Which Future Are We Living In?

Paul Raskin

Two tumultuous decades have passed since the publication of Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead, the essay that prompted the formation of the Great Transition Initiative (GTI). Although the ambient pessimism of 2022 darkens the twentieth anniversary of a treatise that harboured hope for the future, it is also good reason to reflect on the durability of its message.

From the vantage point of 2002, GT envisioned contrasting scenarios for the twenty-first century. Now, standing partway into that unknown future, we are witnesses to how lived history collapsed all the possibilities into a single path—so far. The moment ispropitious for locating where we are and where we are headed—and for recalibrating our conceptual framework and action agenda.


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