"The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. The image of the future can act not only as a barometer, but as a regulative mechanism which alternately opens and shuts the dampers on the mighty blast-furnace of culture. It not only indicates alternative choices and possibilities, but actively promotes certain choices and in effect puts them to work in determining the future. A close examination of prevailing images, then, puts us in a position to forecast the probable future. Any culture which finds itself in the condition of our present culture, turning aside from its own heritage of positive visions of the future, or actively at work in changing these positive visions into negative ones, has no future..."
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Academics from the NetherlandsSystems scientistsPeople from AmsterdamPoliticians from the NetherlandsSociologists from the Netherlands
Original Language: English
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Fred Polak
Frederik Lodewijk Polak (May 21, 1907 – September 17, 1985) was a Dutch sociologist, politician and futurist. He was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role of imagined alternative futures in his classic work The Image of the Future.
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