progress’’ of industrial civilization: the rapid changes wrought on nature; the
quality of life in an increasingly dependent, passive, materialist society; and the future of
humankind under the accelerating conditions of population growth, natural resource
depletion, and pollution (Carson, 1962). Subsequently, ten years after Silent Spring was
published, the Club of Rome sponsored a study by Dennis and Donella Meadows (along
with J. Randers and W.W. Behrens III) (Meadows et al., 1972), which used computer
modeling of dynamic systems to simulate interactions and the exponential growth of five
variables: world population, resources depletion, industrialization, pollution, and food
production. The conclusion of the study depicted an ‘‘overreach and collapse’’ scenario of
industrial civilization during the twenty-first century.
Such was the general backdrop concerning ‘‘the future’’ when the first futures studies
program in the US came into existence in the early 1970s at the University of
Massachusetts. During those early days of academic futures studies, according to Dr
Chris Dede (currently a professor at Harvard), discussions concerning the future
conceptualized into three main schools of thought: the ‘‘positive extrapolists,’’ ‘‘negative
extrapolists,’’ and ‘‘transformationalists.’’ By the time I enrolled in the futures studies
program at the University of Houston – Clear Lake in the late 1980s, these same schools
of thought dominated the discourse about the future. Some of the major examples of the
positive extrapolist futures schools of thought can be found in the writings of H. Khan, J.
Simon, A. Toffler, and R. Kurzweil (‘‘before the Singularity’’ – P. Bishop)[2]. Additionally,
examples of the negative extrapolist futures schools of thought can be found in the
writings/studies of P. Ehrich, The Club of Rome, Dennis and Donella Meadows, L. Brown,
and B. McKibben, while examples of the transformationalist schools of futures thought
can be found in the writings of W. Harmon, R. Theobald, O. Markley (also a futures
studies professor at UHCL during that time), V. Vinge, and R. Kurzweil (‘‘again, after the
singularity’’ – P. Bishop).
In ‘‘Part I’’ of this paper (published last fall), I briefly described the contradictory,
antagonistic positions of the positive and negative extrapolist schools of thought; however,
since the two major futures schools of thought (along with the ‘‘third school,’’ the
‘‘transformationalists’’) are foundational with respect to futures studies ideology and the
image of the future of human civilization, I will elaborate more about them, especially in light
of Polak’s interpretation of the ‘‘cracked’’ modern image of the future. Furthermore, I will
relate how these futures schools of thought have expanded (or further ‘‘fractured’’ –
depending on your point-of-view) since the 1980s to the present-day eight futures schools of
thought, which will then be identified and analyzed within the integral futures (IF) framework.
Although in ‘‘Part I’’ I focused on the four futures schools of thought (Techno-futures,
Transhuman Singularity, Anti-civilizationalists, and Spiritual Transformationalists) within the
‘‘singular’’ quadrants of the IF framework, I will briefly summarize those and then continue
with the discussion concerning the four futures schools of thought (Global Empire, Global
Sustainable Development, Permaculture, and Earth Community/Great Transition Initiative)
within the ‘‘plural’’ quadrants of the IF framework.
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Positive extrapolist, negative extrapolist, and transformationalist schools of futures
thought
In the late 1980s it became apparent that the three futures schools of thought revealed a
severely fractured, dislocated image of the future, as each school seemed thoroughly
entrenched in its own version of the future. In particular, the two main schools (the positive
and negative extrapolists) held seemingly irreconcilable, polar opposite images of the future
with the main point of contention revolving around the question of technology. For the
positive extrapolists, technology was mostly a good thing, as the main driver of the future; in
fact, for many positive extrapolists, man’s relationship with technology was considered
essential to the evolution of humankind, having even a transforming impact on what it means
to be human. Of course, there were some differences on this matter; for example, even
though all positive extrapolists were techno-enthusiasts, embracing technology as mostly ‘‘a
good thing,’’ and perhaps even instrumental to the evolution of humankind and human
civilization, some futurists such as Ray Kurzweil went a step further and became more
emphatic about technology’s power to transform human nature. Though some positive
extrapolists were not yet comfortable or enthusiastic about this direction of futures thought,
transhumanism does seem to be the implicit, inevitable conclusion of positive extrapolism
and the techno-enthusiast image of man’s future.
Furthermore, most techno-enthusiasts seemed quite oblivious to the negative side-effects of
industrial civilization, possessing ‘‘great faith,’’ as it were, in the powers of science and
technology to resolve the accelerating global problems linked with the expansion or
‘‘globalization’’ of industrial civilization. The great faith of the positive-extrapolists was the
main point of contention by those with a very different image of the future – the negative
extrapolists. The latter critiqued positive extrapolism’s ‘‘great faith’’ as an example of
scientism, which tends to blind itself to the positive feedback loops of industrial civilization.
In other words, the negative extrapolists were skeptical about the ability of science and
technology to resolve the exponential side-effects of population growth, massive natural
resources depletion, and eco systems destruction (due to pollution, ozone depletion, and
global warming); moreover, they concluded that unless humankind takes an active and even
urgent interest in addressing this global systems crisis in ways that involve more than just
waiting and hoping for the great powers of science and technology to resolve them – then an
overshoot-and-collapse scenario of human civilization (accompanied by environmental/
eco-systems collapse) on a grand scale seems unavoidable.
The ‘‘other’’ futures school of thought, the transformationalists, is often thought of as the
‘‘third way’’ or ‘‘alternative futures,’’ which largely viewed the global crisis of humanity as an
identity crisis involving a paradigmatic shift of consciousness. This school, largely
influenced by the new age movement, was more accepting and sensitive to the spiritual
nature and common spiritual inheritance of humanity. Though not adhering to any particular
religion or theology, the transformationalists, nevertheless, recognized spirituality as
essential to human evolution and often saw the current crisis as an essentially spiritual crisis
due to the dominating influence of scientific-materialism and one-dimensional consumerism
as the predominant, defining way of life in capitalist society. Regarding the question of the
relationship of technology to human evolution and the crisis of civilization, with the exception
of Ray Kurzweil’s positive extrapolist version of the transformation of human nature via
technology, transformationalist thought was generally more in line with the conclusions of the
negative extrapolists in that it too foresaw the inevitable collapse of industrial civilization and
was likewise skeptical about the powers of science and technology (S&T) to resolve these
global problems in a way that would bring about the necessary shift to a new paradigm.
Since scientism and materialism inform the underlying, fundamental assumptions about the
meaning of life within industrial civilization, without a change of these assumptions, the
needed shift of paradigms cannot take place, regardless of the ever-increasing ‘‘progress’’
of S&T: we may only ‘‘progress’’ externally while, internally-speaking, the human
consciousness and spirit lag behind and is even repressed, trapped, and mummified
within a one-dimensional existence; as external structures solidify through the progress of
S&T, following the mandate of world capitalism in a spiritually-suppressing, materialist,
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consumer-based culture, even human nature is reinvented in the image of its machine, as
automatons of a machine civilization. In this image of the future, the ‘‘transformation’’ of
human nature indeed takes place as the transhumanists envision, but it is a transformation
that emasculates spirituality.
From three to eight futures schools of thought
The three futures schools of thought were not only an expression of different positions
regarding the relationship of humankind to technology; they were at the same time
themselves indicative of the fractured image of the future of human civilization. Moreover,
this process of disassociation and fracturing of the image of the future has continued
through to the present time. For example, I mentioned that though many of the positive
extrapolists were not quite ready to embrace the transhuman/singularity image of the future,
this image of the future was, nevertheless, the inevitable and logical conclusion of
techno-futures, and as a matter of fact, now represents a transformation of futures thought
within the techno-enthusiast camp of positive extrapolism.
On the other end of the spectrum, the negative extrapolist camp of futures thought formed
the image of global sustainability as the operative concept propelling the next stage of
global consciousness, one that will have to go beyond Americanized globalization and
empire (another futures school of thought, which became apparent and crystallized after the
end of the Cold War). Negative extrapolists also linked up with localized organic farming
communities such as ‘‘permaculture,’’ seen as experiments in sustainable living that might
be replicated globally. Thus, from these new types of alternative communities, who held a
strong connection to the Earth, a new culture could emerge to inform the next stage of
planetary consciousness and paradigm shift – the new image of the future as global
sustainable development.
