Wendell Berry, in his essay "Looking Ahead," makes a convincing argument against the aims, the effects, and the very existence of "futurology." Futurology is the "science" of predicting the future, usually in sociological terms. For instance, they attempt to answer the question, What is life in the United States going to be like in the future? To Berry, futurology is wrong and dangerous not because it predicts a future society in which there are more and more machines controlling more and more of our lives, but because it fails to see the importance of the human being and human relationships now and in the future.
One reason that Berry's article is effective is because it shifts tone at least twice. He begins in a serious tone, straightforwardly presenting his basic theme and argument. He says the futurologist is trying to do something which cannot be done---predict the future. He asks what inspires the futurologist, and then suggests a number of answers. In giving those answers, he shifts to an ironic, drily sarcastic tone, so that the reader feels that perhaps he simply wants to entertain. For example, he writes that the universities have had to invent futurology because they have been turning out too many Ph.D.'s for the available job openings. He adds that futurology is attractive to futurologists because they can pipedream and never be called on their fantasizing:
If you build [a castle in the air] in the future, which does not exist, you can call it a "logical projection," your colleagues will talk learnedly about it, you can hope to get a promotion, a salary increase, and to earn large fees as a lecturer and consultant (Berry 177).
Berry goes on in this vein, arguing with humor and power that the whole notion of the futurologist is absurd and a waste of time, a con-game run by academics on the gullible public hungry for a look into the unknown.
Then he assumes a far more serious tone as he begins to focus on t...