The Key to the 21st Century

Author: Jean-Marie Dru
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: "Don't expect anything from the 21st century," Gabriel García Márquez said, "the 21st century expects everything from you." But do we have the key to open the 21st century? Do we have the tools to grasp the direction of the 21st century's progress? Are we prepared for the 21st century? There are still doubts. The future seems increasingly uncertain and increasingly difficult to interpret, blurred in uncertainty, frankly, sometimes unreachable. We stand at the door of the future, carrying many answers. But are they the right answers? Many questions come to mind, but are they still relevant? Are all these tools truly useful, or merely outdated clichés? Ilya Prigogine said, "We cannot predict the future, but we can help shape it." Because the future is not predetermined. Indeed, the future does not depend solely on us, but to a large extent, it is in the hands of each of us, influenced by the sum of human behavior. To meet the challenges of the 21st century in a timely manner, people must start by asking the right questions, identifying possible solutions, and must not wait until it is too late. This is the role of future-oriented research and forward-thinking—trying to stay a step ahead in the game, like a chess player who must analyze the potential of each move and as far as possible predict the movement of each piece. The Kantian tradition of questions—“What can I know?”，“What should I do?” and “What can I hope for?”—must be reconstructed from a future-oriented perspective, replacing "I" with "we." Therefore, instead of saying "What can I know?" we say "What can we know?" Instead of saying "What should I do?" we say "What should we do?" Instead of saying "What can I hope for?" we say "What can we hope for?" Instead of saying "What is a person?" we say "Who are we?" "Who will we become?" According to Richard Rorty, the question of "Who" ceases to pursue an eternal question about the future. But this question about the future is not about seeking a prophecy, but about seeking a plan. The question "Who are we?" becomes a way of inquiring how we should jointly build the future. The book "The Key to Opening the 21st Century" is a collection of essays dedicated to future-oriented research, with UNESCO at the center of this long-term thinking. With the crucial support of then-Director-General Federico Mayor, the Office for Analysis and Forecasting launched the "21st Century Roundtables" and "21st Century Dialogues" series in September 1997, through the exchange of ideas among scientists, intellectuals, creators, decision-makers, and leaders, to improve our preparation for the future. Establishing this world forum for future-oriented thinking reflects UNESCO's increasing emphasis on forward-looking and long-term projects. It can be seen as the realization of Paul Valéry's wish to see the establishment of a "society of ideas" alongside the establishment of a "national society," which aligns with UNESCO's fundamental purpose. From the beginning, we envisioned this as a forum for future dialogue, and "The Key to Opening the 21st Century" is the essence of this dialogue. This dialogue is open—offering a broad perspective on the future, like Keats' "magic box, opening on the foam of a dangerous sea"—to the concept of dialogue, because exploring the future without exchanging different viewpoints, sparking the fire of debate and controversy is meaningless, especially for UNESCO. The 21st century cannot be simplified into an era of monologue, nor even an era of technology; we believe that forward-looking thinking can only be a "dialogue" of the future. At the end, the forum we are concerned with will open the way for a long-term project. Given the current hegemony of short-sightedness—which subjects us to the atrocities of financial, media, and political emergencies—only by beginning to restore the concept of "sustainability" and long-term planning can we hope for this. The "keys" contained in this book are meant to open, not to lock. If you like, you can see them as musical keys in a future score, rather than the bars of a spiritual prison, ideological dogmatism, the dogma of order, or the misleading and often fatal utopian lies. Preparing for the future not only requires an ethical framework for discussion—referring to the central concept in German philosophy from Karl-Otto Apel to Jürgen Habermas—but also a future-oriented ethics, which we have outlined elsewhere. Laying the foundation for such an ethics (considering not only this generation but also our children and grandchildren) requires societies to develop greater capacity for foresight, prediction, and long-term vision. It is commendable that UNESCO accepted this challenge, and the strategy it adopted emphasizes the necessity of strengthening capabilities, grasping trends in the fields of knowledge and science, and prioritizing future-oriented research. As Edgar Morin pointed out, at the beginning of the 21st century, we reflect on Pascal's paradoxical and prophetic words: "So let us strive to think seriously; thought is the basis of morality." This is one of the goals of UNESCO's future-oriented research projects. Clichéd language has exhausted thought and severely damaged the UNESCO system, offering little help in addressing the challenges of the 21st century. As Brazilian philosopher Eduardo Portella said, our task is to revitalize our language. Revitalizing language means revitalizing thought. This, in turn, will help promote "mental ecology," as advocated by