Things To Come
Hughes, Peter
Book Review: Things to Come by Herman Kahn and B. Bruce-Biggs Macmillan Co., $6.95 B. Bruce-Biggs, a lecturer at the Hudson Institute, and Herman Kahn, Director and lecturer at the Institute,...
...But the areas the authors cover in such brief space is too voluminous to get the attention deserved...
...Things To Come leaves me with the same feeling...
...Pundits covering the entire philosophical spectrum have drawn upon the same premise, while drawing radically different conclusions...
...Things To Come is a synthesis of Kahn's earlier writings...
...They argue that much has already been attained...
...Things To Come offers little new material if a reader is familiar with the heretofore mentioned books and The Emerging Japanese Superstate...
...Their pe-ception of the future, however, is based on the premise that "modern man" (they include themselves) share the - "contemporary views of scientific laws' " and they believe that the future will be eclectic and syncretic...
...Things To Come is logical enough and perhaps too scientific...
...since World War II they identify a growing awareness of global community, that the globe is recognizing the need for a res communis omnium...
...Although the book expresses a concern for values, the tools of the scientist cannot hope to approach grasping, and certainly not answering...
...Implicit in this philosophical interpretation seems to be a revival of Positivism, i.e., the birth of a new man who no longer has the need for metaphysics and theology...
...From this the authors proceed into various scenarios, and they offer a case study in methodology in a chapter on Japan...
...As such, logic goes beyond the point of relevance...
...The discussion and organization resembles a glob of silly putty, with little coherence...
...Kahn is primarily a scientist and not a philosopher, and he overshadows Bruce-Biggs, the historian...
...the so-called "big questions" which have stymied philosophers through the ages...
...He covers the long term multifold trend of western culture, based on Pitrim Sorokin's terminology (although not his concepts), i.e...
...The rise of neo-classical conservatism grew out of similar convictions, i.e., Leo Strauss has argued that widespread nihilism in Western Civilization was the inevitable nemesis of liberalism and philosophical Conventionalism...
...He replied that it could, but that it would make no sense: "It would be a description without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as variations of wave pressure...
...Book Review: Things to Come by Herman Kahn and B. Bruce-Biggs Macmillan Co., $6.95 B. Bruce-Biggs, a lecturer at the Hudson Institute, and Herman Kahn, Director and lecturer at the Institute, have produced a book which continues in the strain of the Kahn tradition...
...Kahn's scenarios once again aroused debate among the academic and professional community, both in terms of efficacy, methodology, and application...
...Kahn's books were never meant for the casual reader, and this one is no exception...
...an impossible task, man being what he is...
...the emergence of a sensate culture...
...it suggests the fallacy of Malthusian economics by taking scenarios to a punktum ad absur-dum and by justifying these scenarios on the argumentum ad ignoratium...
...Peter Hughes...
...Kahn is widely recognized as a leading thinker in the field of politico-military strategy, and as a major figure in the "science of futurology...
...While the merits and weaknesses of Kahn's arguments found no concensus, no one could deny their heuristic value...
...Albert Einstein was once asked if he believed that everything could be expressed scientifically...
...this is hardly a startling revelation...
...Whereas e.g., Illich called for the birth of a new epimethean man, Strauss called for the reawakening of classical values, the belief in natural right...
...The defrocked priest and Marcusian philosopher, Ivan Illich, has argued that present society resembles Ambrosia, a picture of society with declining hopes and rising expectations, which expected the engineer to increase its satisfaction while reducing its wants...
...In their conclusion, the authors say that man has lost his faith in material progress...
...they cover the psycho-sociological, politico-economic, philosophical, and technological development, drawing conclusions and offering projections...
...The same cannot be said for this latest book...
...All of which Kahn has done before...
...Herman Kahn's books are rarely dull, but his latest publication is a disappointment...
...But here the similarity ends...
...Kahn offers an excellent example in how a writer can soak his material tor all its worth...
...It also does the author(s) a disservice, since its appeal could only be for a reader seeking an introduction to Kahn...
...there is an awful lot of wave pressure, but none of the harmony and sensitivity of a Bachian fugue...
...In a later book, Thinking About The Unthinkable, The Year 2000...
...his first magnum opus produced a furor, his latest will not even cause a tremor...
...Kahn and Bruce-Biggs believe that the future can and should be altered nor-matively, by varying man...
...His controversial study, On Thermonuclear War, gave physics and mathematics a new relevancy for the political and policy scientist, when Kahn developed deterrence and counter-deterrence strategy to its ultimate, rational and logical end...
...it does neither the author(s), nor the reader justice...
...However, a lack of references undermines even this purpose...
...Their optimism is, to say the least, debatable...
Vol. 6 • December 1972 • No. 3
