I think there’s an interesting sociocultural counterpoint to be made here by studying the Italian Futurists
The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists. They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation, praised originality… and gloried in science.
I think the glorification of [“humanity over nature”, “young over old”, “brash over wise”, “strong over weak”, “future over present”, “men over women”] (all touted beliefs of the Italian Futurists) is unwise and harmful.
Your definition of futurism (“the systematic study of technological advancement for the purpose of understanding how people will live in the future”) isn’t harmful. It’s more a field of study than an ideology, but I wonder how quickly “pure academics” can turn ideological, especially when sharing the name of an old ideology.
I agree with you totally about the need to study and understand how people will live in the future, I just have also been thinking about how I see some of the traits of the old Futurism in the water. I see young men worshipping the new, the fast, the human, the strong… and I see some of those young men drawn to movements like Effective Altruism and Progress Studies, and the tech industry more broadly.
I wonder how movements like Progress Studies can be clear about what we are willing to sacrifice for “Futurism”, and what we are not. How do we avoid repeating the cultural mistakes of past technologists & futurists? Do we even agree about what those mistakes are?
Interesting and important piece, thanks for sharing!
I think to avoid repeating past mistakes, it’s crucial to remember that (1) technology and industry are ultimately valuable only in the service of human well-being, and (2) in order to ensure this, we need more than just technology and industry: we need the recognition and protection of individual rights.
Yes, I think the Italian Futurists provide us with interesting lessons. One reason their movement was so short-lived was the onset of WW1. A bunch of them died in various conflicts, but the intellectual foundations of the movement were also killed off. According to Marinetti and friends, technology and machinery was the source of dynamism and progressive change in society, and war was a primary means of putting this machinery to use. Yet in practice, the main ‘achievement’ of technological advancement in this period was a novel ‘meat-grinder’ style of warfare, one that ushered in the industrial-scale killing of faceless statistics. Rather than dynamic progress, they got pointless, static violence.
Both sides of the war had perfectly concrete visions of the future. Yet pursuit of these competing visions of progress caused them to largely neutralize each other. I therefore appreciate Eli’s focus upon a vision of the future that is constructive and credible, as well as concrete.
Balla’s Street Light was a personal favorite from my history of art class as an undergrad.
I think there’s an interesting sociocultural counterpoint to be made here by studying the Italian Futurists
I think the glorification of [“humanity over nature”, “young over old”, “brash over wise”, “strong over weak”, “future over present”, “men over women”] (all touted beliefs of the Italian Futurists) is unwise and harmful.
Your definition of futurism (“the systematic study of technological advancement for the purpose of understanding how people will live in the future”) isn’t harmful. It’s more a field of study than an ideology, but I wonder how quickly “pure academics” can turn ideological, especially when sharing the name of an old ideology.
I agree with you totally about the need to study and understand how people will live in the future, I just have also been thinking about how I see some of the traits of the old Futurism in the water. I see young men worshipping the new, the fast, the human, the strong… and I see some of those young men drawn to movements like Effective Altruism and Progress Studies, and the tech industry more broadly.
I wonder how movements like Progress Studies can be clear about what we are willing to sacrifice for “Futurism”, and what we are not. How do we avoid repeating the cultural mistakes of past technologists & futurists? Do we even agree about what those mistakes are?
Interesting and important piece, thanks for sharing!
I think to avoid repeating past mistakes, it’s crucial to remember that (1) technology and industry are ultimately valuable only in the service of human well-being, and (2) in order to ensure this, we need more than just technology and industry: we need the recognition and protection of individual rights.
Yes, I think the Italian Futurists provide us with interesting lessons. One reason their movement was so short-lived was the onset of WW1. A bunch of them died in various conflicts, but the intellectual foundations of the movement were also killed off. According to Marinetti and friends, technology and machinery was the source of dynamism and progressive change in society, and war was a primary means of putting this machinery to use. Yet in practice, the main ‘achievement’ of technological advancement in this period was a novel ‘meat-grinder’ style of warfare, one that ushered in the industrial-scale killing of faceless statistics. Rather than dynamic progress, they got pointless, static violence.
Both sides of the war had perfectly concrete visions of the future. Yet pursuit of these competing visions of progress caused them to largely neutralize each other. I therefore appreciate Eli’s focus upon a vision of the future that is constructive and credible, as well as concrete.
Balla’s Street Light was a personal favorite from my history of art class as an undergrad.