CULTURAL FUTURISTICS: A SOCIAL SCIENCE FORESIGHT METHODOLOGY

During a pivotal period in Dr. Michael Glock’s life, he delved deeply into the exploration of scenarios and their profound role in navigating forward. In the mid-20th century, the field of futures studies emerged, aiming to envision how past and present realities shape the future. Futurists analyze patterns and causes of change from diverse interdisciplinary perspectives, crafting maps of alternative futures through scenarios. However, a missing perspective in futures studies has been the influence of depth psychology, particularly in understanding how cultural complexes, symbols, myths, and narratives shape political and cultural life.

Dr. Glock’s work introduces cultural futuristics, a reimagining of traditional psychoanalysis as a psychological, social-science methodology informing scenario-based planning. Cultural futuristics, essentially a cultural psychology, encourages transdisciplinary dialogue and implements clinical findings into scenario planning. The resulting “future histories” seek to amplify the voice of the cultural soul, addressing unexamined cultural complexes and mitigating potential impacts.

By treating significant cultural events as dreams, places, and clients with a veiled, imaginal “voice,” cultural futuristics integrates social-science methods, psychoanalytical techniques, alchemical procedures, indigenous wisdom, and a research attitude aligned with the Western Apache concept of “smooth mind.” Researchers using cultural futuristics reconnect surface-level facades with unconscious depths, unveiling what has been disguised and hidden from modernism’s surface glance. Informed by the wisdom within unconscious constellations, shadows, and archetypal movements, cultural futuristics aims to bring consciousness to cultural complexes and soul to scenario planning, mitigating and averting potential future catastrophes.