Ariel Colonomos
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190603649
- eISBN:
- 9780190638474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190603649.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
As the four paradoxes laid out in this book collectively attest to, the social demand for the future is ambivalent. On the one hand, in the context of our knowledge-based societies, we develop ...
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As the four paradoxes laid out in this book collectively attest to, the social demand for the future is ambivalent. On the one hand, in the context of our knowledge-based societies, we develop sophisticated institutions where theory meets practice and where considerable efforts are made to predict and forecast the future. On the other, ideas produced in those settings have limited informational value and, indeed, the social analysis of collective behavior throughout this book explains why there is great toleration for these limitations. There is another reason at the individual level worth mentioning. Psychologically, individuals are reluctant to envision the future (“end of history illusion”), one of the symptoms of this preference being their unwillingness to know how and when their lives will end.Less
As the four paradoxes laid out in this book collectively attest to, the social demand for the future is ambivalent. On the one hand, in the context of our knowledge-based societies, we develop sophisticated institutions where theory meets practice and where considerable efforts are made to predict and forecast the future. On the other, ideas produced in those settings have limited informational value and, indeed, the social analysis of collective behavior throughout this book explains why there is great toleration for these limitations. There is another reason at the individual level worth mentioning. Psychologically, individuals are reluctant to envision the future (“end of history illusion”), one of the symptoms of this preference being their unwillingness to know how and when their lives will end.