However, this new, alternative culture and worldview could not emerge without including the
transformationalist spirituality of the individual. The transformationalist school of futures
thought had strong connections to positive existentialists and postmodernists such as
Theodore Roszak and Colin Wilson, writers who had experienced existential angst but had
not succumbed to nihilism; rather, they reaffirmed spirituality as essential to the evolution of
humankind and its future civilization. Like Soren Kierkegaard, such individuals held searing
critiques of mainstream religious establishments and the pseudo-spiritual teachings and
empty rituals that were blinding and brainwashing the masses, and yet they also held
scientific materialism with as much contempt for its reductionism and wholesale denial of
spirituality. Furthermore, the great spiritual teachers who have appeared throughout human
history, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, St Francis, Ghandi, Paramahansa Yogananda,
and other saints and sages throughout history, were not regarded by tranformationalists
merely as obscure (hence irrelevant) figures of the past – instead, they were seen as
luminaries of the future, as the lighthouses and pathways of human evolution.
Thus, in ‘‘Part I’’ of this paper, I refer to the tranformationalists as ‘‘spiritual transformationalists’’
and placed them within the upper left (UL) quadrant of the IF framework, which operates as
a kind of ‘‘map’’ of the future, at least in terms of images projected for the future of human
civilization. Moreover, the IF framework sheds more light on the origin of the ‘‘cracked’’
image of the future that Polak lamented, and also reveals how new, alternative images of
the future are emerging to challenge stories of the future that have thus far dominated
discourse.
You will notice in the Figure 1 that the spiritual transformationalists are positioned in the UL
quadrant as a development of anti-civilizationalists.
As was pointed out in ‘‘Part I,’’ the upper, singular quadrants focus on ‘‘man,’’ and the
anti-civilizationalists appear in direct opposition to ‘‘techno-futures’’; likewise, in the lower,
plural quadrants, ‘‘permaculture’’ also appears in direct opposition to ‘‘global empire.’’
These left hand futures schools of thought have emerged out of a sense of an alienated
future, as a result of the repressive ‘‘flatland’’ perspectives of techno-futures and global
empire in the right hand quadrants; unless these emerging, alternative images of the future
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Figure 1 Futures schools of thought within the integral framework
are able to develop within their respective quadrants, there is no chance of reconciliation
with their ‘‘nemesis’’ schools of thought in the right hand quadrants. Moreover, it is not that
these schools (especially those in the right hand quadrants) are mere reflections of the
present, as one might at first glance assume; of course, they are certainly firmly grounded in
the present, as they should be, yet they also, at the same time, project images of the future of
human civilization. In the left hand quadrants, however, anti-civilizationalists and
permaculture emerge as rejections of predominate futures images in the right hand
quadrants because of one-dimensional ‘‘flatland’’ perspectives and empire domination
schemes, which have historically denied and suppressed left hand, alternative futures
images. That is why both anticivilizationalists and permaculture appear to be
non-progressive and even futureless; they both represent postmodern rejections of the
modern image of the future.
One must consider how ‘‘flatland’’ has affected images of the future[3]; that is why these
futures schools within the IF framework do not necessarily correspond to a ‘‘normal’’ integral
framework. Instead, the IF framework as presented reveals how Polak’s ‘‘cracked’’ image of
the future is actually the result of a right hand quadrant appropriation of the image of the
future, resulting in a one-dimensional flatland image of techno-futures and globalized empire
domination (see Figure 2). Thus, the futures schools of thought (in Figure 1) within the left
hand quadrants are nascent images of the future, which are not mere correlates of right hand
quadrants (what would be the case in a normal world rather than ‘‘flatland’’), but are instead
the emergence of alternative futures, as antitheses of the right hand schools of thought
concerning the future of human civilization.
Having posited these eight futures schools of thought within the IF framework, it is also
important to explain how they interact (or fail to interact) with one another and, more
important, how they should develop and interact to realize the future of humankind. For this
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Figure 2 The future of flatland civilization
purpose, an integral reconstruction of the image of the future is part of an important, vital task
to heal the divisions within futures studies and help crystallize the image of the future of
human civilization, for as Fred Polak convincingly argued, without a clear vision of its future,
human civilization will fail to meet the challenge of the future and will collapse.
This paper assumes that we now stand at an unprecedented historical and evolutionary
juncture, and time is not in our favor: to delay, hesitate, or refuse to choose at this critical
point in time also represents a choice that will only serve to perpetuate the negative impacts
of the collapse already under way. The hope of humanity now lies in crystallizing its vision of
the future so that this collapse will not be too devastating. For this purpose, an integral vision
of the future represents a bridge for the reconstruction of the image of the future of civilization
on the principles of sustainability and restoration in an earth community rather than on the
militarism and domination schemes of global empire. Thus, this ‘‘great transition’’ from
global empire to global sustainable development (GSD) recognizes that the predatory and
runaway capitalism of industrial civilization has wrought the irresponsible, wanton
destruction of the environment, ecosystems, indigenous peoples, and other species while
pursuing a futureless-minded depletion of essential natural resources.
The time of the twenty-first century perhaps represents the greatest challenge of human
civilization and evolution in the history of humankind. In order to meet this challenge, wise
foresight must be developed to crystallize its image of the future before it is too late. The
following offers an outline of the global crisis and a framework by which the various schools
of thought regarding the future can be identified, analyzed, and critiqued; however, ‘‘social
critique,’’ as Polak would have it, is only half of the formula for authentic prognosis – the other
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half being that of ‘‘reconstruction’’ of the image of the future, a task that the IF framework has
the capacity to accomplish.
World systems analysis: the crisis of global capitalism
In consideration of the global problematique as a civilizational challenge, a study by
Immanuel Wallerstein (2004) illustrates the nature of the looming crisis of western industrial
civilization. In the final chapter of World Systems Analysis, Wallerstein makes a strong case
that the present world capitalist system is in a serious crisis that does not appear to have a
resolution; thus, it is not merely a ‘‘difficult period,’’ since if the difficulty can be resolved in
some way, it does not constitute a true crisis: ‘‘True crises are those difficulties that cannot be
resolved within the framework of the system, but instead can be overcome only by going
outside of and beyond the historical system of which the difficulties are a part’’ (p. 76). In
technical language, the system bifurcates, which is accompanied by wild oscillations as it
becomes more and more chaotic. The members of this system are:
. . . called upon to make a historical choice about which of the alternative paths will be followed,
that is, what kind of new system will be constructed. Since the existing system can no longer
function adequately within its defined parameters, making a choice about the way out, about the
future system (or systems) which are to be constructed, is inevitable . . . The process of
bifurcation is chaotic, which means that every small action during this period is likely to have
significant consequences. We observe that under these conditions, the system tends to oscillate
wildly. But eventually it leans in one direction. It normally takes quite some time before the
definitive choice is made. We can call this a period of transition, one whose outcome is quite
uncertain. At some point, however, there is a clear outcome and then we find ourselves
ensconced in a different historical system (pp. 76-77).
Wallerstein asserts the uncertainty and unpredictability during this period of transition[4].
The outcome cannot be predicted because it depends on the choices that humanity
collectively makes in the near future; thus, while time still allows, it is the task of futurists to
clarify those choices and their possible outcomes and then outline the new emerging
system, which will replace the world capitalist system[5].
While Wallerstein devotes much analysis to the internal contradictions (human-human) of the
world capitalist system[6], he does not devote near as much analysis of the external
contradictions (human-nature) of industrial civilization, which also constitute a crisis, one that
is perhaps even more severe than the internal contradictions. Upon analysis of the external
contradictions, we encounter a similar mentality as that of the endless accumulation of
capital since the external contradictions, likewise, are marked by the endless growth and
exploitation of natural resources, accompanied by endless waste and pollution of the
ecosphere and global environment, in an exponential race to an eventual breakdown,
collapse/crash scenario.
From the singular quadrants to the plural quadrants within the IF framework
In ‘‘Part I’’ (2009), the focus of this paper was on the singular quadrants of the IF framework,
an analysis of futures schools of thought as they pertained to ‘‘man’’ in the singular in relation
to civilization. These are the upper quadrants that have respective internal and external
correlates, also including a line of development within each quadrant. However, these are
incomplete without consideration of the plural correlates, and some of these obviously spill
over into the plural quadrants such that the distinction between the two can become blurred.
