Future Intelligence E-Book

Shlomo Shoham

• Herausgeber: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

As the pace of change has grown more rapid, an emphasis on survival and short-term thinking has increasingly pervaded the realm of leadership and political decision-making. In a bold response to this problem, the Israeli Knesset established the Commission for Future Generations and appointed the former judge, Shlomo Shoham, as head of the Commission in 2001. Shoham was tasked with the difficult work of representing the needs, interests and rights of those not yet born. Drawing upon his legal and political experience, Shoham today demonstrates how we can overcome the pitfalls of short-term thinking by developing our "future intelligence." This kind of intelligence, he argues, is the key to infusing public administration with visionary thinking and creative foresight. Endorsements: From Shimon Peres, President of the State of Israel In his book Future Intelligence, Judge (ret.) Shlomo Shoham provides a practical model on how to enhance sustainability in government and policy-defining bodies to serve the future of mankind and nature in a changing planet. Future Intelligence turns to the decision-makers of today to break away from the conservative outlook and adopt a long-term vision for posterity. From Horst Köhler, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany Shlomo Shoham presented the work of the Commission for Future Generations at the First Forum on Demographic Change of the former German President in 2005. For President Horst Köhler and other participants, Shoham's conceptual contributions proved immensely valuable in helping lay out new means of dealing with the fundamental challenges facing all countries, including Germany.

Leseprobe

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

© 2011 E-Book-Ausgabe (EPUB)

© 2010 Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung, GüterslohResponsible: Andreas EscheProduction editor: Sabine ReimannManaging editor: Barbara Serfozo, BerlinCopy editor: Josh Ward, BonnCover design: Nadine HumanCover photo: Tal ShaniTypesetting and printing: Hans KockBuch- und Offsetdruck GmbH, Bielefeld

ISBN : 978-3-86793-300-1

www.bertelsmann-stiftung.org/publications

www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/verlag

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Endorsements

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Preface Bertelsmann Stiftung

Preface Shlomo Shoham

Future Intelligence

Creating a desired future as intelligent behavior

From insight to foresight: an introduction to futures studies

Streams of research in futures studies

Future intelligence and human happiness

Future intelligence and our core values

A calling is more than a set of goals

Beyond dichotomies

The courage to forget and the ability to let go

Adaptability and flexibility

Sustainability

From a survival mode to sustainability

Living and thinking in survival mode

Future imagery-benefits and practice

Consciousness and its effect on reality

Practicing future intelligence

Assimilating Sustainability and Foresight into Public Administration

Foresight-beyond forecasting

Sustainability units

Creating a sustainability unit

The content unit

The assimilation unit

The Story of the Commission for Future Generations

Creating the Commission: Addressing democracy’s blind spot

The Commission’s powers and authority

The Commission’s mission

From the Commission’s mission to first principles

Creating a public status

The rights of future generations and the values of sustainability

The Commission’s interventions

Education

Health

Environment

The national economy and budget

Science and technology

The Commission’s legacy

Fields of Action

Education

Education for a sustainable future

Education 2025 project

Brainstorming with the ID procedure

Putting ID into practice

An ID for all of us

Health

Defining the obesity epidemic

Reasons for obesity and types of fat

Children-on the forefront of obesity worldwide

Treating obesity in children

The work of the Commission for Future Generations

Goals and partners

Toward a national plan

In the Knesset

Limiting harmful marketing to minors

Raising awareness of trans fats’ dangers

Working with the Ministry of Health’s National Task Force

Environment

The Commission’s environmental work

Protecting Israel’s coastline

First metamorphoses of the Protection of the Coastal Environment Law

The shore as public property

The minister of the interior’s “fast one”

Looking back: disappointment and consolation

Epilogue

References

Appendix

The Author

Endorsements

From Reuven Rivlin

Shlomo, my dear friend!

Your book provokes admiration for the topic that you chose to share with your readers as well as for the book’s thoroughness and original approach.

I consider involvement in our future highly important and valuable. Most of us are stuck in day-to-day events and are hard-pressed to anticipate or plan even tomorrow’s activities, never mind those on the truly distant horizon...

Your sincere concern for fashioning the future of the generations to come has an altruistic dimension of a sort not found here and deserves every sort of praise. You do so in the spirit of those on-target words of the well-known Jewish-Polish educator Janusz Korczak: “The one concerned with days, plants wheat; with years, plants trees; with generations, educates people.”

