1. Images of the Futures in
Identity Buiding
Anita Rubin
eDelphoi workshop, Otava
February 20-21, 2009
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However,
our human capacity to receive and
digest information and to live
through experiences has not
changed. Our fate is to try to
cope with a brain of a stone-age
human in the information society.
Living in the time of extreme alternatives
The intensity of events
expands the limits of
our social reality.
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• A view on some state of the future;
• A mental construction.
Composed of
• general knowledge and the understanding of the
present and the past;
• perceptions and interpretations;
• beliefs, traditions, habits, norms, attitudes and
values;
• expectations, fears and hopes.
Characteristics of Images of the Future (IOF)
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– Traditions;
– general
beliefs;
– under-
standing
of how
things are
usually
made, etc.
– Society's
ethical and
moral
ideas;
– under-
standing
of how
things
should be
made;
– under-
standing
of what is
desirable,
etc.
Society's
general
ideas of
what
abilities,
skills and
coping
require-
ments are
needed in
the future.
Hopes, fears, threats
Personal experience
gained from family
relations, education,
school, friends, etc.
Personal features:
– Gender;
– level of
comprehension
– imagination;
– creativity;
– values, etc.
– Information gained from social and
physical environment;
– logical understanding of how things
happen, what is needed and necessary in
general in the future;
– understanding of what is possible and what
is probable.
Information,
knowledge
Expectations,
anticipations
Ideas of one’s
possibilities
Emotions towards
the future
Cognitions about
the future
Time
perspective
Social knowledge
Personality
General knowledge
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The IOF are closely connected with decision-making
• directly by influencing the decisions and choices to
be made at present;
• indirectly by having influence on the quality and
nature of the future to become true.
If the idea of the future is frightening, oppressive,
vague or blurred, the motivation to make choices
weakens thus complicating decision-making.
Images of the Future and Decision-making
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Contradictions:
• discontinuities in or between the IOF of an
individual;
• conflicting elements between the IOF of individual
and organisation / community / society
• conflicts between the IOF of different actor groups.
What specific IOF:s are the ones which affec/motivate behind the
decision which is to be made?
Which reference group’s IOF is predominant in society?
Whose values direct or lead decision-making?
Whose values should be chosen on the individual level?
Challenges of Images of the Future
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can be understood as
• the ability of an individual to successfully
cope in different life situations;
• the ability to build personal goals on a
realistic level and then to mould strategies in
order to reach them.
External life management unfolds in
behaviour visible to the others.
Internal life management unfolds in
individual abilities and readiness to face
difficulties in life now and in the
future.
Life Management
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Perceptual ability, life management and
everyday coping become more difficult as
the impact of real-time information,
constantly inflowing. This complex process
produces
• parallel and simultaneous worldviews,
• several coexistent images of the future,
• competing values, appreciations,
attitudes,
• intermittent norms and ideas.
Challenges in the information society 1
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Traditional norms, values, language,
models of action and the learned ways of
doing things are not enough for coping in
our present reality which is completely
new in so many aspects.
Therefore, in order to cope we have to
• invent new words, concepts and
metaphors to tell the story of our
life and future.
• create new tools – institutions,
models of action, traditions, etc.
Challenges in the information society 2
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With the blurring logic of ”the whole”,
perseverance and foresight become more and
more difficult.
For the sake of effectivity, decisions have to
be made in a growing haste short-
sightedness.
The expanding and swelling present gains
more and more space at the cost of the
past and the future.
The future does not exist yet, and the
past is already meaningless history.
The only possibility is to live
Challenges in the information society 3
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The need and ability to understand the logic
of cause and effect and horizontal time
diminishes, producing a tendency towards
• instant experiences and satisfaction,
• carpe diem –thinking,
• stories of the ”dream society”.
Some consequences
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Alongside the Western culture(s), solidarity and
human responsibility on the well-being of one’s
neighbours have also developed.
A tension between the individual and the
idea of the community/society where this
responsibility is to be carried out.
Throughout the centuries the borders of
community /society have expanded from our
immediate family, tribe and nation further and
further.
Western ethics and the concept
of social justice
About Responsibility
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Identity is a representation, a product which is
born through the determination of differences
and exclusion. Therefore it presumes constant
interaction with the others.
Identity building 1
This interaction draws the
lines on what we are, who we
are and where we belong.
It also is the plaster in the
construction work of society
on which we can reflect our
hopes, expectations and
personal nature and see them
as meaningful.
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• Always dependent on a certain space,
time and/or situation;
• is composed of and develops in a
constant dialogue with the other
people.
Human beings can only self-actualize
through their relationship with the
others.
Identity building 2
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Interaction helps us to
clarify what in our
dissimilarity with the
others is truly relevant –
what it really is that
makes me me.
Therefore the stability of
identity is dependent on
how stable and long-
lasting the differences
between people are.
Identity building 3
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The individuals of our time are developing
hybrid identities, which feel flexible and
changeable in front of the demands of each
new situation or person.
While a person has a strong need to belong,
at the same time morals and sociability are
dependent on his/her own value choices and
other preferences.
Identity building 4
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The emphasis on individualism is due to
increasing pluralism, the Western ideals of the
Enlightenment, such as democracy and equality
and it is typical to the rich countries.
Individualism has become the most important
source of meaning in our time.
Individualism 1.
The projects of the Self are the
only field over which an
individual has a total control.
The Self -- one’s own body and
mind -- becomes the playground
and experimental area of new
lifestyles.
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At the same time, the responsibility of
- economic success
- coping and life management
- popularity among friends and
colleagues
is piling up a still heavier load on
the shoulders of especially young
people.
When the claim of individuality is taken
into its extremes, it leads to hedonism
and selfishness, but also the feelings of
loneliness and insecurity
increase.
Individualism 2
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A human being faces a danger to change
from an active subject into an object of
his/her own life.
We and the information society
He/she becomes a part of
the event, a character in
the play
of experiences where
nobody knows the author,
there is no director, the
scene is world-wide,
the thread is blurred,
and theme unclear.
(Ulrich Beck)