For example, even though Techno-futures is focused on man in the singular in the UR
quadrant, technological systems form the base of much of the economic, social, and
political systems of industrial civilization; hence, ‘‘techno-futures’’ is also expressed
throughout the LR (‘‘ITS’’) quadrant. Similarly, we can discover commonalities between
anti-civilizationalists and permaculture (the plural correlate in the LL ‘‘WE’’ quadrant) just as
we can find interactions and commonalities between Spiritual Transformationalists (the line
of development in the UL ‘‘I’’ quadrant) and Earth Community (the line of development in the
LL ‘‘WE’’ quadrant)[7].
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Each of the futures schools of thought within the plural quadrants of the IF framework will now
be discussed, proceeding from the LR ‘‘ITS’’ quadrant of external, objective, economic and
politico-socio systems of global empire, as well as its line of development towards global
sustainable development (GSD), and then continuing to the LL ‘‘WE’’ quadrant of internal,
subjective, shared values, ethics, and morals that form the culture and worldview for the
‘‘good’’ of a new civilization, beginning with permaculture and its line of development
towards the great transition movement and earth community.
Global empire
In the previous section discussing Wallerstein’s world systems analysis, I mentioned that
Wallerstein gives little attention to the external contradictions (human-nature) of the world
capitalist system. Furthermore, he mostly focuses on the growth of neoliberalism and
globalization while hardly mentioning its relation to the historical context of the American
empire, which is world-wide and more far-reaching and pervasive than any empire of the
past[8]. For the most part, the recognition of this American global empire largely emerged
during the Post Cold War era[9]. As Schlesinger (1999) questions, ‘‘Who can doubt that
there is an American empire? – an ‘informal’ empire, not colonial in polity, but still richly
equipped with imperial paraphernalia: troops, ships, planes, bases, proconsuls, local
collaborators, all spread around the luckless planet’’[10]. Likewise, Chalmers Johnson
(2004) notes that the US deploys ‘‘. . . well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians,
teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations and just under a dozen
carrier task forces in all the oceans and seas of the world. We operate numerous secret
bases outside our territory to monitor what the people of the world, including our own
citizens, are saying, faxing, or e-mailing one another’’ (p. 1). In fact, there is hardly a place in
the world that is not in some way a part of or at least has not been impacted by the American
empire.
Especially when we consider that the economic component of this empire goes hand in
hand with the militaristic component, its reach is truly global. The historical dimension of how
the economic, expansionist imperative depended on American military enforcement is key
to understanding how the republic transformed into a global empire. By the time the
American frontier was conquered in the late nineteenth century, the global expansionist
effort was already underway by Presidents William McKinney and Theodore Roosevelt[11].
As Andrew Bacevich (2002), (professor of history and international relations at Boston
University) relates, the goal, then as now, was to ‘‘create an integrated international order
that offered no barriers to the flow of goods, capital, and ideas, and that is administered by
the US. The whole world is to become a free-market economy, and the US military is there to
remove any opposition to this process. And since there will be those who will not be happy
with this project and will resist it, our foreign policy necessarily has to become, in essence, a
military one’’[12].
The question whether neoliberal globalization is indeed a form of American imperialism,
realizing an American empire, has been hotly debated. However, the lens of the post Cold
War era affords a clearer, more objective view, which indicates that this is indeed the case, if
not only for the simple fact that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, once the Cold War smoke
had cleared, the empire of the ‘‘sole superpower’’ remained firmly entrenched, revealing the
mirror that had been there all along. After all, as Berman (2006) writes (referring to Ivan Eland
(2004) in The Empire Has No Clothes), if the main goal ‘‘of US foreign policy after 1945 had
been to fight communism, the pax americana we had established during the Cold War years
would have been dismantled after 1991. But our military spending never dropped below
Cold War levels after that date. The truth of the matter is that the conspiracy theory of a global
red menace threatening to engulf the world was grossly exaggerated by the US for imperial
purposes, to gain public support for military and political intervention in the affairs of other
nations and for the huge defense budgets such intervention would require. In this way, the
Cold War became the justification for building a global empire’’ (p. 114).
Thus, the American vision of the future as empire is one that has been in place almost since
the beginning of the republic. Though it has at times been covertly promoted, concealed,
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denied, and euphemistically repackaged, it is still a thread that runs throughout its history,
from Manifest Destiny to the Open Door notes to Paul Nitze’s 1950 top secret National
Security Council document known as NSC-68, which provided the overriding ideological
imperative for the Cold War, laying down the Manichaean gauntlet that ‘‘a defeat of free
institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere’’ (as quoted by Berman, 2006, p. 118). The
American interests that needed to be secured globally were expansive and indefinable so
that the Cold War could be prolonged indefinitely, until such interests became synonymous
with the global empire itself.
A central problem with the American nature and culture is that such interests have never
been clearly defined except in terms of ‘‘business.’’ For example, what else could such ‘‘free
institutions’’ referred to in the NSC-68 document be if not strategic business interests
globally? Surely, protecting such ‘‘free institutions’’ has hardly been a matter of protecting
democracy globally. History has already given its verdict on that matter, and the US record
does not fare well. It might be worthwhile then to explore what exactly is meant by ‘‘free’’
institutions.
The concept of freedom is certainly a cardinal principle that defines the American nature and
culture. Historically, this ‘‘freedom,’’ however, has largely been interpreted as a negative
freedom, which is, simply put, freedom from, which is the freedom to not be controlled by an
external power such as the state or a state-sponsored church. The liberties enumerated in
the American Bill of Rights spell out these individual freedoms; however, what is often
missing from the individualist notion of freedom is the concept of ‘‘positive freedom,’’ i.e.
freedom for[13]. The only thing in American culture that possibly comes close to this notion is
that of property, the cardinal principle of capitalism. Historically speaking then, American
expansionism has been simply a matter of acquiring more and more territory, or ‘‘property’’ –
but property for what? Especially when considering the dynamic character of American
capitalism and its global ambition to acquire or else dominate such ‘‘property,’’ then the
American notion of positive freedom can be interpreted as the ‘‘right’’ to ‘‘do business’’
internationally, i.e. to acquire or else dominate ‘‘property’’ or ‘‘territory’’ on American terms to
serve American interests – neoliberal globalization with teeth.
To put this in a futurist context then is to emphasize the freedom for over the freedom from.
However, this requires knowing who you are. How can you know where you are going if you
do not know who you are? This is the crisis of the American identity, which has largely been
defined by the negative character of freedom from while the positive character of freedom for
has merely the external correlate of property, territory, expansion, globalization – all matters
of ‘‘doing business’’ and protecting American business interests internationally. Yet without
an internal correlate of positive freedom, the for to shape its identity and guide its future, we
can only expect that this ‘‘business future,’’ is but a veiled imperialist venture to make the
world over in the American image. It is the image of the future as an Americanized global
empire, and it will not go far, will not last long, and like most ideological utopian projects and
empires, will very likely end badly; as a matter of fact, it is already ending badly. The question
for the future then is whether it will pull the world down with it into a chaotic state of
permanent war and ecological and environmental disaster, or whether it will give up its
ambition of global empire and transform itself into a power to realize GSD in an Earth
Community.
Empire globalization futures and the vision of global empire
A number of futurists these days complain that the futures field is not taken seriously and has
not gained the legitimacy that it should. Such disappointment is understandable; however,
this assessment is only partially true. What is often underestimated is the impact that futures
tools and methods have had in the rise of the American corporatocracy and empire. Its
influence is quite evident in the American military, especially in the US Air Force Academy.
Also the Pentagon, CIA and National Intelligence Council periodically use futures
methodologies to turn out reports that feature scenarios of the future[14]. In fact, some
futurists have unwittingly contributed to this development by hiring themselves out in the
service of the American empire to strategize its permanence in the future[15]. Such
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co-optation of futures methods is by no means ‘‘neutral’’ since it seeks to dominate and
colonize the future as the ‘‘final frontier’’ of Empire, with its strategy of coercion or perpetual
war against those civilian populations that attempt to resist, especially in the developing and
underdeveloped regions of the world.