I wish you great success in the blessed task that you have undertaken.

Sincerely, Reuven Rivlin, MP Chairman of the Israeli Parliament (The Knesset)

From David Passig:

The Commission for Future Generations was a kind of gateway to the cosmic continuum that opened for the extraordinary group, headed by Judge Shoham, linking Israeli society’s present and past with its future. The opportunity that presented itself enabled us to spin a special, unified web of legislation that would give significance to our existence in this region so ancient and saturated with history and creative flowering. The threads were the laws that the Commission initiated or for which they composed a true behind-the-scenes coalition. But the creation was a sketch of a mosaic of the future in which our children will live and from which they will view us when the time will come...

The book in front of the reader is the key to other similar gateways. One who knows how to read it will be able-if only he so wishes-to open new gates for anything he desires, gates that will enable many cultures to connect their past with their future with clear links and values that they acquire from the eternality of the cosmos.

Prof. David Passig, Futurist, Head of the Graduate Program in Information and Communication Technology and Head of the Virtual Reality Lab, Bar-Ilan University

Acknowledgments and Dedication

First and foremost, I would like to express my thanks to my mother, Hedva Shoham, may her memory be a blessing, and to my father, Yehuda Shoham, may he be granted a long life. In my writings on basic values and openheartedness, and in my writings on our obligation to future generations, my parents stand always before me as the ones who imprinted my soul.

Special thanks go to my wife, Orit, who has walked alongside me on the way these many years. To my children and grandchildren and to the children of the universe, I dedicate this book.

Exceptional thanks are reserved for the late Minister of Justice and Member of the Knesset Yosef Tommy Lapid for successfully looking far ahead and committing to our future. The Commission for Future Generations in the Knesset is entirely the fruit of his vision.

There are many excellent members of the Knesset and government ministers who had a deep understanding of the significance of the Commission for Future Generations and helped to empower it within parliament. To all of them, I extend a big thank you. I will mention the few who stand out in my mind at this moment and ask forgiveness of the many others: Knesset Chair “Ruby” Reuven Rivlin, a close friend and a man of truth, former Members of the Knesset and Ministers Shaul Yahalom and Eliezer “Moodi” Sandberg, Ministers Raleb Majadele and Gideon Ezra, Members of the Knesset Omri Sharon, Lea Nass, Dov Khenin, Michael Melchior and Yuri Shtern, Z’L.

From the bottom of my heart, I extend thanks to the staff of the Commission for Future Generations, which accompanied our wanderings through the wilderness and helped to establish this unique body: Yonat Marraton, Adv. Nira Lamay, Adv. Vered Kiro, Iris Zur, Aviad Oren, Dotan Simchovitz, Ran Haklai, Dr. Shai Pintov and Lilach Yaish.

A special thanks goes to Professor David Passig, my methodology consultant for all my years of service in the Commission, who inspired this book as well.

I wish also to express my gratitude to all of the people who helped in the writing of this book-to Yonat Marraton, Dotan Simchovitz, Aviad Oren, Ran Haklai, Yael Mei-Ora and Keren Kolan. This book would not have been written if it weren’t for the exceptional and brilliant Johannes Meier, a close friend and a former member of the board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, who supported, encouraged and, above all, helped me to put my ideas to the test of reality and action.

This is also the opportunity to thank the Bertelsmann Stiftung, its vice-chair, Liz Mohn, and her daughter, Brigitte Mohn, for the support that made possible the unhurried, relaxed writing of this book. I thank as well Mr. Vincent Menken, Ms. Anita Janzohn and Ms. Ingrid Eimer, who make up a wonderful, loving, supportive and esteemed team.

I extend as well my heartfelt appreciation to Hadar Cohen, my faithful assistant, for her assistance in writing, her faith and for being who she is. Much praise is also in order for my supportive assistants, Adv. Meyrav Kenyon and Haya Mosak, and for Rochelle Treister, whose translations succeeded in capturing the feelings and the magic even in the transition to another language.

Last but not least, I wish to thank Barbara Serfozo, the editor of this book, for facilitating a wonderful intellectual and emotional experience with German-Jewish collaboration in letting go of the past and committing to the future. And, at the end of the day, I thank her for writing it down in a professional and readable way.

