***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 08:31:06 +0100
   [From]: Juan JosŽ D’az Infante <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Re: structure in discussion

Ami

you wrote:

"I do not know if it is possible to foretell what will happen - most
people have not had much luck at it. Marxist prediction and various
futurists have usually been wide of the mark. Except for a few brilliant
and isolated strokes - predictions have not stood the test of time, and
most fundamental changes have not been foreseen.  In the 50s, nobody
predicted the information driven economy for example. The collapse of
the U.S.S.R. was also predicted by nobody."

The fact that you did not know what was going to happen to the USSR does
not mean nobody  knew. On the other hand if someone told you at the time
you probably disregarded it because it was not your personal
opinion-position. Ignoring something does not mean it does not exist,
there are very specific people in all fields that can very easily can
tell you trends a possible scenarios, how you apply that knowledge
succesfully depends on the particular objectives of the person planning
the future. After World War II it was obvious for the US the need and
value of information that was how the CIA was formed as an agency to
gather information.

When you talk of Marxist predictions, are you talking about Carl Marx,
or the people who tried to apply marxism without having read "The
Capital" or are you talking of Cuba. The first issue here, as I have
stated before is to try to avoid talking in forms of judgement and to
try for affirmations to prevail (facts). When you read the capital you
find out how sloppy had been the application of marxism as a political
venue.

Understanding the two spheres of influence was critical to many
phenomena in Latin America today regardless of who succeeded (one of the
two would eventually prevail). As an example of future planning the
Vatican took both options: It is very clear the division the church had
to have in case Rusia had survived, much of the "Theology of Liberation"
was created for the Catholic Church to survive with Socialism in
America. Mexico was an strategic point in the blueprint of both great
forces. Today we live the remains of that strategy. It can not be
clearer. The whole story is already foretold, it is not laying in the
order you want to receive it and it will not come in the news as a
special program. It is also because the future is not the same for
everybody. It was very clear that as far as spheres of influence, after
WWII, there was only two possible scenarios. After the Perestroyka the
scenarios change to global cannibal capitalism or underground economy...

When you speak of futurists, again, the value of Toffler's work as a
modern anthropologist is essential to understand the vision of a very
lost first world upon itself. You can not take his writing in a literal
way, because they are not written specifically for artists or me. They
are very specific to very big transnational corporate cultures like Ma
Bell (later AT&T). You need to do the actual adaptations to other more
particular assessments.

There are very few futurists that could target what will happen in the
Third World for two obvious reasons: First they do not understand the
values or the frame of our quality of life, Second because in the
blueprint of the first world we either are consumers, cheap labor or
disposable terrain.

Thinking again as if it were one World, a lot of the work of very
brilliant people in many cases is completely misunderstood. Macluhan's
work in the 60's foresaw many of the problems that communications
experts have today. In the 60's what Macluhan talked was not essential
at that moment. Even the work of David Ogilvy sets the rules of the
vehicle of culture today.

If you want to push it further than the 60's, Leonardo foresaw the
helicopter, Julius Verne foresaw the submarine, the TV and the trip to
the moon; In the IV Century, in his "Confessions", Saint Augustine deals
with many problems of the structure of communications valid even today.

Talking of prophets of this Century, there is always a shortsight effect
when you have brilliant people decoding reality like Fernando Flores,
Umberto Eco, Andre Breton or Buckminster Fuller to name a few.

Being realistic and we no need of experts, the future of Mexico City
looks closer to become like Bombay (or Mumbay) than Houston; Mexico City
is five years away of becoming very similar in violence like Bogota.
That is the future that nobody wants to hear, but that is called denial.


A note: Integration

Understanding the present and the future is a problem of integration, we
have to look at marketing, production, industrial planning, local
culture, real figures, understanding corruption as a way of life, way of
thinking and way of survival in order to create real assessment of what
the future will hold and how to create the new strategies. It has also
to do with redefining poverty and wealth.

Juan

"Es m‡s importante la Imaginaci—n que el conocimiento"
Albert Einstein


Juan JosŽ D’az Infante
http://www.altamiracave.com
jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com