Gregory Bateson, and contribute to the "sustainable development" of humanity. Unless sustainable development is built on "sustainable thinking," "sustainable ethics," and "sustainable culture," how can it hope to be established and maintained in the long run? With the help of Edgar Morin, Candido Mendes, and the International Council for Social Sciences, we initiated reflections on future ethics; these questions serve as starting points for reflecting on future ethics. The table of contents of "The Key to Opening the 21st Century" shows the possibilities of applying future-oriented research. The issues, challenges, and questions are so vast! However, as the respected contributors gathered here point out, solutions can be found in many fields. What we lack is clear and accurate public information, a consciousness more enduring than the emotions stirred by disasters, and truly enlightened and democratic debates on major decisions—most importantly, political will. But we can no longer avoid the central issues of this work, which represent a severe test for humanity in future-oriented thinking. How can people predict the future in such an uncertain world? The environment may pose a threat to the survival of humanity and the biosphere, and in the face of "wars against the environment," how can we lay the foundation for a "natural contract"? What will be the future of population dynamics and migration in the 21st century? How will human society respond to "aging"? With biotechnology, are we moving toward a better world or a "Brave New World"? How will science, along with political and ethical will, meet the challenges of new and recurring diseases? How do we address chemical pollution and "invisible pollution"? Will water still flow freely in the 21st century? Through efficiency revolutions and the use of solar and renewable energy, can we control energy, diversify it, and thus limit the scale of global climate change? Can we master artificial intelligence, or will we become its slaves? What will the future of conquering space be? How do we envision the relationship between identity, creativity, and education? Should we think in terms of a new cultural contract? What are the new frontiers of culture? Will globalization intensify cultural uncertainty and violence, or are we moving toward new forms of cultural exchange? How will the key concept of heritage develop? Will the 21st century witness the disappearance of half or more of the world's languages? How do we protect linguistic diversity? What is the future of literature, passion, and the of art and technology? What is the future of distance education? How should we practically address lifelong education for all—one of the greatest enterprises of the 21st century? How should we confront the future of the information society, cyberspace, media, and the "virtual"? Should we lay the foundation for a new social contract? Will we finally learn how to live together in the 21st century? What is the future of democracy, human rights, our children, work, and the city? Is utopia dead, or will it be reborn in new forms in the 21st century? Are we entering a single world? Should we urgently lay the foundation for an international contract? Is globalization a trap, or does it call for us to establish a global compact on the basis of a new social contract? Are we moving toward the hegemony of several "global cities"? What kind of development do we envision for the 21st century? How do we fight poverty and exclusion? Will there be an "African miracle"? All these questions form different stages on the journey "toward the center of the future," and "The Key to Opening the 21st Century" attempts to map new routes and pathways on this journey. However, it is important to understand the limits and necessity of this exercise. Paradoxically, future-oriented research works alongside both science and ignorance. At this point, it shares the same situation as UNESCO; according to its charter, it is mandated to act at the crossroads of education and prejudice, knowledge and ignorance. Struggling against prejudice, depriving knowledge, illiteracy, and the abuse of power by various authorities is its fundamental purpose. UNESCO's scientific and educational mission necessarily includes future-oriented research, as it is responsible for aligning the organization's core work with the direction of time. By definition, education looks toward the future: it is the immediate transmission, a responsibility to future generations, and an endeavor that is forward-looking. The exchange of ideas between sciences should cast a light on the dark, uncertain, and mysterious future, which is still a blank space, as it is by definition non-existent but always about to appear, or destined to appear when time is ripe. Thinking about the future implies explicitly accepting the paradox between forward-thinking and future-oriented research: the more powerful the scientific tools people use to analyze the edges of uncertainty, the more mysterious and incomprehensible things they discover. Socrates said that the more one knows, the more conclusions one draws, and the more ignorant one becomes. Montaigne said that the more one knows about their own ignorance, the more one wants to ask "What do I know?" and then further ask "What do we not know in what we do not know?" With the rise of future-oriented research, we see today an odd struggle between the known and the unknown. In recent years, UNESCO has seized the opportunity to reinterpret its fundamental mission in a broader framework, repositioning it as future challenges and