THE CRYSTAL BALL |
One of the things the deep thinkers in our society do is analyze the present state of things and use their expertise, their powers of observation and analysis, and their common sense to predict the future and prepare us for it.
With the development of electronic circuits and computers, and with their application to the control of machinery and of manufacturing processes, we realized that we were entering an era of automation when many of the menial jobs would be performed by machines. John Langdon-Davies (British Journalist and Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute), 1936: "By 1960 work will be limited to three hours a day." People were going to be freed from drudgery and one of our biggest problems would be what to do with all the leisure.
It didn’t quite work out that way. The major product produced by all that automation was unemployment. The leisure problem was solved by giving a large part of our work force jobs at which they work 60 to 70 hours a week, or making them work at two jobs to earn enough money to make ends meet.
You can’t expect to win them all, or get it right all the time, but most of the time experience and good judgment helps us make the proper predictions. In science and technology it’s easy, because there’s no guesswork involved:
Colonel Sir John Smyth, recommending against switching from the bow to the musket, in 1591: "The bow is a simple weapon, firearms are very complicated things which get out of order in many ways." Dr. Vannevar Bush, President of the Carnegie Institution and former Dean of Engineering at MIT, 1945: "The people who have been writing these things have been talking about a 3,000 mile high-angle rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying an atomic bomb and so directed as to be a precise weapon which would land exactly on a certain target, such as a city. I say, technically, I don’t think anyone in the world knows how to do such a thing, and I feel confident that it will not be done for a very long period of time. I think we can leave that out of our thinking. I wish the American public would leave that out of their thinking."
John P. Lockhart-Mummery, 1936: "The power of the tides may be made available to produce power on a large scale. If extensively exploited over a long period of time, however, it might result in bringing the moon too close to the earth for safety."
Eugene Delacroix, 1854: "They are going to launch a large vessel called a clipper at noon today. Another of these American inventions to make people go faster and faster. When they have managed to get travelers comfortably seated inside a cannon so that they can be shot off like bullets in any given direction civilization will doubtless have taken a great step forward. We are making rapid strides toward that happy time when space will have been abolished."
People in the arts do much better. They are successful because of their ability to judge quality and the taste of the public: H.R. Mayes (Editor of the Pictorial Review), rejecting "Gone With the Wind": "A period novel! About the Civil War! Who needs the Civil War now – who cares?" Producer Cheryl Crawford, passing up "Death of a Salesman": "Who would want to see a play about an unhappy traveling salesman? Too depressing." Modeling Agent Emmeline Snively to would-be model Marilyn Monroe: "You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married." Jim Denny (Manager of Grand Ole Oprey) firing Elvis Presley after one performance: "You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck."
Even in the less exact social sciences it is possible to make predictions based on experience and good judgment: Psalms 37-11: "The meek shall inherit the earth."
David Sarnoff, head of RCA, 1939: "It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste of the nation." John Langdon-Davies, British anthropologist, 1936: "By 1975 sexual feeling and marriage will have nothing to with each other." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. 1888: "When a woman becomes a scholar there is usually something wrong with her sexual organs." Henry Ford II, in closed-circuit TV message to all Edsel dealers, December 7, 1957: "The Edsel is here to stay."
Lt. Joseph Ives (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) Report to Congress on the Colorado River, 1861: "The Grand Canyon is, of course, altogether valueless. It can be approached only from the south, and after entering it there is nothing to do but leave. Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, to visit this profitless locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed."
A sign carried by a long-haired man wearing a toga on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in New York City: "The world will end next Wednesday."