This book is dedicated to my children, Benny, Moria, Ofra, Ori and Noa,To my grandchildren, Nitsan, Stav, Yael, Tamar, Smadar Hedva, Eyal,Inbar and Meshi,And to the children of the universe,

You who have come from the infiniteAnd are en route to the infinite,

Whose wings are spread wide,Whose essence is liberty,love and freedom,

To the children of the universe,Which awaits you-with its mysteriesAs a beloved mother,Open to enclose,Yearning to expose its secrets,

To the children of the universe,Who are born whole and full of light,Loved exactly as you areTuned to play your unique melody in the world,

To you this book is dedicated,Fruit of love.All that I ask,

As sages of generations before me have asked,As the wisdom of the world asks,

Open your hearts to know thatthere is in the world, a placeready and ripe to enfold youjust as you are,Your dreams,Your passions,Your longings.

Your arrival in this world and your existence in itis connected by its very beingwith the space to include you in your entirety,

With all the unique shades in your souls,With all of your strengths and uniqueness,Without your having to diminish yourselvesan iota,

Without your having to lessen your joy of lifeIn order to conform to rulescreated out of fear...

The whole world is your playground,The entire universe awaits you,The cosmos blesses you,

Welcome home.

Shlomo Shoham, 2010

“... the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

William Hutchinson MurrayThe Scottish Himalayan Expedition, 1951

Preface Bertelsmann Stiftung

In 2001, the Israeli Knesset took a radical step outside the short-term thinking processes too often endemic to parliamentary bodies by establishing its Commission for Future Generations. Under the leadership of its first commissioner, former judge Shlomo Shoham, this organization was tasked with representing the interests of those not yet born in the rough and tumble of present-day politics.

Like any experiment, the success of this venture was mixed. Over time, Shoham and his coterie of expert staffers developed real influence across a wide policy spectrum, though they in some cases saw their proposals rejected. They brought an unusual and often controversial perspective-the claims of intergenerational justice-to debates ordinarily shaped by rival ideologies, conflicting data sets or competing political interest groups.

At a time when climate change fears are intensifying, financial systems are tottering, when pension programs are flirting with bankruptcy and education systems with failure, the Knesset Commission’s experience is increasingly relevant worldwide. But politics is ultimately a practical endeavor. How, policymakers might justifiably ask, can the interests of an unknown future be quantified and protected?

Shoham addresses this question in a distinctive and compelling manner. He develops the theory of “Future Intelligence,” a means of creative policy development aimed at distilling visions of a desired future into blueprints for practical activity. Too often, he writes, policymakers let the endless succession of short-term emergencies blind them to long-term consequences. In this “survival mode,” horizons of thought and empathetic feeling shrink to encompass the smallest possible time frames. The only way out of this trap, Shoham argues, is a deliberate and systematic attempt to develop, critique and ultimately realize our ideas of a better future.

Shoham’s ideas are grounded in the sustainable development movement, which has achieved substantial influence in environmental policy circles. However, he goes beyond this idea’s traditional norms, arguing not only that tomorrow’s needs must be weighted equally with today’s, but that today’s leaders must take a more active approach to conceptualizing a positive future. He explains, on both a theoretical and a practical level, how his commission was able to instrumentalize this idea in education, health care and other policy areas.

To be sure, few policymakers today would dismiss the need to preserve national resources-environmental, economic or social-for future use. But this is too often lip service, with future generations’ interests lost in the noise of day-to-day politics. By contrast, Shoham offers a tested approach, drawing lessons from his real-world experience in Israel’s Knesset that can be applied around the world.

This is a book for policymakers, legislators, business leaders, civil society and the general public alike. It is for anyone concerned that globalization, the increasing complexities of economic and political governance, or the unknowns of environmental change threaten our future. It will be viewed as radical by some readers, and as common sense by others. We hope that it inspires many.

The Bertelsman Stiftung takes pride in promoting activities that offer the broadest possible perspective on what successful governance entails. We are pleased to add Shoham’s work to this list. We hope it will spark discussion on how best to protect generations yet unborn, who have no lobbyists, contribute no funds to campaigns and vote in no elections, but whose interests are as vital as our own.

Andreas EscheDirector Program Thinking Global Future Bertelsmann Stiftung

Preface Shlomo Shoham

This book is writing itself.

I serve simply as its mouthpiece.

I can support it, enable it and invent language with which it can find its way into people’s hearts.

But its essence it writes independently.

The very moment the book started to be written is engraved in my soul, precisely and clearly.

And if you were to ask me how I know for sure, I would answer you as a child would: I know because my mother told me.

It is February 2007. Days of downpour with weeping skies and earth.