On my first trip to Disney World back in 1978,
Tomorrowland
struck me as dated -- embodying an obsolete image of the future,
the future we
imagined in the1950s. This was the future that Disney and
General Electric once
promised us. "Progress is our most important product." "Live
better electrically." Back in the 1950s, on television, we heard
about the
future products of inevitable progress. Technology was marching
steadily
forward. Machines were making better machines to make better
machines. Man
was the passive spectator and beneficiary of inevitable
progress.
In 1978, I expected to see an updated image of
tomorrow in
Tomorrowland. Surely, the people who built Disney World intended
this land to
represent the tomorrow of the present, not the tomorrow of the
past. But this
Tomorrowland was a duplicate of the first 1950s' Tomorrowland.
It was
yesterday's tomorrow.
Then I was struck by nostalgia for he 1950s,
for a time
when:
•
we could
believe in ever-expanding
resources and energy and wealth and progress;
•
we took for
granted that sooner or
later (perhaps in our lifetime) there would be regular passenger
flights to
Mars and beyond;
•
costs
inevitably went down with
increasingly plentiful energy and increasingly powerful
mass-production
technology; and
•
it seemed
that every time-saving
convenience product could eventually be made cheaply, as one
innovation led to
another.
And I was struck by discomfort with the
present as well, with
a time when:
•
costs
inevitably soared;
•
technological
innovations gathered
dust on the inventor's shelf because they would never be
economically
justifiable;
•
exploration
of outer space was too costly;
•
energy costs
soared, and high-speed
cars and big cars used too much energy;
•
we had to cut
back and slow down; and
•
we had to
abandon many time-saving
conveniences that we had grown used to as we strove to reduce
our energy and
resource consumption.
A generation that was promised inevitable
progress found
itself forced to retreat before the energy and environmental
consequences. We
recognized how foolish that quest for "progress" was, how it led
to
the rapid and wasteful destruction of vast resources. But we
couldn't help but
feel nostalgia for those halcyon days when there were no clouds
on the horizon
and it was all-systems-go. That's the flavor of nostalgia I felt
when I left
Tomorrowland in Disney World.
Now, in 2017, thinking back to that visit
forty years ago,
I remember the huge artificial tree in Adventureland,
representing the home of
the Swiss Family Robinson, and that memory sends my speculation
about the
future in a different direction.
That display showed examples of
nineteenth-century
ingenuity working with, taming, and living in harmony with
nature. Ironically,
it was a celebration of natural living set on a huge artificial
tree.
Now that treehouse calls to mind the ingenious
techniques
that people in the past used before they had access to
electrical machinery and
internal combustion engines. I'm amazed at what they could
accomplish -- not
inevitable broad, sweeping progress, but hard-won individual
achievement.
We can no longer afford the luxury of passive
consumption.
More and more, each of us must struggle to cope with decreasing
energy supplies
and increasing costs. We need to make the most of the objects
around us. We need
to turn out unneeded lights, insulate the attic, patch and fix
clothes and gadgets
that a few years back we would have replaced because replacement
cost less than
repair.
In the past, even inside the house, we faced a
constantly
changing environment. Now, by fixing and refurbishing, we'll
relate as previous
generations related to the objects around them.
I see an end to "future shock" coming with the
end of passive progress. To thrive now and in the future, we need to become handy, persistent,
patient, and
ingenious. We need to develop traits and abilities and learn
everyday skills
that our ancestors took for granted.