Raymond Spencer Rodgers - Rodgers As Futurist

Rodgers As Futurist

Rodgers returned to Canada in 1968 to teach at the University of Winnipeg. It was during this period that he renewed an early interest in futurism, particularly in regard to the computer and its possible impact on society. As a result of this reflection, in 1971 Rodgers self-published a booklet on the subject titled Man in the Telesphere. In this essay he described the emergence of an “electronic web” and observed, “The future system is a global society, expressing a kaleidoscope of tastes within a common ethic, eschewing imposition serviced by a multi-directional web of computerized electronic technology and macro/micro transportation; living in a milieu where centers cease to be primarily physical locations; governed by a structure passing to decentralized unity; and unfolding as a transcendental organism dialectically both collectivist and individualistic in capacity.”

Among Rodgers’ other futurist works was an essay on “transcending the food cycle” in which, according to one author, “He suggested that humanity - perhaps more 'easily' in the future on locations other than the surface of Earth — deliberately seek to transcend the food chain and directly manufacture nutrition from inert materials, for meta-ethical reasons.” Rodgers argued that “Life as we know it . . . is predicated on a system — the food chain — in which plants and animals murder one another. Murdering living vegetation is as much a form of predation as any other. . . .”