In futures and foresight workshops, participants often talk about THE future. Practitioners tend to insist on futures, plural.
At first glance, that can sound like jargon. in fact, I sometimes get a lot of push-back: “FutureS isn’t grammatically correct!” But the distinction matters more than it seems.
Talking about “the future” subtly suggests that there is a single destination waiting for us, something fixed that we are moving towards. It encourages linear thinking and often reinforces the idea that the future is something that happens to us.
Talking about “futures” does something different. It keeps open the idea that multiple possibilities exist, shaped by choices, values, power, and context. It reminds us that different groups may experience very different futures: at the same time, and sometimes even during the same workshop.
In facilitated settings, this shift from singular to plural can be surprisingly powerful. When people realise there isn’t just one future to plan for, conversations often become less defensive and more exploratory. Disagreement feels less threatening. Curiosity increases.
It also creates space to ask questions that don’t fit neatly into planning processes: Which futures are we implicitly prioritising? Which ones are we ignoring? Who gets to decide which futures are considered plausible or desirable?
Using the plural doesn’t make futures work easier. In many ways, it makes it harder. It resists neat answers and forces us to stay with complexity.
But it also makes futures work more honest, and more inclusive.
I’ve come to see the plural not as a technical detail, but as a quiet ethical stance: an insistence that the future is not singular, settled, or owned by any one perspective.