Scenario planning in a multicultural world. (Books in Brief).

Creating Better Futures: Scenario Planning as a Tool for a Better Tomorrow by James A. Ogilvy. Oxford University Press. 2002. 238 pages. Available from the Futurist Bookstore for $35 ($31.95 for Society members), cat. no. B-2415.

In Creating Better Futures, Global Business Network co-founder James

A. (Jay) Ogilvy is seeking truth, not selling it. As a philosopher, he wants to inspire others to search for better futures for themselves, not simply persuade them to accept his vision of a preferred ideal future. He writes: "A large part of the glory of being human lies in our ability to imagine better futures and make them happen."

Better futures, Ogilvy believes, cannot be safely left to the workings of either fate or governments. He specifically rejects the "old paradigms" of theology and politics. The first of these holds that sacred tradition should guide all human actions because understanding tradition reveals God's plan for creation, and striving always to live in accord with that plan is the only way for humans to assure a better future. Equally unsatisfying to Ogilvy is the assumption, dominant in Western culture since the eighteenth century, that scientific inquiry into facts of nature and human behavior will produce methods for solving all problems, and that these methods, if followed scrupulously by loyal citizens obeying just laws, must ultimately bring into existence a perfectly functioning society.

Today, neither church nor state can lead humanity further toward a better way of life, in Ogilvy's view. He believes that universal truths and one-size-fits-all answers to life's big questions are not worth pursuing because they are either unattainable or unworkable in practice since not everyone will willingly accept them. He favors seeking ways to develop communities of interest, whose members find solutions to limited real-world problems through a process of exchanging information and resolving conflicts by agreement--a mechanism much more in tune with the workings of a marketplace than those of a political or religious hierarchy.

Ogilvy proposes a new paradigm that embraces "a relational worldview," accepts cultural pluralism, and employs scenario planning. A relational worldview sidesteps the dead-end pursuit of absolute truth by focusing on how elements inter-act within a system. Adopting this worldview means trying to understand these connections rather than unnaturally" breaking systems down into separate elements and defining the ideal properties of each of these elements in isolation.

Ogilvy's second premise, the need for "ethical pluralism," rests on his contention that morality is more like art than mathematics. Just as the "meaning" of art is defined by audience rather than artist, the moral value of an action is defined by those who are affected by it, not by some universal scale of absolute justice, Ogilvy contends. As he puts it: "Yes, there's a difference between the beautiful and the ugly, but fixed rules are hard to come by, and tastes change over time and across cultures."

The author repeatedly stresses the serious problems involved in shaping a pluralism that is genuinely ethical: neither overly rigid and culturally biased, nor simply relativistic amorality in which there are no common standards. He sees hope for a workable compromise in the emerging global marketplace for information, services, and (increasingly) intense experiences. There, he proclaims "consenting adults can get together for safe passion, [and] millions of individuals can make billions of decisions to value one thing relatively more than another, the better over the worse, without fighting in the name of the One True Best."

Because uncertainty is unavoidable, Ogilvy concludes, "we need to think about several possible futures, not just one." The technique of "scenario planning," writing stories about life under possible future conditions, can help us prepare for alternative futures by presenting plausible details to illustrate what would be different from our present-day experience and learn from rehearsing reactions to these differences in our minds.

He summarizes: "We now know better than to trust people pushing the One True Path to the best future. But without normative scenarios that articulate the shared hopes of a community, we risk adopting a pernicious relativism where anything goes."

Ogilvy's main points are all made in his first three chapters and preface, which, together with the foreword by fellow futurist-philosopher Peter Schwartz, all stand as fine examples of clear and provocative writing. The later chapters of the book explore in some depth the nature of paradigms, value systems, and the actual practice of scenario planning, and the author provides notes on original sources to guide those readers interested in pursuing specific ideas further.

Reading Creating Better Futures will prove stimulating to those seeking what Schwartz calls "more imaginative and coherent conversation[s] about the future."