The image of the future as the vision of Empire, with global war as the principal means to
achieve global domination, is frightening. In this vision, war becomes a permanent,
determining fixture of social relations. Hardt and Negri (2005) write extensively about the
postmodern global reality of the ‘‘interminable and proliferating nature of war,’’ which is
‘‘becoming a permanent social relation’’ and the ‘‘primary organizing principle of society,’’ of
which politics is merely ‘‘one of its guises’’: war has become ‘‘a regime of biopower, that is, a
form of rule aimed not only at controlling the population but producing and reproducing all
aspects of social life’’ (pp. 11-12).
The image of the future as global empire also has features of social-Darwinism and
Malthusianism. One of the central problems it seeks to conquer is simply that of excessive
population growth. As Hardt and Negri (2005) point out, today’s ‘‘Malthusianism’’ often takes
‘‘the form of withholding from some populations aid for food or sanitation infrastructure and
even coercive sterilization campaigns’’ (p. 166). Moreover, today’s multinational
corporations are ‘‘disinclined to invest in the most impoverished parts of the world and
sometimes even refuse to sell them medicines at prices they can afford. Poverty and disease
become indirect tools of population control’’ (p. 166). Neither are they interested in
‘‘bettering the lives of the poor or maintaining a sustainable total global population in line with
the capacities of the planet but are rather concerned primarily with which social groups
reproduce and which do not’’ (p. 166). Such a system is rapidly becoming a ‘‘global
apartheid,’’ which is not merely a system of ‘‘exclusion, as if subordinated populations were
simply cut off, worthless, and disposable. In the global Empire today, as it was before in
South Africa, apartheid is a productive system of hierarchical inclusion that perpetuates the
wealth of the few through the labor and poverty of the many’’ (pp. 166-7).
Thus, the imperatives of Empire insinuate social-Darwinist rationalizations; for example, if the
carrying capacity of the planet can only handle 20 percent of the population at the current
lifestyle, so be it. The only real question then for empire is how to ‘‘weed out’’ the
‘‘unselected’’ 80 percent gradually in a way that will not offend the sensibilities of the morally
pretentious; the issues of social engineering and genocide must never emerge. Cooperation
is vital to the security of empire. All violence is justified if it is seen to serve the greater good,
which is determined to be global security, yet at the same time is almost always a matter of
perpetuating and protecting the interests of empire. Results, rather than universal principles,
in the postmodern global police state, justify the means[16], and such results are perceived,
interpreted, and manipulated by the guardians of information in the corporate media;
information control through the corporate media is a vital function for the legitimatization and
security of empire.
The decline of the American empire
Before the ink on the project for a new American century manifesto had barely dried, and
before the dust of Richard Cheney’s ‘‘New Pearl Harbor’’ had hardly settled, it became
evident at the very beginning of the twenty-first century that Goliath had been dealt a severe
blow and was falling. History will surely record that its rise had been meteoric; its Republic
had shone so very bright, lighting the world with the hope of liberty, yet the empire would fall
just as rapidly as it rose. So, what will replace it? Will history repeat itself, as it has so many
times, with one empire replacing another, or will the world realize that empires themselves
are inherently destructive, that the time has come for all empire schemes to end with the
American empire. As John Perkins (2007) writes:
History teaches that empires do not endure; they collapse or are overthrown. Wars ensue and
another empire fills the vacuum. The past sends a compelling message. We must change. We
cannot allow history to repeat itself (p. 7).
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Indeed, just as there is speculation that China is the basis for the next empire, human
civilization must realize that the time of empire is over, for the earth with its growing
population, limited natural resources, stressed ecosystems, precarious climate change,
species and habitat destruction, and environmental pollution, will not be able to maintain
another empire based on the model of runaway, exploitive capitalism. Indeed, the time has
come for the transition to a new economic model based on ‘‘natural’’ capitalism and GSD
within Earth Community, which does not tolerate militarism and its pathological,
power-crazed domination schemes. Otherwise, especially when we consider the
enormous amounts of military armaments and weapons of mass destruction, the stakes
are too high: the very future itself is now questionable, as the prognosis for a catastrophic,
distopian future rears its ugly head.
From global empire to global sustainable development
When the Bruntland Commission delivered its report, Our Common Future (Bruntland
Commission, 1987), the concept and term ‘‘sustainable development’’ instantaneously
became part of the lexicon of futures studies. The World Commission on Environment and
Development had been asked by the Secretary General of the United Nations to formulate a
‘‘global agenda for change’’ that would ‘‘propose long term environmental strategies for
achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond . . . ’’[17]. As Gro Harlem
Brundland (1987) pointed out in the ‘‘Chairman’s Foreword,’’ ‘‘development’’ had been
perceived through the lens of the rich, more developed countries, as a matter of what the
poorer countries could do to also become rich; thus, it was considered merely as a ‘‘concern
of specialists,’’ who know best how to give ‘‘development assistance.’’ This one-dimensional
view of development was misleading and quite inadequate to meet the challenge of
development in a growingly complex planet plagued with environmental and ecological
degradation, exponential population growth, devastating, brutal poverty, and economic
inequalities between the ‘‘under’’ and ‘‘over’’ developed countries. Also, many of the ‘‘paths
of development’’ within industrial civilization were clearly unsustainable such that prospects
for the future were becoming grimmer, especially for the developing countries. Even then, in
the late 80s, the Brundtland report (Bruntland Commission, 1987) recognized that the time
had come to formulate a new, interdisciplinary, ‘‘integrated approach to global concerns and
our common future’’ with sustainable development as its guiding principle, stating it as
development that ‘‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.’’ Essentially, sustainable development is a ‘‘process of
change’’ through which the exploitation of ‘‘. . . resources, the direction of investments, the
orientation of technological development; and institutional change are all in harmony and
enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations’’ (Bruntland
Commission, 1987).
In response to the Bruntdland Report, the principle and goal of global sustainable
development was then adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) as an urgent educational mission; subsequently, in the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) met at the Rio summit in
1992 to discuss dwindling resources, unrestrained economic growth, and inequitable and
unsustainable development. At the ‘‘Earth Summit’’ (as UNCED came to be known), 172
governments with 108 heads of state, approximately 2,400 representatives of
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some 17,000 people at the parallel NGO
‘‘Global Forum’’ (who had consultative status) agreed upon the Rio Declaration, which set
out 27 principles for achieving sustainable development. Furthermore, the Earth Summit
established a sustainable development agenda for the twenty-first century, known as
‘‘Agenda 21,’’ which is a ‘‘comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally
and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in
which humans directly affect the environment’’[18]. Agenda 21 initiated a process that
‘‘marks the beginning of a new global partnership for sustainable development,’’ addressing
the ‘‘pressing problems of today . . . preparing the world for the challenges of the next
century,’’ and reflecting a ‘‘global consensus and political commitment at the highest level
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on development and environment cooperation’’[19]. At the same time, the Commission on
Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 to ‘‘ensure effective
follow-up of UNCED, to monitor and report on implementation of the agreements at the local,
national, regional and international levels. It was agreed that a five year review of Earth
Summit progress would be made in 1997 by the United Nations General Assembly meeting
in special session’’[20].
Thus, as a result of the Rio summit in 1992, the concept of sustainable development attained
global significance and is already visible within programs of various governments around
the world. Nevertheless, at present, GSD is still largely theoretical since the efforts to
implement sustainable development on national levels are still often met with considerable
opposition by powerful reactionary elements of the status quo, as the multi and transnational
capitalists of Global Empire have yet to recognize the extent of the grave crisis of the world
capitalist system and industrial civilization; hence, the efforts at GSD by the UN and by some
countries, though laudable, may be a case of ‘‘too little too late.’’ Unfortunately, many who
often give lip service to sustainable development believe that an overshoot-and-collapse
scenario can still be averted, that global capitalism and industrial civilization can still be
preserved in its present form; they often still do not recognize the crisis as severe but instead
see it as a ‘‘difficult period,’’ which can still be resolved through a soft implementation of
some ‘‘green’’ policies related to sustainable development.
