Abundant tales show the folly of attempting to foresee how one or another invention might fare in daily life. "Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax," said the eminent British scientist, William Thomson. In 1946, Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, took a dim view of television's future. "People will soon get tired to staring at a plywood box every night," he predicted. President Rutherford B. Hayes said of Bell's telephone: "That's an amazing invention but who would ever want to use one of them?" Concurring with that sentiment, a Western Union memo commented: "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communications."
Others took an overly optimistic view of technologies that were emerging in their day. A vacuum cleaner manufacturer predicted in 1955: "Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably become a reality within 10 years." A writer for the Brooklyn Eagle predicted in 1900 that "mail will be delivered to homes in pneumatic tubes." Futuristic scenarios conceived in the 1950s saw masses of people commuting to work in helicopters. On the other hand, there were many important inventions that no one foresaw: microwave ovens, Velcro, TV dinners, laser surgery, air bags, the Internet.
Knowing the future can be valuable if a person is able to position himself or invest his money to take advantage of an emerging trend. Stock-market advisers make a living from keeping abreast of the latest product developments in their area. Thousands of investors anxiously await each month's issue of the Gilder Technology Report. Its web site is jammed when the report is first posted on the Internet. Stock prices quickly shoot up when Gilder makes favorable comments about a technology or a company with products utilizing it. Gilder's own following virtually ensures that. But, of course, the first investors with this information reap the biggest rewards; investment news is soon discounted.
In the mid 19th century, a group of intellectuals clustered around Ralph Waldo Emerson were inspired by the thought that American culture would soon equal or surpass European culture. No one embraced this idea more enthusiastically than Walt Whitman, the poet, who wrote in Democratic Vistas: "I, now, for one, promulge, announcing a native expression-spirit .. for these States ... different from others, more expansive, more rich and free, to be evidenced by original authors and poets to come, by American personalities ... and by native superber tableaux and growths of language, songs, operas, orations, lectures, architecture - and by a sublime and serious Religious Democracy sternly taking command ... and from its own interior and vital principles, reconstructing, democratizing society." What actually came, when American culture triumphed a century later, was popular culture - films rather than operas, rock lyrics rather than poems, vaudeville, cartoons, sitcoms, and other unserious works. Few professed to be creating expressions of democratic culture. Except in the Soviet Union, that kind of thinking was out of date. Whitman could not have anticipated the impact of new communication technologies upon cultural expression.
The most sweeping kinds of prediction have been associated with religion. From time to time religious prophets have appeared to announce that the world would shortly end. William Miller brought thousands of his followers to the hill tops of Massachusetts and New York state to await that event, expected to occur within a year after March 21, 1843. When this period of time had lapsed and all seemed normal, Miller rescheduled the apocalyptic date for October 22, 1844. Its failure to occur was dubbed "the great disappointment". The Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, early Christians, Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate cult, and others have had similar expectations; yet, to date, the world as we have known it through history remains largely intact. It is therefore conceded that attempts to predict ends of the world or any larger course of events will and should be met with considerable skepticism.
In 30 B.C., right after Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium to become undisputed ruler of the Roman empire, an historian might have made several predictions. First, recognizing that a series of warlords (sometimes in partnership) had ruled Roman society for more than a half century, he might have foreseen that the relatively inexperienced Octavian, Julius Caesar's nephew, would eventually lose out to someone else in a power struggle. He might have foreseen that the raging tensions between rich and poor would tear Roman society apart or, perhaps, be resolved in the Senate. None of these things happened. Octavian had unexpected political and administrative skills which allowed him to consolidate power in himself and found Rome's first imperial dynasty. Dynasties of this type lasted in the West until the 5th century A.D. and, in the East, until the 15th century A.D.
The same historian, looking at Rome's position in the world, might have made several other predictions. Recalling that the Persians had conquered the Medes and Babylonians, and that Alexander the Great of Macedon had conquered Persia, and that Rome had conquered the remnants of the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Macedonian Greek empires, he might pessimistically have expected that some new political empire would conquer Rome's, perhaps the fierce Parthians to the east. Or, taking a more optimistic view, he might have expected that Rome would conquer the Parthian empire. Neither happened. Rome continued to withstand the Parthians despite centuries of warfare. The Parthians, succeeded by the Sasanid Persians, likewise staved off defeat at the hands of the Romans. Recalling Julius Caesar's successful prosecution of the Gallic wars, this historian might also have expected the Roman empire to expand into barbarian territories to the north and east. This possibility was only partially fulfilled. The Romans did conquer much of Britain and Rumania; however, their attempt to expand eastward into Germany was frustrated when Germanic tribes led by Hermann decimated three Roman legions in a battle fought in 9 A.D. Octavian, now Augustus Caesar, subsequently fixed his empire's eastern boundary at the Danube river.
