Magda Cordell McHale

An assessment of futures studies worldwide

Abstract This article is based on a recent survey of the futures field. For a report of the survey, see Futures Studies : An International Survey by John McHale and Magda Cordell McHale. The full report on the survey was published by UNITAR, December 1975 and may be purchased from UN Sales Section, Room LX 2300, New York, NY 10017, USA or from Palais de Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. The expansion of the subject is shown by the growing number of conferences, publications, secretariats and commissions, and the subject is characterised by a drive for professional recognition and higher standards of methodological rigour. Changes in futures studies include: the shift from linear forecasting towards more normative modes that consider a range of alternative futures; and a new predominance of social science over physical science among practitioners. Whereas futures studies used to have the appearance of a disciplinary enclave it now appears increasingly like a social movement, attracting a degree of involvement similar to that of the civil rights movement, ecology, or consumerism.

Meeting Basic Human Needs

A new direction for more integrative development has emerged in which human needs are the centerpiece, and in which meeting the basic needs of the worlds poorest is seen as the most urgent challenge. This is viewed not only as a strategy for helping the poor in the poorer nations to meet their own needs, but as part of a larger pattern of interdependent global development through which all nations may seek more diversified and sustainable directions for growth. The constituency of concern within which these directions are being formulated extends beyond conventional governmental groups to include new sets of participants in the larger development dialogue.

A measure of humanity

Abstract Faced with the complex global problems of today and the threat they pose to the survival of the planet, we need to seek new ways of perceiving ourselves and our world, and of approaching our problems. This article looks at how we have arrived at a world created ‘in the image of man’, and presents a new emerging metaphor to guide us into the future, ‘in the image of humanity’.