Future-Directed Thinking: Becoming Visionary

(I put this up on one of my course weblogs for my students that are writing "future-directed: visionary" papers--they are just examples to get them started--so I figured I would share it here at Dialogic. Essentially I have challenged them to think past the "here-and-now" emphasis of contemporary society and to develop a perspective that seeks to understand problems/issues in their lives and think about them in a future-directed: visionary way... I want them to develop a sense of responsibility and to realize that they have the necessary response-ability. Comment, as always, are welcomed.)

Adbusters ["We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century."]

Creating a New Vision for Agriculture ["Since its founding in 1982, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) has worked steadfastly for environmental and social justice in rural America."]

Educated Student: Global Citizen or Global Consumer? [Benjamin Barber, a political and educational theorist, challenges us to ask this question of what we want to be--citizen or consumer?]

Environmental Ethics: An Introduction

Global Issues That Effect Everyone [Anup Shah's amazing website that "looks into global issues that affect everyone and aims to show how most issues are inter-related. Over 6,500 links to external articles, web sites reports and analysis are used to provide credence to the arguments made on this web site. The issue categories range from trade, poverty and globalization, to human rights, geopolitics and the environment."]

Goodbye Uncle Sam, Hello Team Europe ["Not only does the world hate us, a new poll shows that for the first time most countries want us to get the hell out of the driver's seat."]

Independent Media in a Time of War [Democracy Now, an alternative TV/news station available online, 2004, 29 minute Documentary, featuring Amy Goodman reporting on the importance of Independent Media in a Time of War and its role in a vibrant, functioning democracy—other sources at the posting site)

Jobs With Justice [Jobs With Justice's "mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. JwJ's core belief is that in order to be successful, workers' rights struggles have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, JwJ has created a network of local coalitions that connect labor, faith-based, community, and student organizations to work together on workplace and community social justice campaigns."]

Land Ethic and Other Writings [Excerpts from the writing of Aldo Leopold: "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land." Also check out The Philosophical Foundations of Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic]

Landscapes of Capital: Representations of Time, Space and Globalization in Corporate Ads [Robert Goldman's and Stephen Papson's hyperlinked website that explores the visions of coporate advertising and how it constructs the world around us (or constructs how perceive the world around us).]

Mainstream Media (critique) [Global Issues special report on the problems with mainstream media in the US. An important issue for thinking about the future of our democratic nation.]

Megalomedia: The Voices of Globalization [Mapping the seven corporate media giants and their growing domination of public discourse. What happens to a democracy in which the peoples voices are no longer heard?]

New Genesis Project [World famous photographer "Sebastião Salgado is embarking on the last of his great photographic projects, ... He is seeking out places that are still as pristine as they were in primeval times, places that provide hope. First stop, the Galápagos Islands.]

The Oprah Society [How can we address the working realities of a nation in which one out of every four working adults makes less than 9 dollars an hour and has no health insurance?]

Orion ["This ... bimonthly journal of nature and political thought can be counted on to provide some of America's most eloquent and impassioned essays in defense of the environment and social change."]

Project Censored 2005 [Project Censored's annual report on the top 25 underreported or censored news stories. What we are not hearing about, is as important a factor, as what we are hearing about--how does limits on our access to news about the world affect our ability to think about the future?]

Prozac Spotlight [Why are so many people taking paxils for depression, anxiety and fear? What is it in our society that set so many people into a state of menatl/psychic un-ease or dis-ease? What are the dangers of a population that relies on these drugs while knowing very little about them? What are the stories of people who are deemed in need of these drugs?]

Right to Communicate [A social movement whose focus is on the "right to communicate" as a basic human right. In other words, the ability to communicate entails education, access, and opportunity.]

Roll Back Media Consolidation [Ted Turner the founder of TBS and CNN on the increasing dangers of big media consolidation.]

Sebastiăo Salgado: A Revolutionary Photographer [Let me warn you--I got online to just briefly look up some books by Salgado and got lost in the power of his images/words--this is a man of ideas just as powerful and passionate as his photographic journeys.]

Social Factors Shaping Social Perception [Social psychology perspective on how we construct our worldviews--the way we view the world; judgments of right/wrong, normal/abnormal, etc...; what is important and what is not; who matters and who doesn't]

Sociology of Knowledge [How do we know what we know? Very important questions for any visionary thinker.]

Spinwatch [Analyzing those who attempt to "spin" the future]

Thinking Like a Mountain [This essay by Aldo Leopold recounts his days as a hunter of wolves and challenges us to think from a broader ecological perspective.]

This Is What Democracy Looks Like [Independent media center reports on social/economic protests around the world. This is independent video activism that has arisen out of a frustration with mainstream media.]

Toxic Culture [Kalle Lasn and Richard DeGrandpre on our current mental environment and problems associated with chemicals, advertising, drugs, etc... Outlines recent psychosocial studies that examine the effects on our society and what could be done.]

Utne [Warm hearted, user friendly, mildly activist magazine--always looking toward the future with new ideas and celebrations of visionary thinkers]

Vodafone [A communications corporation imagines the future--of course, this vision is centered around their products. Also check out their magazine Receiver on their site.]

We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism [Stories of social movements around the world. "We Are Everywhere is the the first book to truly capture and embody the exuberant creativity and radical intellect of the protest movements"--Naomi Klein]

World Changing [Thinking the future through technological advancements]