Contemporary Futurist Thought

Contemporary Futurist Thought describes recent thinking about the future, dealing with both the hopes and the fears expressed in modern times concerning what potentially lies ahead. There are many such hopes and fears perhaps an overpowering number, competing with each other and swirling about in the collective mind of humanity. Psychologist and futurist Tom Lombardo describes this mental universe of inspiring dreams and threatening premonitions regarding the future. The book begins with an in-depth examination of the highly influential literary genre of science fiction, which Dr. Lombardo identifies as the mythology of the future. He next describes the modern academic discipline of future studies which attempts to apply scientific methods and principles to an understanding of the future. Social and technological trends in the twentieth century are then reviewed, setting the stage for an analysis of the great contemporary transformation occurring in our present world. Given the powerful and pervasive changes taking place across the globe and throughout all aspects of human life, the questions arise: Where are we potentially heading and, perhaps more importantly, where should we be heading? The final chapter provides an extensive review of different answers to these questions. Describing theories and approaches that highlight science, technology, culture, human psychology, and religion, among other areas of focus, as well as integrative views which attempt to provide big pictures of all aspects of human life, the book provides a rich and broad overview of contemporary ideas and visions about the future. In the conclusion, Dr. Lombardo assesses and synthesizes these myriad perspectives, proposing a set of key ideas central to understanding the future. This book completes the study of future consciousness begun in its companion volume, The Evolution of Future Consciousness. These two volumes, rich in historical detail and concise observations on the interrelatedness of a wide range of interdisciplinary topics, are a significant contribution to the field of future studies and a valuable resource for educators, consultants, and anyone wishing to explore the significance of thinking about the future.

Are there any unique qualities that humans possess that make us special within the world of nature? Since the beginnings of recorded history, we have pondered this question. What if many of humanitys highest qualities and unique achievements, such as technology, civilization, morals, self-consciousness, freedom of choice, religion, and science are all built upon a single distinctive human capacity? It may be that our highly evolved mental power to envision and think about the future is at the core of our greatest accomplishments and most unique human attributes. In The Evolution of Future Consciousness, psychologist and futurist Tom Lombardo examines the human ability to be conscious of the future, to create ideas, images, goals, and plans about the future, to think about these mental creations and use them in directing ones actions and ones life. In the opening chapter, he looks at the psychology of future consciousness and its values and benefits, as well as ways to enhance this human ability. Subsequent chapters describe the emergence of future consciousness in pre-historic times and how it was critical in the development of love and bonding, the family, tools, and human aggression and hunting; the central importance of the future and time in early myths, religions, and classical philosophy; and the rise of modern futurist thinking, covering the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Western Enlightenment, and the Romantic counter-reaction. The book concludes with Darwin and how the theory of evolution revolutionized humanitys conception of both the past and the future. In its companion volume, Contemporary Futurist Thought, Tom Lombardo completes his survey of the historical development of future consciousness, discussing significant ideas and approaches to the future in the last century, including science fiction, future studies, and an extensive array of recent theories and paradigms of the future.

How do our unique conscious minds reflect and amplify nature’s vast evolutionary process? This book provides a scientifically informed, psychologically holistic approach to understanding and enhancing our future consciousness, serving as a guide for creating a realistic, constructive, and ethical future. Thomas Lombardo reveals how we can flourish in the flow of evolution and create a prosperous future for ourselves, human society and the planet.

Both madcap cookbook and manifesto on Futurism, Marinetti's exuberant and entertaining book has been described as one of 'the best artistic jokes of the century' No other cultural force except the early twentieth-century avant-garde movement Futurism has produced a provocative work about art disguised as an easy-to-read cookbook. Part manifesto, part artistic joke, Fillippo Marinetti's The Futurist Cookbook is a collection of recipes, experiments, declamations and allegorical tales. Here are recipes for ice cream on the moon; candied atmospheric electricities; nocturnal love feasts; sculpted meats. Marinetti also sets out his argument for abolishing pasta as ill-suited to modernity, and advocates a style of cuisine that will increase creativity. Although at times betraying its author's nationalistic sympathies, The Futurist Cookbook is funny, provocative, whimsical, disdainful of sluggish traditions and delighted by the velocity and promise of modernity. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was born in 1876 to Italian parents and grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, where he was nearly expelled from his Jesuit school for championing scandalous literature. He then studied in Paris and obtained a law degree in Italy before turning to literature. In 1909 he wrote the infamous Futurist Manifesto, which championed violence, speed and war, and proclaimed the unity of art and life. Marinetti's life was fraught with controversy: he fought a duel with a hostile critic, was subject to an obscenity trial, and was a staunch supporter of Italian Fascism. Alongside his literary activities, he was a war correspondent during the Italo-Turkish War and served on the Eastern Front in World War II, despite being in his sixties. He died in 1944. 'A paean to sensual freedom, optimism and childlike, amoral innocence ... it has only once been answered, by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World' Lesley Chamberlain

Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future: Collected Essays Thomas Lombardo, Ph. D. Center for Future Consciousness Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future is a profound, deeply important, and timely book that concerned people and change agents everywhere will want to read. Copthorne Macdonald The Wisdom Page As a college professor and teacher of psychology, philosophy, and the future, Tom Lombardos mind has been drawn toward such questions as: How will the human mind evolve in the future? In fact, how should the human mind evolve and improve itself? What might be the standards and ideals that guide this evolution? And what role does ethical development (or evolution) play in this process? The twenty previously published articles collected together in Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future chronicle the development of Dr. Lombardos ideas on these related questions and topics, and together constitute a theoretical perspective on the nature of the human mind, on how to best educate and evolve the human mind in the future, and how to integrate into this vision the central importance of both future consciousness (as a key dimension of human consciousness) and ethical character virtues. True to its title, three key themes emerge in this collection: wisdom, consciousness, and the future, and all three concepts tie into the authors main contribution to the field of futures studies, future consciousness. Numerous essays (for example, Evolving Future Consciousness through the Pursuit of Virtue and The Evolution and Psychology of Future Consciousness) address the nature of future consciousness, a term Dr. Lombardo defines as the complex set of mental capacities all humans possess for imagining, conceptualizing, and approaching the future. Aside from describing the psychological make-up of future consciousness, which includes emotional, motivational, cognitive, and personal dimensions, the author also explains in numerous essays (such as Developing Constructive and Creative Attitudes about the Future) how to proactively enhance ones future consciousness. Other essays deal directly with consciousness and the human mind in the broadest sense (as in The Future Evolution of the Ecology of Mind) and connect this general area of inquiry with the futurist question of how consciousness and mind might evolve in the future. Dr. Lombardo proposes that the progressive emergence of cosmic consciousness is the central evolutionary trajectory of the human mind. Hence, this book contains essays on both consciousness of the future and consciousness in the future. While the discussion of consciousness and the future fascinates in its own right, Dr. Lombardo is a holistic and deep thinker who searches for connections among myriad philosophical topics. A number of essays address the question of ethics and virtue and how such concepts connect with both future consciousness and the evolution of consciousness in the future. He then expands on this theme to explore how virtue applies to the goals of higher education in essays such as Ethical Character Development and Personal and Academic Excellence. In thinking through the concept of virtue and how it applies to consciousness, education, and the future, Dr. Lombardo emphasizes the one key virtuewisdomthat provides the center of gravity around which all other character virtues revolve. Indeed, if any one concept unites the majority of essays in this collection, it is wisdom. In The Wisdom of Future Consciousness, the author argues that wisdom is the highest expression of future consciousness, and systematically describes the numerous connections between wisdom and heightened future consciousness. Further, according to the author, wisdom is the key ideal that we should model and teach within education, now and in the future. This argume

The artists’ books made in Russia between 1910 and 1915 are like no others. Unique in their fusion of the verbal, visual, and sonic, these books are meant to be read, looked at, and listened to. Painters and poets—including Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, Mikhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich, and Vladimir Mayakovsky— collaborated to fabricate hand-lithographed books, for which they invented a new language called zaum (a neologism meaning “beyond the mind”), which was distinctive in its emphasis on “sound as such” and its rejection of definite logical meaning. At the heart of this volume are close analyses of two of the most significant and experimental futurist books: Mirskontsa (Worldbackwards) and Vzorval’ (Explodity). In addition, Nancy Perloff examines the profound differences between the Russian avant-garde and Western art movements, including futurism, and she uncovers a wide-ranging legacy in the midcentury global movement of sound and concrete poetry (the Brazilian Noigandres group, Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Henri Chopin), contemporary Western conceptual art, and the artist’s book. Sound recordings of zaum poems featured in the book are available at www.getty.edu.

Life courses, both professional and personal, are often directed by unplanned experiences. At crossroads, which path is followed and which hard choices are made can change the direction of one's future. Wendell Bell's life illustrates how totally unforeseen events can shape individual lives. As he notes, despite our hopes and our plans for the future, there is also serendipity, feedback, twists and turns, chance and circumstance, all of which shape our futures with sometimes surprising results. In Bell's case, such twists and turns of chance and circumstance led to his role in developing the new field of futures studies. In Memories of the Future, Bell recognizes the importance of images of the future and the effect of these images on events to come. Such images-dreams, visions, or whatever we call them-help to determine our actions, which, in turn, help shape the future, although not always in ways that we intend. Bell illustrates, partly with the story of his own life, how people remember such past images of the future and how the memories of them linger and are often used to judge the real outcomes of their lives. This is a fascinating view of the work of an important social scientist and the people and events that helped define his life. It is also about American higher education, especially from the end of World War II through the 1960s and 1970s, a period of educational transformation that included the spread of the merit system; the increase in ethnic, racial, gender, and social diversity among students and faculty; and a massive increase in research and knowledge.