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C00002 00002	future[e85,jmc]		Considerations about the world's future
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future[e85,jmc]		Considerations about the world's future

	Almost all improvement of human society that I know about
has been a product or byproduct of the advance of technology.
For example, 20th century technology permits an intellectual
to have a family and to devote his time to his work without
having servants.  Previously, a quixotic intellectual who
eschewed servants wouldn't be able to devote his time to his
work.  Thus technology has permitted such equality as has been
achieved.

	However, we're really only half way to what technology
can do for daily life.  Most people still have to spend most
of their lives working, daily life is a strain for many people,
especially when there are children, and the successful upbringing
of these children often demands real sacrifices.  Moreover, there
are poorer countries in which life is shortened, children
are not all likely to survive, and in which most people suffer
from sickness and also often degrading conditions of work.  The
further development and application of technology can alleviate
these problems.

	That's fine, but man does not live by bread alone.  What
he does live by, besides bread, is somewhat hard to say.
Put the problem this way.  Some people say that a country like
the U.S. needs a sense of purpose.  Others say that, in accordance
with our Constitution, we need only assure ourselves life, liberty
and the opportunity to pursue happiness, each in his own way.

	What worries me is the fear that too many people need
purposes involving conflict to ``give meaning'' to their lives.
Whether they need it or not, they want it.  To a major extent,
it seems to me, this accounts for the intensity and acrimoniousness
of American politics.  The environmentalists, feminists, pro-life
forces, politicized fundamentalists, the ``peace movement'' all
all appeal to individual combativeness.  These causes aren't
totally meaningless; each of them addresses some problem of society.
But also each of them is the vehicle of a claim on power for its
activists.

	Suppose society as a whole reached the level of prosperity
of the more prosperous American suburbs.  Would this lead to a
peaceful society, or would causes arise to absorb a certain
intrinsic level of combativeness?  Would such causes as arose
limit their methods of political struggle to those of electoral
democracy?  There are grounds for both optimism and pessimism.

	The pessimistic view arises from history.  In the past
there have been prosperous upper class societies that viewed
the lower classes as we view machinery.  These societies were
sometimes peaceful for periods of up to a few hundred years,
but they always got into wars.  Moreover, contrary to Marx,
these wars were not usually uprisings of the lower classes,
but were consequences of the combativeness of the upper classes.
On the other hand, maybe we're better off now.  Previous societies
didn't have the institutions of electoral democracy and didn't
have non-aggression as an explicitly recognized principal of
international law.

	An optimistic view can be supported by the present state
of middle class American society.  It is really very peaceful
and law-abiding.