Jeff Adams

Umberto Boccioni's Futuristic painting "The Street Enters the House," 1911

Did you know that this is the 100^th anniversary of futurism?  No? Futurism is the name of a brief movement started by an article published February 20^th, 1909 in the Parisian newspaper La Figaro by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The article was entitled Le Futurisme and the intent was to reject the past and make culture more modern. The movement grew to include not only literature, but painting, sculpture, photography and architecture.

Today there is such a thing as retro-futurism, looking at how the future was perceived in the past. I’m thinking of this because the last week of the year is that time when the newspapers, television channels and websites roll out their top predictions for the future. It’s fun to go back and see how those predictions pan out. A few are eerily accurate, while most are far off target.

A website called 2Spare has assembled here what they consider the top 87 bad predictions about the future. One of my favorites is this quote from US President Grover Cleveland in 1905 saying, Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. Or, how about this one from Charles H. Duell (though disputed by researchers), an official at the US patent office in 1899? Everything that can be invented has been invented.

In the January 2^nd edition of 1909, the Scientific American stated, That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.  Before you think you’re pretty smart and expect to see fleets of electric cars on the highways in the next few years, consider this story that ran in the June 27, 1909 Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), commenting on new battery technology. The commercial value of the gasoline motor will then disappear. Vehicles charged with the new battery will be about as noiseless as it will be practicable to make any rapidly moving thing.

Sometimes, we see things rather clearly. One hundred years ago The Summit County Journal in Logansport, Indiana did an article on what Christmas would be like in 2009. Most of the things they predicted were typically goofy and off-the-wall. The article did say that we’d do most of our shopping from home, which has very much come true. Of course, they predicted that we’d do it via telescopes and telephones. They also foresaw that we would be entertained at home instead of attending plays at local theaters. I’m sure they weren’t thinking of cable, satellite, streaming movies, DVR’s and video on demand, but at least they were headed in the right direction.

We will be hearing all the experts tick off their latest predictions for the year and years to come, but don’t get too excited. Not only are they wrong most of the time, we also should consider the things they do not see. For example, while I was growing up and being told that by this date the world would be almost uninhabitable because of the population explosion, no one seemed to see globalization coming, the Internet, AIDS, the atomic bomb or the emerging generation. All these things and more just sort of crept up on us.

What I do find amazing is a retro-futuristic view of the biblical prophets who are batting 1.000 to this point.

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2)

This is one of over 300 from the Old Testament concerning the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  Every single one was fulfilled just as the prophet saw it, spoke it and wrote it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Scriptural Application for Everyday Life, Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.