GOOD

= superior, informed and rational


Historical Forces Strategy

The Long View

BAD

= inferior, ignorant, irrational


Anecdotal

Folksy

Parochial

THE FORMULAIC VIEW


Then there is a third view that is different from either the Progressive or Depressive ones. This view says that whatever direction humanity is going, there is a formula or a set of laws that can explain what is going on. From this it would follow that if these formulae or laws can be discovered, then those privileged to understand them could make themselves authorities on the future of humanity itself. Believers in this view can be very different people, but they include:


Astrologers

Apocalyptic Millennialists

Historicists


Astrologers believe that the future of society and individuals is determined by the position and movement of the stars and the planets. My first thoughts on this are that Chinese astrology tells me that I am a cuddly rabbit with a friendly future; whilst Western astrology sees me as cold and calculating with a secure financial future and few friends! But more later.


Apocalyptic Millennialists are less funny. These those who have some serious and exclusive religious belief, usually based on their personal interpretation of a book or a written tradition, that claims to know about 'the end of the world' and the fate of us who live in it. Although this kind of belief has been going on for thousands of years, its track record so far has not been too successful: the world is still here. But more later.


Equally serious and self-confident are the Historicists. They claim to use science, rationalism, or some other intellectual discipline; to reveal a model that explains the whole of human history from the past, through the present and into an indefinite future. For these believers:

What Beliefs and Values unite the Plague Three views?