Envisioning futures : a critique of `super' male futurology : from the optical to the activisionary

This thesis is an exploratory inquiry into 'visions of a future' and provides a critical assessment of the subtextual thematic constellations of 'visions' which prevail in modern western societies. It is contended that, given our contemporary socioecological crisis, predominant western visions in their present supermale-progress form, irrespective of their 'post'-industrial or 'new' designations, are no longer adequate to guarantee positive social transformations. In contradistinction to predominant visions, life affirming visions such as 'activisionary-ecosophic' visions promise novel ways of living and being with all life, and provide the hallmark of hope and 'breakthrough' for our contemporary age. Only these visions are inherently socio-transfromative, since their political ecology is a life affirming one.