It is Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006), the first Black science fiction author and Afro-Futurist pioneer, who got me interested in actually reading the genre, rather than just watching the movies. I haven’t read all her books but have pored over enough to harbor a healthy respect for her art and prescient insights on the future. This is the reason I was excited to read her short essay “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future,” published in 2000 for Essence magazine, and republished in June by Chronicle Books, featuring evocative futurist collages by Manzel Bowman.
In just a few thousand words, Butler responds to a student’s query, “Do you really believe that in the future we’re going to have the kind of trouble you write about in your books?” The question was referring to Butler’s warnings about, among other real time crises, increasing drug addiction, illiteracy, global warming and untold seeds of doomsday scenarios. “I didn’t make up the problems,” she noted, “all I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.”
Asked if there was a solution to the problems, Butler replied there is not one, but many—and “the very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope.” Hope for the 21st century!
Fortune-telling is nonetheless left to carnival prognosticators and religious zealots. Rational people can (and doubtless will) make educated guesses, but not even a true futurist has received what Butler says is “any special ability to foretell the future,” adding, “but it does encourage me to use our past and present behaviors as guides to the kind of world we seem to be creating.” Not acknowledging the past is “like trying to learn to read without bothering to learn the alphabet.”
I assume that Butler’s fans will find their way to the book, but for others, I suggest you give it a read—it is short (10 minutes reading time), yet filled with timeless insight.