Nevertheless, though GSD has to some extent been co-opted by corporate interests, a
global consensus for sustainability has been growing and gaining momentum – just as
global empire is collapsing. The collapse of global empire is, in fact, necessary in order for a
sustainable world to emerge. Even while the American empire attempts to extend its
biopower globally and consolidate its military and satellite communications control
throughout the world, with ‘‘full spectrum dominance,’’ surrogate soldiers, private
mercenaries, foreign cronies, and an ‘‘empire of bases’’ (Johnson, 2004), at the same
time, the consciousness of the multitude is demanding authentic democracy and a
sustainable economy. This global collapse and emerging struggle is indicative of a
transformation from global empire to GSD. The following excerpt from Hardt and Negri
(2005) offers an analysis of this transformation:
When the flesh of the multitude is imprisoned and transformed into the body of global capital, it
finds itself both within and against the processes of capitalist globalization. The biopolitical
production of the multitude, however, tends to mobilize what it shares in common and what it
produces in common against the imperial power of global capital. In time, developing its
productive figure based on the common, the multitude can move through empire and come out
the other side, to express itself autonomously and rule itself (p. 101).
So, what does the multitude share and produce ‘‘in common?’’ Of course, it is the natural
capital of the earth as well as its own productive power, and once the multitude is able to
finally, for the first time in the history of humankind, realize authentic democracy, to ‘‘rule
itself,’’ then it will look to the future and engage in a sustainable and just economy based on
such ‘‘natural capital’’; consequently, the issues of global sustainability and world
democracy are inseparable. What is at stake is what we share in common; mobilization of the
multitude to protect the commons is the key to realizing a sustainable future, as well as world
democracy.
However, what is ‘‘natural capitalism’’ and how can it help to realize GSD? In other words,
what is the alternative economy of GSD in the future? Hawken, Lovins and Lovins’ Natural
Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Hawken et al., 2000) may very well prove
to be as important to GSD as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was as the theoretical
framework for the rise of capitalism during the industrial revolution. Hawken et al. (2000)
conceive of the possibilities that will arise:
. . . from the birth of a new type of industrialism, one that differs in its philosophy, goals, and
fundamental processes from the industrial system that is the standard today. In the next century,
as human population doubles and the resources available per person drop by one-half to
three-fourths, a remarkable transformation of industry and commerce can occur. Through this
transformation, society will be able to create a vital economy that uses radically less material and
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energy. This economy can free up resources, reduce taxes on personal income, increase
per-capita spending on social ills (while simultaneously reducing those ills), and begin to restore
the damaged environment of the earth. These necessary changes done properly can promote
economic efficiency, ecological conservation, and social equity (p. 2).
Hawken et al. (2000) point out how we are destroying the most productive systems:
. . . ever seen on earth while statistically blinding ourselves to the problem. Economics cannot
function as a reliable guide until natural capital is placed on the balance sheets of companies,
countries, and the world. As it stands, the capitalist system is based on accounting principles that
would bankrupt any company. A healthy economy needs, as any accounting student
understands, an accurate balance sheet. In the meantime, acting as though natural and
human capital were properly valued is critically important. When natural capital is no longer
treated as free, unlimited, and inconsequential, but as an integral and indispensable part of the
production process, our entire system of accounting will change. Prices, costs, and how we
calculate value will alter dramatically (p. 61).
In Agenda for a New Economy, David Korten (2009) proposes a similar shift in the way the
world, and chiefly the US, does business. A fundamental transformation must take place in
economic relations, i.e. away from an economy based on ‘‘phantom wealth’’ to one based on
‘‘real wealth,’’ away from an economy based on the greed of Wall Street to one based on the
goods and services of ‘‘Main Street,’’ and away from magical money created out of nothing
(as a result of clever accounting tricks and based on debt) to un-inflated money used merely
as a medium of exchange representing real goods and services. Finally, this economic
transformation is a shift from the bankrupt ideology of a free market system to a responsible,
sustainable, and just economic system, for as Korten (2009) relates, the term ‘‘free market’’
is just a euphemism for an unregulated market that:
. . . allows the rich to consume and monopolize resources for personal gain free from
accountability for the broader social and environmental consequences. A free market rewards
financial rogues and speculators who profit from governmental, social, and environmental
subsidies, speculation, the abuse of monopoly power, and financial fraud, creating an open and
often irresistible invitation to externalize costs and increase inequality (p. 30).
The transformation from the free market system of global empire and neoliberal globalization
to the ‘‘natural capitalism’’ of GSD, based on ‘‘real wealth,’’ is huge, for, in the words of
James Gustave Speth, writing from the perspective of a systems ecologist, ‘‘the planet
cannot sustain capitalism as we know it’’[21]. Instead, as Speth (as well as Korten, and
Hawkin, Lovins and Lovins, and a host of others) suggests, the modus operandi of
capitalism needs to be fundamentally redesigned and reoriented so that it supports the
development of ‘‘local economies populated with firms that feature worker and community
ownership and that corporations be chartered only to serve the public interest’’ (as related
by Korten, 2009, p. 40). Moreover, if we make an honest assessment of the relationship of
GDP and the environment, we cannot help but recognize that GDP is nothing more than a
measure of growth and consumption, ‘‘which is the driving cause of environmental decline’’
(Korten, 2009, p. 41, citing Sperth, 2008). Thus, the economy, if it remains unchecked on the
present course, will continue to destroy the environment until a tipping point in the planet’s
ecosystem is reached, at which point it may be too late to reverse the catastrophic
consequences of a rapid collapse. To address this critical situation, a fundamental change in
consumption habits in developed and developing countries must take place soon; perhaps
not buying at all is even better than buying green (Korten, 2009, p. 41). From this
perspective, when considering the ethic of GSD, the whole notion of ‘‘development’’ must be
revaluated because ‘‘development,’’ commonly understood as a measurement of economic
growth and consumption, is inherently unsustainable; hence the issue of unhealthy and
destructive ‘‘overdevelopment’’ or ‘‘maldevelopment’’ through capitalism’s modus operandi
of perpetual consumption must be addressed in a manner that incorporates all
environmental costs and gives due consideration to the needs and rights of future
generations.
So, what is the role of corporations, especially large, transnational corporations, in realizing
GSD? Speth and Korten are quite critical and skeptical that such corporations will play a
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positive role to realize the transition to a sustainable economy; hence, Speth calls to revoke
‘‘. . . the charters of corporations that grossly violate the public interest, . . . roll back limited
liability, eliminate corporate personhood, bar corporations from making political
contributions, and limit corporate lobbying’’ (Korten, 2009, p. 41)[22]. Korten’s (2009)
approach to corporations, on the other hand, is not quite as draconian, recognizing that
corporations often do produce goods and services that we depend on every day. As a
matter of fact, writes Korten (2009), there are ‘‘incorporated businesses with identifiable
responsible owners who live in the communities in which their businesses are located and
who operate their corporations as responsible members of their community. These
corporations are properly considered part of the Main Street economy’’ (p. 28). Where
Korten (2009) draws the line for corporations, then, is precisely at the line between Main
Street and Wall Street. When Wall Street gets involved in a corporation, whatever value the
corporation may have had before will be ‘‘subordinated to Wall Street interests and values’’
(p. 28), which is, above all else, the ‘‘bottom line,’’ – money, and how to make more of it. As a
one-time executive of the Odwalla Corporation put it, ‘‘so long as we were privately owned by
the founders, we were in the business of producing and marketing healthful fruit juice
products. Once we went public, everything changed. From that event forward, we were in
the business of making money’’ (p. 28).
Collapse and transformation in the LR quadrant of the IF framework
Wilber (2000) maintains that the ‘‘collapse of the Kosmos,’’ philosophically speaking,
occurred more than 150 years ago when the differentiation of the ‘‘big three’’ (i.e. science,
art, and morality) of modernity drifted into disassociation, which in turn led to the denial of the
left hand, interior quadrants, reducing them to their right hand correlates. In Wilber’s words,
the ‘‘big three began to collapse into the big one: empirical science, and science alone,
could pronounce on ultimate reality. Science, as we say, became scientism, which means it
didn’t just pursue its own truths, it aggressively denied that there were any other truths at all!’’
