Race for the Future

Abstract

The article discusses the risks and effects of predicting the future. It describes the competition between two images of the future that can be found in current predictions. We discuss the question of changing our basic conceptions about the essence of human nature, the most important properties and qualities of people in connection with the onset of the current era of uncertainty, and the complexity and diversity of the human experience. We describe the context that surrounds the practice of predicting the future, namely the transition from the world of SPOD to the world of VUCA. The author reminds the designers of the future of the importance of correlating futurist programs with the expectations and motivational attitudes of the different social strata in Russian society. The author reviews current educational policy, and he describes the general features of the education reforms of recent decades and the risks created by their shortcomings. The article outlines the conditions for constructing a promising and human-centric model of 21st-century education (“the garden of dignity culture”) for “complex free people.”

Notes

1. See, for example: Yu.N. Kharari [Yuval Noah Harari], Sapiens. Kratkaya istoriya chelovechestva [Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind], (Moscow: Sindbad, 2016); Y.N. Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, (London: Harvill Secker, 2016); Kurtsveyl, R. [Ray Kurzweil], Evolyutsiya razuma [How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed], (Moscow: Eksmo, 2015); K. Shvab [Klaus Schwab], Chetvertaya promyshlennaya revolyutsiya [The Fourth Industrial Revolution], (Moscow: Eksmo, 2016); E. Laslo [Ervin László], Makrosdvig: K ustoychivosti mira kursom peremen [Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a Sustainable World], (Moscow: Taydeks Ko, 2004); Ch. Freydl, M. Byalik, and B. Trilling [Bernie Trilling, Charles Fadel, and Maya Bialik], Chetyrekhmernoye obrazovaniye: Kompetentsii, kotorye nuzhny dlya uspekha [Four-dimensional Education: The Competencies Learners Need to Succeed], (Moscow: Tsentr obrazovatel’nykh razrabotok Moskovskoy shkoly upravleniya SKOLKOVO, 2015); A. Assman [Aleida Assmann], Raspalas’ svyaz’ vremen? Vzlet i padeniye temporal’nogo rezhima [Transformations of the Modern Time Regime], (Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye, 2017).

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic is a popular book by the American business consultant Stephen Covey about personal development that is mostly based on the principles of humanistic psychology.