TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/010890/0108472.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.6 KB | 140 lines

                                                                                BOOKS, Page 72

Millennial Megababble


By STEFAN KANFER


MEGATRENDS 2000
by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene
Morrow; 384 pages; $21.95


    As the first millennium approached, a French monk named
Markulf sounded a warning: "Mundi terminum ruinis crescentibus
appropinquantem indicia certa manifestant" -- Clear signs
announce the end of the world; the ruins multiply. The
theologian Thietmar of Merseburg, on the other hand, viewed the
chalice as half full: "The thousandth year since the salvific
birth," he thought, was surely the time of "a radiant dawn .
. . over the world."

    The second millennium nears, and this time it is the secular
prophets who disagree. Apocalyptists like Paul Ehrlich and the
Club of Rome foresee an overpopulated globe, flooded with
garbage and asphyxiated by fluorocarbons. The oracles of
optimism predict salvation by technology on a planet of plenty.

    Foremost of the 21st century ecstatics are John Naisbitt and
Patricia Aburdene, a husband-and-wife team. His previous best
seller, Megatrends, was a smooth amalgam of insight, conjecture
and jargon. In the '80s, he predicted, we would move from
"Industrial Society to Information Society, from National
Economy to World Economy, from Hierarchies to Networking, from
Either/Or to Multiple Option." Naisbitt scored some palpable
hits -- and made some egregious errors. But readers were less
interested in results than in the relentlessly affirmative
message. The book sold 8 million copies in 28 languages and
stayed on U.S. best-seller lists from 1982 to 1984.

    It does not take a wizard to see that Megatrends 2000 is
destined for the same course. There have been three printings
before publication, and the authors' message is still
relentlessly upbeat. "We are often asked," they write, " . .
. why we do not describe more of the problems facing
humankind." The answer is revealing: "We admire the activists
whose life's work is to right the world's wrongs. Our mission
is a different one." Translation: in difficult times there are
too many candidates for the role of Cassandra. The part of
cheerleader is just as lucrative, and easier to play.

    Naisbitt and Aburdene begin with a rallying cry beloved by
high school valedictorians: "We stand at the dawn of a new
era." The rest of the work rarely breaks that tone of
adolescent confidence. No need to be concerned about the
imbalance of trade, recession or unemployment. "There will be
virtually no limits to growth . . . Everything that comes out
of the ground will be in oversupply for the balance of this
century and probably much longer." So much for shortages of
oil, tulips or gophers.

    Throughout the '80s, the moral backslide has been a national
obsession. But a panacea is at hand. The New Age will save the
world: "We are rediscovering the emotional side of ourselves.
Both channeling and speaking in tongues assert the validity of
the irrational." And the profitability. With spreadsheet
sincerity, the authors report that "theology aside,
fundamentalists and New Agers concur as consumers. Books,
music, and videotapes are big sellers for both . . . It seems
there is no end to this market."

    For Naisbitt and Aburdene, market is always the operative
word. As proof of a resurgence in the arts, they report that
"during the Renoir show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the
museum shop sold $8.3 million worth of T-shirts, sweat shirts,
exhibition catalogs, posters, and appointment calendars. At $2
apiece Renoir shopping bags grossed $100,000." There are no
figures on how many visitors actually looked at the paintings.

    Stateside, the authors can sometimes be plausible; once
across the ocean, they veer directly into farce. The
fashionable will soon be ordering their wardrobes in the
Cyrillic alphabet: "Yummies -- young, upwardly mobile Marxists
-- are emerging in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, imitating
the clothes and music tastes of yuppies." As for international
terrorism, travelers to the Middle East can loosen their seat
belts: "Developing countries that succeed in preserving their
cultures remain stronger and find it more difficult to justify
striking out against the West." This intelligence should be
a surprise to the Great Satan.

    Not every passage is eupeptic or naive. Naisbitt and
Aburdene are right to question the findings of the pessimists:
even scientists disagree about the consequences of the
greenhouse effect. And the authors acknowledge, however
briefly, the social plagues of crime, AIDS and substance abuse.
But these are mere blemishes in their grand design. "Our
perspective," they declare, "our market niche in the vast world
of information, is to highlight some of the positive."

    Alas, that highlight only brightens the route to the
best-seller list. The path to the 21st century is deeper and
far more tortuous than a market niche. A new era involves,
among other things, hazardous negotiations, forbearance,
sacrifices and painstaking research. These have little
importance in this megababble, largely dedicated to validating
the irrational. It is fueled by the notion that if readers
shout good news often enough and loud enough, the resulting hot
air will cause the whole world to rise.


____________________________________________________________
BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART II

    Five years ago, John Naisbitt learned to ski, an appropriate
sport given the peaks and valleys he has experienced. Headed
for a life as a Mormon missionary, he instead dropped out of
high school and joined the Marines. After earning a degree at
the University of Utah, he served as an assistant in the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare (he was later
accused of hyping himself on his resume as "special assistant
to President Johnson"). The downhill came later: he failed in
a business-consulting venture, was divorced, filed for
bankruptcy and pleaded guilty to fraud for failing to list
certain assets in his filing. Naisbitt, 60, rebounded when he
married Patricia Aburdene and, in 1982, published his
megaselling Megatrends. Aburdene, 42, provided a New Age
overlay to Naisbitt's supersalesman's mentality. "We have to
bring an end to our romance with technology and get in touch
with the spiritual parts of ourselves," she says. Some 80 times
a year, they give seminars, separately or together, to
corporations, often charging $20,000 for an hour-long talk. "We
give information as a form of entertainment," says Aburdene.
"It's part of a performance."