(p. 398). As McIntosh (2007) elaborates, science eventually cane to ‘‘colonize’’ and
dominate other spheres of knowing, often going so far as to deny their validity. In many
significant areas, science developed into scientism, the pathological form of modernist
consciousness . . . which maintains that the only ‘real’ reality is objective, material reality’’
(p. 53). Thus, as Wilber (1998) relates further, the subjective and interior domains ‘‘– the I
and the WE – were flattened into objective, exterior, empirical processes, either atomistic or
systems. Consciousness itself, and the mind and heart and soul of humankind, could not be
seen with a microscope, a telescope, a cloud chamber, a photographic plate, and so all
were pronounced epiphenomenal at best, illusory at most’’ (p. 56).
From an integral perspective, the key to understanding the collapse of the capitalist system
and industrial civilization, as well as its transformation into an economic and political system
based on natural capital, real wealth, and sustainability, involves an understanding of the
historical and evolutionary imperative of our times – the challenge of the future. Can the
‘‘collapse of the Kosmos’’ (in which scientism reigned supreme and ‘‘flattened’’ the interior
quadrants) also be related to the cracked image of the future that Polak so decried? As long
as humankind remains blind to the reality and value of the internal, interior ‘‘I’’ and ‘‘WE’’
quadrants, no ‘‘transformation’’ into new economic or socio-political sustainable systems is
possible, for there are no shortcuts to evolution, which in this case involves the evolution of
consciousness and being through the recognition of the validity of the subjective ‘‘I’’ and
‘‘WE’’ quadrants. If this recognition does not come about through collective foresight, then it
will be forced to come about through the great collapse and the chaos of crisis, for the
imperative of evolution gives birth to the future, and such birth can be difficult and painful
without wise foresight; otherwise, humanity faces the prospect of regression, which is the
‘‘miscarriage’’ of evolution. This is why the crisis of world capitalism and industrial civilization
cannot be understood merely as a matter of systems transformation within the ITS quadrant
alone. In order to understand the historical and evolutionary imperative and challenge of the
future, it is time to consider the lower left (LL) quadrant within the IF framework.
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The lower left (‘‘WE’’) quadrant in the integral futures framework
The lower left (LL) quadrant of the IF framework is the internal, collective quadrant that
focuses on the cultural values and worldview that ‘‘we’’ share as a civilization. These are
subjective values that are largely agreed upon, embedded assumptions about who ‘‘we’’
are. In the IF framework, however, these assumptions are also alternative, preferred futures,
which challenge the predominate worldview about civilization and its future. The futures
schools of thought then are those that, for the most part, reject industrial civilization and its
current direction and attempt, instead, to posit a new, more sustainable image of the future.
In a recent volume of Foresight, Riedy (2009) argues that futures work has played a role in
‘‘providing inspiration for numerous small-scale, distributed and grassroots initiatives,’’
which include ‘‘experiments with different ways of living, . . . and the use of futures thinking
for local consciousness raising and movement building’’ (pp. 46-7). These small
experiments ‘‘seek to make alternative futures real’’ by acting as ‘‘lifeboats’’ or ‘‘seeds’’
with the possibility to grow into desirable futures. By experimenting with alternative ways of
organizing social systems and cultures, they provide a source of creativity from which new
futures can be born. As a matter of fact, as Riedy (2009) argues, many of these small
initiatives ‘‘around the world have identified better ways to organize future institutions and
have established alternative cultures’’ (p. 47).
A number of these grassroots initiatives are independent, organic farming communities who
accept much of the criticism of the anti-civilizationists but nevertheless reject their isolationist
and anarchist conclusions advocating a return to a hunter-gatherer way of life as the only
option in response to civilizational crisis. In other words, although these localized, alternative
cultures agree that grand civilization based on ‘‘life in cities’’ is inherently unsustainable[23],
they nevertheless believe that organic and sustainable agricultural solutions are possible on
a limited scale within pockets of alternative farming communities who share similar values.
Thus, these small communities reject grand civilization and instead seek a pocket of
self-sustainability that is completely independent of the world economic system and
industrial civilization. Often they also seek to cultivate a communal way of life based on
common, shared, spiritual values rather than consumer-oriented materialism. Localized
sustainability focuses on achieving a self-sufficient lifestyle that is not dependent on the
global economy or anything ‘‘global’’ for that matter, although it may link up (via the internet)
to share information with other communities worldwide who share the same values and goals
of self-sufficiency and sustainability. Moreover, most localized sustainability movements do
not completely disavow the use of technology; however, all technology comes under the
strict scrutiny of a sustainable, organic lifestyle.
One example of localized sustainability is the permaculture movement, which was founded
in the 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. The term ‘‘permaculture’’ is based on a
fusion of the words ‘‘permanent,’’ ‘‘agriculture,’’ and ‘‘culture.’’ One can surmise that it is an
attempt to realize a non-progressive, unchanging culture based on organic, sustainable
agricultural principles. From this perspective alone, it does seem to have a utopian
character, reminiscent of utopian socialist experiments of the nineteenth century. The main
difference, however, is that permaculture is firmly grounded on organic, sustainable living
and lifestyle rather than a theory about communal living. It is the art and science ‘‘of
designing human beings’ place in the environment,’’ which teaches how ‘‘to understand and
mirror the patterns found in healthy natural environments’’ so that one can then ‘‘build
profitable, productive, sustainable, cultivated ecosystems’’ that can include people, and
‘‘have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems’’ (Blume, n.d.).
Thus, permaculture is not only an organic farming community, but its design principles have
a philosophical justification based upon responsible living and a sincere regard for future
generations; for this reason, it is positioned in the LL quadrant as an emerging alternative
that challenges the worldview of global empire. The permaculture movement has spread
internationally through grassroots networking and training programs, which teach a core set
of design principles so that individuals can begin designing their own environments and
build more self-sufficient permaculture settlements. The central idea is that these
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settlements will not rely upon industrial civilization, which systematically destroys the earth’s
ecosystems.
Briefly, when a design component is not ecologically sound, community-building, and
careful in its use of resources, then it is pretty unlikely that it will work out in the long run. This
ethic is the basis of sustainability and also makes excellent, long-term business sense.
Systems designed with these ethics are ecologically sound, economically stable,
community building, and don’t leave future generations with a cleanup bill for today’s
enterprise (Blume, n.d.).
The great transition initiative
The great transition initiative (GTI) is a growing, grassroots, internet-based network of global
citizens who seek to act as a bridge between local sustainability and GSD. This group differs
from that of mainstream, government-based GSD in that it recognizes that the ‘‘crisis’’ of the
world capitalist system and industrial civilization is more than just a ‘‘difficult period’’ that
merely requires cosmetic changes of half-hearted, watered-down attempts at GSD. As a
realization of global consciousness, through the social innovation of the internet, rather than
depending and waiting on top-down solutions from the power élite, this network of
concerned global citizens is a bottoms-up, democratic approach of people power. Though
still growing and largely based on educational efforts, the GTI aims to make an impact
through networking and social innovations that create bridges to a sustainable future for all.
One of the most important statements of the GTI can be found at its website in the document,
Great Transition: the Promise and Lure of Times Ahead, by Paul Raskin and others. In this
document, Raskin et al. (2007) attempt to answer the four questions of the Rio Summit
concerning global sustainability, ‘‘Where are we?’’, ‘‘Where are we headed?’’, ‘‘Where do we
want to go?’’, and ‘‘How do we get there?’’, claiming that the ‘‘first wave of sustainability
activity, in progress since the Earth Summit of 1992, is insufficient to alter alarming global
developments’’; thus a ‘‘new wave must begin to transcend the palliatives and reforms that
until now may have muted the symptoms but cannot cure the disease. A new sustainability
paradigm would challenge both the viability and desirability of conventional values,
economic structures and social arrangements. It would offer a positive vision of a civilized
form of globalization for the whole human family’’ (Raskin et al., 2007).
