A collage that illustrates Prime Minister Abe’s vision of a future extended family with human and robot members. Jennifer Robertson.

Japanese robotics is imagineering a future dominated by nostalgia and nationalism.

“Chair of the Future.” Seventy years ago, Margaret Mead confirmed her futurist leanings by proposing that universities should promote the study of profound social transformations by appointing Chairs of the Future. Research on historical cultures and societies—“the Middles Ages and Classical Greece”—was already well established, she argued. The acceleration of social change together with the lengthening of the human life span meant that “no one will live in the world into which [they were] born, and no one will die in the world in which [they] worked in [their] maturity” (Mead in Cornish [1977]1983, 128–129). In her numerous writings about human futures, Mead (2005) aimed at a broad readership; her work remains relevant and demonstrates why anthropologists especially are well positioned to engage “future futures.”

A collage that illustrates Prime Minister Abe’s vision of a future extended family with human and robot members. Jennifer Robertson.Mead contrasted “prefigurative” (new) culture with “postfigurative” (traditional) culture. The former refers to societies in which the elders learn from youngers; the latter to one in which the youngers learn from elders. Current culture is “cofigurative” in that young and old alike learn from their contemporaries or peers (Mead 1972, 31). What Mead did not grok was the extent to which future technology, as I have argued in the case of Japanese robotics, would be deployed to salvage a traditional status quo—an agenda I characterize as retro-tech and retro-robotics.

Mead contrasted “prefigurative” (new) culture with “postfigurative” (traditional) culture. The former refers to societies in which the elders learn from youngers; the latter to one in which the youngers learn from elders. Current culture is “cofigurative” in that young and old alike learn from their contemporaries or peers (Mead 1972, 31). What Mead did not grok was the extent to which future technology, as I have argued in the case of Japanese robotics, would be deployed to salvage a traditional status quo—an agenda I characterize as retro-tech and retro-robotics.

Read the full essay here.