George Lichtheim
IDEAS OF THE FUTURE
I
When one speaks of the probable shape of things to come,
one necessarily makes a projection from tendencies observable in the
present. This is so whether or not one believes that a "scientific"
forecast is possible, in the sense of a prediction grounded in the
study of what used to be called "laws of development." The term
is no longer fashionable and historians in particular tend to shy
away from it. Still, insofar as they are trying to sketch future trends,
even the most rigid empiricists among them are obliged to make
projections which are not simply enumerations of abstract pos–
sibilities. It is one thing to affirm that the future is open and un–
determined.
It
is quite another matter to assert that this indeter–
minacy is of such a kind as to permit not merely retrogression, but
an actual return to earlier stages. For what it is worth, my impression
is that even the severest critics of the evolutionary approach are
pretty oertain in their own minds that history is irreversible. They
do not seriously expect to awaken one day and find themselves
plunged back into a bygone era. There is a story about the visitor
to Paris who saw a street riot and told his wife, "the French Revolu–
tion has broken out." I do not imagine he was serious, or trying for
an academic post. In practice most people take it for granted that
the time machine does not operate. This is doubted only by eccentrics,
and on the present occasion their views need not be taken into
account.
These trivial remarks are occasioned by a surfeit of recent litera–
ture denouncing the excesses of historicism. Now that most of us no