Unlike the anti-civilizationists, spiritual tranformationalists, and localized sustainability
movements, GTI does not thoroughly reject globalization; instead, it sees globalization as a
necessary, intermediate step towards a sustainable global economy or ‘‘planetary phase of
civilization’’ (Raskin et al., 2007). The real question concerning globalization then is whether
it will drive the future into ‘‘conventional globalization, barbarism, or a great historical
transition’’ (Raskin et al., 2007). In contrast to ‘‘eco-communalism’’ (another term for
localized sustainability movements), the great transition to the ‘‘new sustainability
paradigm’’ attempts to ‘‘change the character of global civilization rather than retreat into
localism’’ (Raskin et al., 2007). It would reshape and ‘‘civilize it’’ through a ‘‘lifestyle wedge,’’
a ‘‘values-led shift toward an alternative global vision’’ (Raskin et al., 2007).
Earth community
A similar movement for an alternative future based on new cultural values is that of David
Korten (2006) in The Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Community. One difference,
however, is that Korten places globalization within the broader historical perspective of
5,000 years of Empire. From this perspective, Korten echoes the criticisms of the
postmodernists and anti-civilizationalists since, drawing upon select anthropological
sources, he affirms that the modus operandi of 5,000 years of male-dominated, warrior
civilization is responsible for the current world crisis, and that it is only when this civilization of
self-destructive empire gives way to the direction of a new intercultural and spiritual
consciousness will the paradigm shift to earth community, which is, at least in this respect,
similar to the ‘‘new sustainability paradigm’’ and ‘‘planetary phase of civilization’’ that Raskin
et al. (2007) call for.
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According to Korten (2006), Empire, with a capital ‘‘E’’ as a ‘‘label for the hierarchical
ordering of human relationships based on the principle of domination,’’ is a mentality that
embraces ‘‘material excess for the ruling classes, honors the dominator power of death and
violence, denies the feminine principle, and suppresses realization of the potentials of
human maturity’’ (p. 20). On the other hand, ‘‘earth community’’ represents the ‘‘egalitarian
democratic ordering of relationships based on the principle of partnership. The mentality of
earth community embraces material sufficiency for everyone, honors the generative power
of life and love, seeks a balance of feminine and masculine principles, and nurtures a
realization of the mature potential of our human nature’’ (p. 20).
Thus, the challenge of the future is the decision that humankind will collectively make about
the opportunity for a great transition: will humankind see through the pathology of empire, its
illusions and destructive behavior, and embrace earth community as the new sustainability
paradigm, or will it remain trapped, hypnotized, and subdued by those illusions while Empire
runs its destructive, runaway course, turning most of the planet into a living hell? However,
assuming that a transition to earth community is the preferred future, it is important to
consider this question from an integral perspective and the imperative of evolution, for earth
community should not be merely a utopian ideal with unrealistic expectations, which do not
clearly delineate the means of realization within the context of an understanding of the
cultural evolution of humanity.
The integral perspective on transformation and postmodernism
In fact, McIntosh (2007) describes such utopian hopes for global transformation as
‘‘sentimental’’ postmodern idealism, ‘‘charming, but hardly realistic’’ (p. 73)[24]. While
recognizing that ‘‘some kind of significant transition is now needed,’’ McIntosh not only
questions whether a ‘‘revolutionary change’’ is realistic but whether it would indeed produce
the kind of ‘‘sustainable advance that our civilization requires’’ (p. 73). In other words, he
concludes, this transformation must come about ‘‘as a result of evolution, not revolution’’
(p. 73). Such calls for a ‘‘great awakening’’ ring hollow because:
. . . they are usually addressed to humanity as a whole without regard for the fact that the majority
of humanity is not able to make meaning in the way that the postmodernists implore. Thus,
because most postmodernists generally fail to understand how consciousness and culture
actually evolve through a series of specific stages, they do not really know how to bring about the
change of mind that they seek (p. 77).
From an integral perspective, postmodern consciousness, which comprises approximately
5 percent of the world population, with an estimated 10 percent of wealth and political power
(McIntosh, 2007, p. 56), does not seem to understand that the majority ‘‘. . . of the world’s
population has not even reached the modernist stage, and therefore is not going to adopt
the values of postmodern consciousness anytime soon. Thus, we need to find solutions that
don’t require the entire world to become postmodern in some kind of miraculous
transformation’’ (McIntosh, 2007, p. 77).
At the same time, however, even though the ‘‘prime directive’’ concerning cultural evolution
is that stages of consciousness cannot be forced, the world crisis or ‘‘global problematique’’
grows more and more serious as time passes by. As McIntosh (2007) acknowledges, the
question now before us is a question of time:
. . . whether these problems must reach a point of acute crisis before they exert sufficient pressure
to produce the kind of cultural revolution that will result in their alleviation. It may indeed take a
global crisis to trigger the emergence of the integral worldview in a critical mass of people.
Hopefully, our culture will evolve fast enough to prevent the kind of crisis that could actually cause
culture to regress (p. 78).
Thus, McIntosh believes that adoption of integral values is the only way to ‘‘do more than just
hope’’ (p. 78). He explains the role that integral politics can play to ‘‘moderate and restrain
postmodernism’s radicalism so that important contributions can be better integrated into the
politics of the developed world. Integral politics must therefore concentrate on the two areas
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where postmodernism needs the most development: moderation of its often staunch
antimodern bias, and education regarding the ‘fragile ecology of markets’’’ (p. 100).
Postmodernism’s anger, angst, and absolute condemnation of modernism has often only
brought about its alienation from the political arena such that it has become ‘‘more of a
hindrance than a help.’’ Ironically, continues McIntosh, postmodernism’s ‘‘. . . general
disgust for the crimes of modernism is itself a demonstration that modernism resulted in
evolutionary progress – modernism’s success is evidenced by how it has produced its own
transcendence in the form of the postmodern worldview’’ (pp. 100-101). Furthermore,
postmodernism is often so anti-business that it blinds itself to the ‘‘fragile ecology of
markets.’’ Just as ecosystems are fragile, since markets are also dynamic systems, they can
also ‘‘be easily destroyed by too much external pressure. And this is even more true in the
case of most individual companies, which exist within a narrow and fragile balance of supply
and demand’’ (p. 102). It is one thing to implement an international system that is able to
regulate corporations and businesses to comply with environmental and labor standards,
but it is quite another to call to revoke corporate charters and to propose such stringent
environmental requirements that businesses can no longer thrive. From the integral
perspective, it is also important to recognize the contributions that corporations make to
improve the quality of life; corporations also play a role in the evolution of society and human
civilization.
The plural quadrants of the IF framework
Will the emergence of integral consciousness and its worldview be enough to avert the crisis
and/or collapse of industrial civilization? Considering the fact that the integral worldview is
held by less than 1 percent of the world’s population and has less than 1 percent of the
world’s estimated wealth and political power (McIntosh, 2007, p. 84), the prospect seems
bleak. More important, perhaps, is the question concerning what will emerge from the great
collapse and chaos of the twenty-first century. Will humanity meet the evolutionary
imperative to advance to the next stage, or will it regress? Can the vision of earth community
become the basis of a new world culture and economy, or is that just a utopian fantasy? Will
humanity adopt a vision of a sustainable future based on natural capitalism and real wealth,
or will it continue on the crash course of a runaway economy based on fantasy wealth in a
dysfunctional and unsustainable capitalist system? Finally, will empire disintegrate and
globalization be replaced by global sustainable development?
Within the IF framework, the various futures schools of thought are interrelated and dynamic
(see Figure 3). They should have a healthy give-and-take, push-and-pull relationship;
however, as you will notice in Figures 1 and 3, there is a great chasm between the
anti-civilizationists and techno-futures in the singular quadrants just as there is a great
chasm between global empire and permaculture in the plural quadrants. The rift and clash
between these futures schools of thought is irreconcilable due to the Collapse of the
Kosmos, which resulted in a cracked image of the future within modernism – when scientism
began to dominate and colonize the internal quadrants. As a matter of fact, the left hand,
internal quadrants were ‘‘flattened’’ such that they became mere shadows of the right hand,
external-oriented quadrants (see Figure 2). Consequently, the futures schools of thought
portrayed in the left hand quadrants are emerging, alternative images of the future mostly
based on the postmodern rejection of industrial civilization. In the LL plural quadrant, in the
line of development from alternative, localized pockets of sustainable communities such as
permaculture, ‘‘we’’ find the expression of a new culture and worldview that has the potential
to network and link up with the efforts of the great transition initiative to realize earth
community. Earth community also has the opportunity to adopt the integral worldview, which
should increase its legitimacy while interacting with the efforts of GSD in the LR quadrant, for
it is the LR quadrant that must express the internal transformation of cultural values and
worldview taking place within the LL quadrant. In this way, the direction of change will
represent a profound reversal of relations; rather than the external-oriented, ‘‘objective’’
quadrant dominating and colonizing the internal-oriented, ‘‘subjective’’ LL quadrant as its
shadow, for the first time in history, the LL quadrant will provide the direction and impetus for
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Figure 3 Dynamic interactions within the if framework
transformation in the LR quadrant: the ‘‘mind’’ will finally find its center and assume its proper
role over the objective world. Then, for its part, GSD in the LR quadrant must nurture and
support Earth Community materially while learning from its real world practice in
sustainability in order to realize global sustainability even as Empire crumbles and falls.
