‘To-Day and To-Morrow’: Modernism and Futurology

With the advent of technological modernity, mythological, apocalyptic, or millenarian prophecies are replaced by a new form of imagined future: more sustained attempts to speculate on the ways in which everyday life might be transformed, especially through science and technology. This chapter will focus on C. K. Ogden’s ‘To-Day and To-Morrow’ series to argue that it exemplifies the claim that modern time is future time, and that the series represents a major shift in the imagining of futurity, as prophecy gives way to a forecasting based on scientific knowledge and method; in other words, that technology affects not only the content but also the methodology of futurology.