I just happened to have some time to kill in our local supermarket a few weeks back. Normally, the way I like to while away my time is to browse either the wine or the magazine sections. Good fortune that day put me into the magazine section, and I came across 'What If … Book Of Alternative History'. I had to buy it.
I take the view that if we want to master alternative futures, we must also learn to grapple with alternative pasts. There happens to be a genre of fiction - Alternative History - that caters for this. Some of it is quite good. Some of it quite poor. However, the point is not to conduct literary criticism, but to be able to derive from a common starting point an alternative route into the present. If a futurist can master that technique, they will be able to start at a point in the present, and navigate a route into the future. To do this several times, with different results, is to produce a set of alternative futures. Or scenarios, as we commonly call them.
This little publication - it calls itself a bookazine, a cross between a book and a magazine - is a mixed bag. It is American in origin and reflects a set of American values and priorities. Each piece starts with a question, outlines what actually happened, describes the pivotal event, and then presents a narrative as if the pivotal event hadn't happened. As a template for exploring alternative history, it has much to commend it. As a methodology to explore alternative futures, it is very important.
One pivotal point in history, a favourite of the alternative history genre, considers what might have happened had the Confederate States performed better at Gettysburg? This work contains an entry on this subject. It outlines the fault lines in American politics that led to the Civil War, and explains how, with the loss at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the South could no longer win. But what if Lee were to have been victorious at Gettysburg? That is the starting point of the narrative. It has McClellan defeating Lincoln in the 1864 election, a negotiated peace following, and then a divided continent. The narrative places something of a brake upon the industrialisation in the North, and provides a different trajectory for the expansion of the frontier westwards. It finishes with both the Confederate and Union governments taking a non-aligned stance in World War I.
We can argue over specific events along this timeline, and that is it's point. The purpose of a counter-factual timeline is to provide discussion points. Only by examining these key events can we understand their significance. The fun then starts when we add one timeline to another. For example, the US neutrality result of the American Civil War piece ties in naturally with the piece considering what may have resulted from Germany not losing World War I. Could that have led to the marginalisation of the Nazi Party in German politics? I find these questions interesting as an intellectual challenge, but the main benefit from them comes when we apply then to our consideration of the future.
Take Brexit as an example. This is a highly complicated situation with many moving parts. Anyone who can say what will or will not happen in Brexit is a fantasist. There are so many possibilities that the only way to view the situation is from the lens of multiple futures. At this point in time, each of those futures deserves an equal weight because they are equally likely to happen. We can narrow down the range of potential futures by mapping out a rudimentary timeline. Will Brexit be Hard or Soft? Will the detachment be amicable or acrimonious? Will there be a last minute change of heart by the British public? And so the questions go on. The point is that the answer to each of these questions unlocks a different timeline. The identification of these potential timelines is where the technique shows its worth.
I am a fan of alternative futures and timelines. This little magazine, despite its flaws, is an interesting exercise in timeline construction. That's why it commends itself to me.
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2018
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