Furthermore, earth community must also link up and interact with the spiritual
transformationalists, who provide the spiritual nourishment, consciousness, and
transcendence as sustenance for the peaceful, loving, and harmonious relationships with
the natural environment and all living beings who share it; the wisdom and discipline of
spiritual giants can longer be neglected, ignored, and dismissed, for it is this wisdom and
spiritual discipline that provides the essential ingredients for a life worth living, which is the
proper direction and future for a truly ‘‘rich’’ civilization.
Notes
1. Also, see Morgan (2009) for a more extensive overview of Polak’s image of the future in modern
times.
2. These examples were confirmed via email correspondence with Peter Bishop, Chair of the
University of Houston Futures Studies program; however, as Dr Bishop related to me, they are ‘‘also
as I remember them.’’ Furthermore, Bishop attributes the conceptualization of the three futures
schools of thought to C. Dede, who also taught graduate-level futures studies courses at UHCL
during that time. However, through my e-mail contact with Dr Dede, I was informed that it was more
of a ‘‘collective product’’ from discussions at the Univ. of Mass. futures program (according to Dede,
the ‘‘first in the country’’ in the ‘‘early 70s’’) rather than something that Dede would consider as his
conceptualization alone. For more information on these three futures schools of thought, see
Bowman et al. (1978).
3. ‘‘Flatland,’’ writes Wilber (2000), of the ‘‘Descended grid,’’ has ‘‘marked the entire modern and
postmodern condition’’ (p. 389). It is, essentially, the collapse of the left hand (interior) dimensions of
the Kosmos into their right hand (exterior) correlates – it ‘‘collapsed interior depths into observable
surfaces,’’ (p. 132) or ‘‘flatland,’’ resulting in a monological perspective on life. Figure 2, adapted
from Wilber (2000, p. 415), illustrates how the flatland perspective has obliterated the left-hand
quadrants such that they are merely shadows of right-hand quadrants.
4. Ken Wilber (2000) makes a similar observation that ‘‘. . . every stage of evolution eventually runs into
its own inherent limitations, and these may act as triggers for the self transcending drive. The
inherent limitations create a type of turmoil, even chaos, and the system either breaks down
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(self-dissolution) or escapes this chaos by evolving to a higher degree of order (self-transcendence)
– so called order out of chaos. This new and higher order escapes the limitations of its predecessor
but then introduces its own limitations and problems that cannot be solved on its own level’’
(pp. 73-74). Both Wallerstein and Wilber are applying chaos theory, as put forth by E. Laszlo (1987),
to the evolution of historical, world systems.
5. Not to say that the capitalist system will necessarily be completely abolished since one distinct
possibility is that it will survive in a greatly modified form while other scenarios suggest that the world
capitalist system will not survive, to be completely replaced by an alternate economic system that
reflects the new paradigm.
6. Wallerstein (2004) writes that it is at once a world-economy and capitalist system, which gives
priority to the ‘‘endless accumulation of capital’’ and is held together by ‘‘the efficacy of the division
of labor’’ globally (p. 24).
7. These ‘‘commonalities’’ and ‘‘interactions’’ will be elaborated on further in the conclusion.
8. This refers only to Wallerstein’s World Systems Analysis (Wallerstein, 2004). It does not refer to some
of Wallerstein’s other writings where he may have focused more on the American empire.
9. Though this empire has been around at least 100 years, as I will briefly relate.
10. As quoted by Berman (2006), p. 113.
11. As Berman (2006) points out, the Open Door notes of 1899-1900 advocated not ‘‘traditional
colonialism but rather the policy of ‘an open door through which America’s preponderant economic
strength would enter and dominate all underdeveloped areas of the world.’’’ Shortly thereafter, in
1902, ‘‘Princeton University President Woodrow Wilson wrote that overseas expansion was the
economic frontier that would replace the American continent as the territorial frontier. In effect, the
Open Door notes were merely the doctrine of Manifest Destiny gone global’’ (p. 103). Was this
global ‘‘expansionist’’ strategy, in reality, American imperialism? As Johnson (2004) comments,
Americans have always resisted regarding it as such, and have instead preferred to use more
politically correct euphemisms. For example, Roosevelt professed to be ‘‘not an imperialist but an
‘expansionist.’ Arguing for the annexation of the Philippines, he said, ‘there is not an imperialist in the
country . . . Expansion? Yes . . . Expansion has been the law of our national growth’’’ (p. 29).
12. As quoted by Berman (2006), p. 142.
13. The terms ‘‘positive’’ and ‘‘negative’’ freedom were originally coined by Hegel. Isaiah Berlin also
expounded upon this two-sided nature of freedom.
14. The following links provide ample evidence of the extensive use of futures methods by the USAF,
CIA, Pentagon, and NIC: www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/future03/future03a.htm; www.au.af.mil/au/awc/
awcgate/awc-futr.htm#predictions; www.thomaspmbarnett.com/pnm/bibliography/chapter1.htm
(Barnett, 2004); www.mapcruzin.com/climate-collapse-news/3566_AbruptClimateChange.pdf;
www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2015.html; www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/bw1103.pdf (Center for
a World in Balance, 1992; Center for Transformation Studies, n.d.; Central Intelligence Agency,
2003; National Intelligence Council, 2004; Phillips, n.d.).
15. Such futurists can be considered as ‘‘neutral methodologists,’’ who seek to shield themselves from
the controversy of ideology through a single-minded, narrow emphasis on futures methodologies
alone, as if futures/foresight is only a matter of developing methodological tools, which are then
neatly divorced from those who hire and wield them in order to ‘‘capture the market’’ and dominate
the business future, which is at the same time interlinked with the future of the American empire. Of
course, neutrality and objectivity are necessary for social science research; nevertheless, such
tools cannot be divorced from their contexts to conceal the purposes of those who use them, nor can
the exclusive focus on such tools be used as a form of denial about the overall crisis of the world
capitalist system and industrial civilization.
16. For example, as Negri and Hardt (2005) relate, the second Gulf War of 2003 was a preemptive war,
calling ‘‘for legitimization primarily on the basis of results. A military and/or police power will be
granted legitimacy as long and only as long as it is effective in rectifying global disorders – not
necessarily bringing peace but maintaining order. By this logic a power such as the US military can
exercise violence that may or may not be legal or moral and as long as that violence results in the
reproduction of imperial order it will be legitimated’’ (p. 30).
17. http://worldinbalance.net/intagreements/1987-brundtland.php
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18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
19. www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_01.shtml
20. See the Center for a World in Balance website: http://worldinbalance.net/intagreements/1992-rioagenda21.php
21. As quoted by Korten (2009), p. 40.
22. Also, one might add, stop government subsidization of large corporations.
23. According to the anticivilizationalist, Derrick Jensen (2006), cities depend on the appropriation and
often plunder of non-renewable natural resources from the surrounding countryside (p. 34).
24. Here McIntosh is primarily referring to the ‘‘affirmative’’ postmodernists rather than skeptical
postmodernists. Affirmatives posit alternative solutions to the problems of modernity and industrial
civilization and are sometimes associated with the New Age movement. Skeptics, on the other hand,
do not usually offer alternatives. For more on this distinction between postmodernists see Rosenau
(1992).
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Corresponding author
Dennis R. Morgan can be contacted at: hufsdenprof@yahoo.com
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