Paleo-Future and the American Project

by Kim, October 21, 2009 at 12:35pm

One of my recent accidental internet discoveries is the Paleo-Future Blog: A look into the future that never was. My recent post about the 1950s space race and consumption had already gotten me thinking about the ways that we envision the future. And exactly how much this vision has to do with the present.

It's fascinating to see how every aspect of life was up for grabs: nighttime itself could be banished, winter could be held at bay, and food would come from unfamiliar sources. Now that we are beginning to see that a Pandora's box-worth of unnatural compounds have been released upon the earth, it's difficult to relate to such hubris. Today our futuristic visions are less of wealth and ease than they are of a post-industrial longing to return to Eden, looking back to a time when something as basic as the seasons was not up for question. When humans could walk with less anxiety about the footprint left behind. The modern concept of "sustainability" seems more about creating a present that does not preclude its continuation in the future, rather than a super-technological future which leaves the present behind in favor of a dazzling, no longer earthbound, new reality.

The recession has helped call into question the assumption that business-as-usual can and should continue indefinitely. But what to do now? Is there some point, or collection of points, in the past that we can identify as a basis from which to start building sustainability? Or was the whole American project always tainted by this unrealistic assumption of an endless frontier? How do we begin anew without creating our own version of the 1950s, with fears of planetary annihilation coupled with dreams of a robot-mediated easy life.