The Future as the Cause: On Explanatory Power of Future in Sociological Theory
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The presetation works as an introduction to a broader trend in sociological theory – that is ascribing explanatory power to the future. This trend presents a certain turn in sociological thinking, which usually seeking causes in historical or present factors. While future in prognostics or predictions is nothing new for sociological research. But it usually figures as an dependent variable not independent one. In a similar logic as cultural sociology of Alexander and Smith (2003), this is something that Jens Beckert (2013; 2016) and his co-workers advocate for. In their perspective, social reality is driven by future imaginaries and fictional expectations of future. The presentation aims to introduce this future-oriented approach to the Czech sociological audience. While such thinking is not completly foreign to sociological theory, it has been obscure at best. To illustrate the potential of future oriented sociology, I present two purely illustrative cases. The first one is the case of Brno's Prior. Here, the logic of explanation could be called sociological retrofuturism – the cause is a certain image of future that is long gone. The second example aims to explain the economic success of Elon Musk through futures he projects and represents. Such approach could be dubbed sociological futurology – an approach focused on currently imagined futures as explanatory social facts of contemporary social realities. |