Rome's ultimate fate was completely off this historian's radar screen. Despite Hermann's victory, it would have been most unlikely that Germanic or other nomadic tribes could overrun the western Roman empire, sack Rome, and establish petty kingdoms throughout western Europe while Roman government would last in the eastern provinces for another thousand years. Even less likely would have been that a religious prophet from Galilee, condemned by action of a Roman proconsul in Judaea and executed for blasphemy sixty years later, would come to be worshiped as "Son of God"; and that his cult, after centuries of persecution, would first claim a sizable share of Rome's population and then become Rome's state religion; and that the new religion of Christianity would provide the cultural matrix for post-Roman society, converting Rome's nomadic conquerors, and then spread into lands throughout the earth. World religion as a successor to political empire would have been most inconceivable.
Fifteen hundred years later, the possibility of religious empire was plainly seen. Militant Christians who had expelled the Moors from the Iberian peninsula were eager to win new souls for Christ. Alexander VI had issued a papal bull in 1493 dividing the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal on condition that they convert the people of those lands to Christianity. A plausible scenario, given Europe's destined expansion of influence, was that the Roman church would eventually rule the entire world. It did not happen. Although Jesuit priests supported by the Spanish and Portuguese colonial governments converted the native peoples of Latin America to the Roman Catholic religion, similar efforts in the Far East failed when the Chinese and Japanese governments expelled Christian missionaries in the 17th century. Europe itself became religiously divided during the period of the Protestant Reformation. Despite the Pope's declaration, the French, Dutch, and English colonized North America; they seemed more interested in obtaining commercial advantages than in spreading the Christian religion. The times were turning away from religious ambition and instead embracing such things as commerce, science and technology, literature and music.
So it would seem that would-be predictors of the larger trends would consistently have been frustrated had they foreseen world history as a logical progression from things in the past. New institutions and new sets of concerns arise to replace those known in the past; and it seems that the future will gravitate more towards what has never been than what was. Of what use, then, is history in predicting the future?
All we can say is that history is our main source of knowledge about how the world works in concrete situations. Political leaders charged with making important decisions often let historical analogies guide their decision making process. For instance, Harry Truman wrote in his autobiography that he saw a parallel between the Congressional "Committee on the Conduct of War" established during the U.S. Civil War, which became a center of espionage for the Confederacy, and a similar investigating committee which he chaired during World War II. He therefore took extra precautions to make sure that this committee did not leak valuable information to the Nazis. "Almost all current events in the affairs of governments and nations have their parallels and precedents in the past," Truman wrote. "I know of no surer way to get a solid foundation in political science and public administration than to study the histories of past administrations."
General Jakabu Gowan, Nigeria's head of state during the war with secessionist Biafra, had read Carl Sandberg's four-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. Identifying his own cause with that of the North, Gowan told reporters that he could recognize the "Shermans" and the "Grants" among his commanders. On the other hand, Adolf Hitler was mistakenly encouraged by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death to hope that the Allies might relax their military pressure upon his crumbling nation because his hero, Frederick the Great of Prussia, had been rescued from probable defeat when Russian armies pulled back following the death of Catherine the Great. Such analogies may or may not follow through.
To predict history on the broadest level we cannot rely upon any particular set of events proceeding from the present situation but only on general expectations based on the nature of human societies like the following: What goes up usually comes down. What is born dies. People fight for rank and position. Powerful interest groups try to protect their own turf. These are some of the "lessons" to be drawn from past history. On the positive side, the new is youthful and vigorous and creative, but also unpredictable. One must make allowance for unexpected paradigm shifts. Future history will frustrate our best efforts to project a certain vision unless, perhaps, we ourselves participate in the fulfilling events.
From THISTLEROSE PUBLICATIONS
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