There tends to be two extremes of thought when it comes to agency about the future. There are those who believe that the future just happens to us, that there is little agency in the future we experience, and that the future can almost be random at times. At the other end of the spectrum are those who take the view that we have an high degree of agency in creating our own future. We can see things coming and prepare for them, we can control the factors of our lives that influence our future, and we can exercise choice over the options in front of us. Is one of these views correct? Or can we reconcile the position so that both can be correct?
It is useful to distinguish between microfutures and macrofutures. Microfutures are those aspects of the future that can be controlled through a degree of personal agency. It generally involves a degree of personal choice and whilst some choices close pathways into the future, that is a choice in which there is a high degree of personal agency. This ensures that the spread of choice you face can be very wide indeed. For example, in thinking about a career path, you could choose to become a doctor or you could choose to become an accountant. However, there are very few doctors who are qualified accountants, which suggests that if you choose one course of action, then the other becomes closed to you. It's not impossible to re-train from the one to the other, but it is very lengthy and expensive, which is possibly why so few do. Either way, as the future is malleable, we can prepare and plan for it. In this sense, there is a point to the study of the future.
Macrofutures are something yet again. These are those aspects of the future where you cannot change anything. They simply happen to you. There is very little personal agency over macrofutures because they are caused by factors beyond your control. This makes the choices available to you very limited. For example, you might decide to buy a property in London, and then find that your firm wants you to move to Newcastle. The choice you then face is almost binary - change jobs or move to Newcastle. You could try to add in extra options, such as exploring the commute to Newcastle or weekly lodging in Newcastle. However, that is an attempt to take a macrofuture - one that is handed to you - and convert it into a microfuture - one that you can create. With macrofutures, the future is one that is given, almost like fate. In this sense, there is no point to the study of the future from a personal perspective because it will happen anyway.
This raises an important question about our ability to create our own future and the role that luck plays in this. Lucky chance can help or impede one's future. It can blow events to your favour and it can blow them to your disadvantage. Placing chance in the context of microfutures and macrofutures is an interesting exercise. Chance in microfutures is an element that you can prepare for and anticipate, either to enhance a positive turn of events or to counter a negative turn of events. The impact of chance in macrofutures - to the degree that it cannot be controlled by your agency - is an altogether different matter.
In the environment of microfutures, a chance event can be moulded to suit your wishes. In a macrofuture environment, there is little you can do about it. You might want to insure against an adverse event, such as a fire or flood. Or you might want to ready yourself for an unfavourable event, such as your company moving production to the Far East, by staying attractive in the jobs market. In both cases, we are seeing again the conversion of a macrofuture into a microfuture. This is the process by which we can start to reconcile the apparent dichotomy between the two.
If we can adopt a process by which we convert macrofutures (things we can't control) into microfutures (things we can control), then we introduce a degree of agency to the process. It is in this way - the process of adaptation and preparation - that we can become the architects of our own future.
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2021
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