Listening to a man with a reputation for describing the future inspires in me a mixture of awe and skepticism. I felt both last week while interviewing Ken Dychtwald, a west coast guru celebrated for his prognostications about the shape of America some decades from now.
It takes a lot more chutzpah than I possess to outline the future with the confidence wielded by this dynamic visionary.
We talked in Denver at a national meeting of the American Society on Aging, a six-thousand member organization known for its varied interests and lively spirit. Dychtwald has star quality charisma: his talk, billed as “Not Like Their Parents: The Ten Ways That Boomers Will Age Differently Than Previous Generations,” presented with the latest high tech audio-visual devices, drew a large and enthusiastic audience.
The boomers, Americans born between 1946 and 1964, have fascinated Dychtwald throughout his career. This 52-year-old consultant belongs to this group himself, a fact that gives energy to his view of the future. Some of his ten visions have already begun to take hold; others require this prophet to stick his neck out.
Here is the future according to Dychtwald:
- Greater Longevity: length of life for both men and women will increase further, as it did in the twentieth century.
- More Comprehension of Life Course Navigation: people will learn better how to find their way through the various stages that come with long life.
- Growing Old Later: Americans will retain youthfulness longer than in earlier times.
- Absence of Security: Entitlements of all sorts will come to an end and people will become accustomed to living at risk.
- Cyclic Life Plan: instead of using the linear model, we will become used to thinking of our lives as being shaped by a series of returns.
- Empowerment: not expecting to be handed influence, citizens will grow accustomed to seizing it for themselves.
- Female Power: Women will take their rightful place in every field of professional activity and exercise more influence.
- Supportive Marketplace: Choices will become much more abundant for those buying goods and services.
- Greater Respect for Diversity: Americans will cease to assign people to categories by color, religion, or ethnic origin but at the same time retain interest in human differences for themselves.
- Increased Liberation: we will become less traditional – – sexually, spiritually, intellectually, and socially.
As for himself, Dychtwald wants “not only to understand the future but to have a role in shaping it.” If he lives to the 120 – 140 year range that he foresees for some people, he will have a lot of time to do it.
The skepticism I always feel about prophets lost some of its edge when Dychtwald shared with me other, more sobering views. It may sound strange but I found reassuring his recognition that “there are some really horrible things that happen: poverty, disease, loss of sense of self-worth.”
“If we live long in states of dementia and poverty,” he warns, “that’s like winding up at a bad party and having to stay all week.”
In his writings, Dychtwald has expressed fear about huge numbers of elderly Americans spending their last decades doing little more than watching television. Even now, he reminds us, “forty million retirees average 43 hours a week of TV!”
Ken also worries about our democracy. After disavowing expertise in political science, he nevertheless doubts that our system was constructed for a population with 70 million citizens over age 65. That is the number of elder citizens the united States will have in 2030.
This swollen percentage of older people, he fear, may unbalance our system, perhaps leading to a power struggle between young and old. In that event, the old will dominate in a way destructive to our society.
The global situation also gives him pause. Already we have two groups, the developed world where the population is aging rapidly with dramatically falling birth rates, and the third world where young people are in the great majority. Will the United States find itself soon unable to manufacture goods and thus be forced to rely on countries overseas for its products?
Again, I found conversation with this futurist stimulating and also sometimes disquieting. I take issue with predictions about “dramatic anti-aging breakthroughs” any time in this century. The scientific basis for projections that have humans living to 140 in this century still seem extremely shaky to me. Moreover, if these increases were, in fact, to happen, they can bring with them much grief, given our society’s widespread inadequacies in coping with the needs of old people now.
Current world struggles also threaten to undermine rosy thinking about the future. Unless the great disparity between the haves and have-nots among the nations can be significantly reduced, the decades ahead may be marked by continued conflict and lethal terrorism. The effects of such violence would severely narrow the chances for a boomer paradise in America.
Richard Griffin