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ISBN 0-444-41053-8 Fred Polak studied law and économies in Amsterdam. Be- fore the Second World War he THE IMAGE OF THE FUTURE was a member of the Board of by FRED L. POLAK, Ex-Director of Directors of a large chain of the Netherlands Central Planning stores in the Netherlands. After Bureau; Ex-Professor of Sociology, the war he became a staff mem- University of Rotterdam; Président, ber and managing director of Mankind 2000 International. the Netherlands Central Plan- ning Bureau, personal advisor to Translated and abridged by ELISE the Minister of Education (Art BOULDING, Associate Professor, and Science), plenipotentiary of Department of Sociology, University the Dutch government for Full of Colorado; Project Director, In- Employment, Professor of So- stitute of Behavioral Science, Uni- ciology at Rotterdam and Man- versity of Colorado. aging Director of an industrial organization at Twente (Neths). Is man at présent a self-willed being who créâtes his own future; or is he a time-bound créature clinging despera- The author graduated cum laude tely to today for fear of what tomorrow in philosophy in 1946, and since may bring? Fred Polak believes the his thesis and inaugural address latter and explains his theory by com- in 1947 on the évolution of paring the major upheavals in our his- tory when man truly created images of science and society of tomorrow, the future - the Enlightenment, the he has devoted himself con- Renaissance, the first Industrial Révo- tinuously to the future of man lution - with today's indiffèrent pattern. and society. His most récent book is Prognostics, also pub- The author insists upon the primacy of lished by Elsevier. man's créative ability for imaging the Professor Polak, the author of future, which shapes the dynamics of many previous publications on the historical process. He explicitly dis- futurology, is the récipient of cusses the future of Western Civiliza- tion and emphasizes the importance of Fellowships from UNESCO, the imaging in determining its develop- Ford Foundation, and the Coun- ment. As a resuit intellectual modeling cil of Europe which awarded him and spiritual-intuition should reach be- a prize for the original two-vol- yond current modes of cognition to ume book The Image of the synthesize immanence and transcen- Future. He was the founder and dence, man and the supernatural. first président of Teleac (télévi- sion academy), co-founder and During the last décade Fred Polak's vice-président of the Erasmus ideas hâve helped to trigger off a pro- lifération of théories, books, societies Prize Foundation, scientific ad- and institutions ail dedicated to the visor for long term planning to study of the future, and his ideas are ail numerous concerns in the Ne- the more invigorating for their time- therlands, and Président of Man- liness, especially now that man has kind 2000 International, which is entered space. sponsored by about 500 promi- nent scholars, intellectuals and A growing number of scholars concern- artists throughout the world. He ed with futurology, social and political thought and philosophy will appreciate is presently engaged in setting the author's total lynew method of pre- up an institute for long term senting the évolution of ideas and its future research and develop- relation to social change. It will also ment in the Netherlands and is grip the imagination of many non-aca- also Secretary-General of the demics who seek to understand the International Society for Tech- past and the seemingly incredible future nology Assessment. which awaits us. Jacket design by Ph. van Meeuwen THE IMAGE OF THE FUTURE The Image of the Future FRED POLAK Translatée! and Abridged by ELISE BOULDING fjlfji Elsevier Sdentific Publishing Company Amsterdam • London • New York 1973 For the U.S.A. and Canada: JOSSEY-BASS INC. PUBLISHERS 615 MONTGOMERY STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CALIP. 94111 For ail other areas: ELSEVIER SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING COMPANY 335 JAN VAN GALENSTRAAT P.O. BOX 330, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS Library of Congress Card Number: 72-83209 ISBN 0-444-41053-8 Copyright © 1973 by Elsevier Scientific Pubiishing Company, Amsterdam AI! rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopyin recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. EEsevier Scientific Pubiishing Company, Jan van Gatenstraat 335, Amsterdam Printed in The Netherlands Foreword My first acquaintance with the work of Dr. Fred Polak came in the year 1954—5, when we were both fellows at the new Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Dr. and Mrs. Polak lived in a little house at the back of the garden of the house that the Bouldings rented and participated very cheerfully in the life of the Bouldings and their four young children. Many exciting things came out of that year at Stanford, such as the Society for General Systems Research and the Journal of Conflict Resolution. But looking back on the expérience after nearly twenty years, I think the most important impact on the thought of both Elise Boulding and myself were the many conversations that we had with the Polaks around the dining table and in the garden. In my own case, many aspects of my subséquent work, including The Image, which was written at the Center that year, owe a great deal to Polak's ideas. Polak, indeed, was a pioneer in what has corne to be called "futur- ology," an ugly word, which, however, represents an important movement in human thought. One is tempted to say, indeed, that we are ail futurologists, and in this respect the impact of Fred Polak's thoughts is much greater than is usually recognized, The human condition can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas ail expériences are of the past, ail décisions are about the future. It is the great task of human knowledge to bridge this gap and to find those patterns in the past which can be projected into the future as realistic images. The image of the future, therefore, is the key to ail choice-oriented behavior. The gênerai character and quality of the images of the future which prevail in a society is therefore the most important due to its overall dynamics. The individual's image of the future is likewise the most significant déterminant of his Personal behavior. I hâve long felt that the original version of The Image of the Future was one of the most significant works of the twentieth century, and that it has never received the attention which it de- serves, perhaps because of its length. The condensed version is a new opportunity for readers to become acquainted with it, and I am convinced that no one who becomes acquainted with it will fail to be profoundly influenced by it. Kenneth Boulding Institute of Behavioral Science Uniuersity of Colorado VI Translatons Préface When Fred Polak came to the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto as a Fellow in 1955, his recently published Die Toekomst Is Verleden Tijd had just receïved the Council of Europe Award. Since the Bouldings and the Polaks kept a joint household that exciting first year of the Institute's existence, Kenneth Boulding and I had ample opportunity to become ac- quainted with Fred Polak's unique ideas. The effect of that year on Kenneth Boulding can be traced to his The Image, which bears little surface relationship to The Image of the Future, but which did in fact first take root in Fred Polak's thinking, and vvas written at the close of that golden California year as a summing up of a rather spécial kind of intellectual journey. My own response of Fred Polak's ideas was to learn Dutch in order to be able to translate his book and make it available to the English-speaking world. I translated it in full, since it was too difficult to translate and condense at one and the same time from a language I was just learning, but ï knew that the leisurely intellectual pace of the original would not find many readers in the hurried American scène. Therefore I had from the beginning intended even- tually to produce a condensation that would render Polak's ideas on the future more intellectually accessible to American colleagues, particularly in the social sciences. Other things intervened, and it took ten years to get back to the condensation project, but I find that the book has a new kind of timelessness now that man has entered space. In the intervening décade there has been a sudden prolifération of théories, books, societies, and institutions ail dedicated to the study of the future. Very few people are aware of the intellectual debt that this future-oriented scholarship and activity owes to Fred Polak, who was the first in the post-World War II period to undertake the difficult conceptual work of clarifying the rôle of the image of the future in the social process at the societal level. Much of the récent work is of a strictly empirical nature, which Polak himself welcomes, VII but to focus on thèse empirical studies without a knowledge of the broad sweep of the underlying historical processes involved is to sell mankind short at a very crucial time in history. Polak is very explicit that in this book he is concerned with the future in Western culture only, and that he is analyzing images of possible futures on- this world. Taking the task of image-making for the future very seriously, he ruled out fantasies about other worlds as just that — fantasies.

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