forward-looking tasks. What mission did the founders of UNESCO assign to each country? This mission is both crucial and problematic: according to the UN Charter, it promotes cooperation among nations through science, culture, and education, contributes to peace and security, and strengthens the universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights and fundamental freedoms, regardless of race, gender, or religion. This is essentially a political task. Translating Max Weber's words, it includes the art of managing and constructing time, and politicians should be concerned with the future and their responsibility to it. For centuries, politics has been linked to science and the boldest advances in knowledge, which have been useful in fulfilling this responsibility to the future. But like science, the progress of knowledge is also embedded in power games, and more so, it can unite prejudice, ignorance, blind self-interest, and cold self-interest. This is why the UNESCO Charter insists on encouraging "cooperation in all sectors of knowledge activities in all countries and helping to maintain, increase, and disseminate knowledge," and we must never forget that the goals of politics, science, and future-oriented thinking cannot be separated from ethics. As we enter the 21st century, it interprets Pascal's maxim: "Let us strive to think seriously; thought is the basis of morality." Gabriel García Márquez also said, "Don't expect anything from the 21st century, the 21st century expects everything from you." The key to "The Key to Opening the 21st Century" is future ethics: not an ethics of the future that is always postponed, but a current ethics for the future. Are we prepared for the 21st century? Doubts exist. The future seems increasingly uncertain, increasingly difficult to decipher, blurred in non-determinism, frankly, sometimes hard to discern. If we cannot predict the future, at least we can help shape it. To meet the challenges of the 21st century in a timely manner, people must first ask the right questions, then seek possible solutions (if there are indeed solutions and it is not too late), which is precisely the role of future-oriented research and forward-thinking shown in this book. These ideas stem from some exchanges initiated by UNESCO among scientists, intellectuals, artists, decision-makers, and leaders in public life. This book provides a forum for open debate, discussions filled with the spirit of a new ethics, covering broad issues, challenges, and solutions from different perspectives. In short, this book strives to contribute to the establishment of a future ethics. What will the 21st century be like? What will the future, humanity, culture, politics, and globalization be like, and how will they develop, compared to the 20th century? In the late 1990s, UNESCO initiated exchanges among scientists, intellectuals, artists, decision-makers, and leaders in public life to explore possible future scenarios. Discussions on future-oriented research and forward-thinking by former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Irish President Mary Robinson, and renowned physicist Ilya Prigogine provided humanity with a key to opening the doors of the 21st century. As we enter the 21st century, the third industrial revolution and new forms of globalization are drastically changing our society, presenting us with many new challenges. The world and human endeavors show richer potential, becoming more complex and interdependent, but also more uncertain than ever before. It is particularly important that we distance ourselves from the centrifugal forces generated by the accelerated pace of change, because the ideal of "progress" can easily lead us away from human values. In this context, grasping the connections between things, linking various ideas, and making them consistent and relevant become crucial responses. But we must also learn how to distinguish interventions that will ultimately be forgotten from new harmonies that hold true change. Our task is to explore the immense richness, diversity, complexity, interdependence, and uncertainty of the future by fostering connections among disciplines, traditions, cultures, and human communities. From its inception, UNESCO has had the function of interdisciplinary and forward-thinking, which is essential for any meaningful action. After World War II, there was an urgent need to ensure that humanity would not suffer such brutal acts again. UNESCO armed itself with the weapons of peace—education, science, culture, and communication—and first took on a preventive mission, making it a meeting place for various ideas. The effectiveness of its actions depends on its ability to think about the future. To measure the scope of 21st-century challenges and seek possible methods of observation, we must be able to accept various methods, disciplines, and cultures, and provide them with a forum for openly discussing the future. This is the intention of UNESCO's "21st Century Roundtables" and "21st Century Dialogues." The essence of these exchanges, after some selection, has been reproduced in "The Key to Opening the 21st Century." New insights emerge only through the exchange of ideas and personnel, most of which take the form of questions. This book is dedicated to young people around the world: the keys contained in it are for them to discover, because the new century has just begun and belongs to them. Learning to jointly interpret the signs of the future and transform them into shared ideals and cooperative projects is the first step in learning to live together.