They are around, just not very good. A couple of vague examples I can think of like Star Trek and new computer games like Spore, and Mass Effect, but they don't really cover it earnestly, being Sci-fi spaceship type scenarios and interestingly they all seem to go off world. Unless I'm missing something here, if we stay on Earth, we seem to be left short.* Hrumph. Quiet, happy, sane, sustainable, developing, ecologially oriented, humane futures just don't seem to be sexy, or at least, bankable.**
So I fear for the consciousness of the kids growing up on all this stuff. In general, we don't seem to provide a ground of hope and sustainability, In general or to young people as the context in which all this can be digested. Quite the opposite. We all seem to be gripped by the fear of rapid climate change and live with the background fear of nuclear war looming there out of sight, subliminally sickening us with feelings of complete hopelessness. I grew up in the 1980's when the possibility of nuclear armageddon deemed to be a very real possibility. There was a sense of hopelessness that just shouldn't be dumped on young people. It's not fair, it's not actually true to the situation and can't be helpful terms of developing very fundamental outlooks on life in the 21st century and beyond. Surely growing up with a sense of nihilism will just create nihilistic adults!
In his book The Promise Ahead, speaker and author Duane Elgin proposes a thought experiment - What if the human race was an individual human being? He asks his audiences, "If we think of the entire human species as being just one individual person, how old would you say we are? Are we a child? Are we preadolescent? Are we adults? Are we in old age. " In a fascinating experiment in collective wisdom, after asking many of his audiences around the world for several years, it seems the verdict is that we, as a global culture, are in adolescence. My point being - this time looking at our collective emerging consciousness from this point of view - surely a good measure of hope and visions of a bright and wonderful future is called for in the growth of any happy young adult!
It pains me that all of this mass mayhem largely represents an apparent conviction that we are headed for some self-induced mass cataclysm. It's a symptom of what seems to be an extreme lack of faith in humanity's potential and role in the future of this planet. All the more painful knowing that a sustainable and very amazing human future is technically, socially, economically and ecologically completely realistic and viable starting right now. So what visions do we hold of the human future? What IS our goal as a global culture, as a global species??
We just don't think about It yet do we? Not really. We collectively don't think about humanity 500 years from now, let alone 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 years from now because we still haven't worked out why we should. And anywho, our reasoning goes, it doesn't apply to us cause we'll all be dead. We have only just started to really seriously think about life 100 years from now for what seems to be the first time ever, because we have to, in response to climate change and ecological issues. It's encouraging but just a knee-jerk response oriented around survival. Not a consciously initiated endeavour to seeking and developing the meaning of human life on Earth.
I think the values of a genuine cultural movement for a sustainable future, and a genuinely sustainable culture needs a sustainable reason, and that will be a reason that goes beyond the issues of mere survival and perspectives based on our mortality. That reason will surely be about the essential role and meaning of humanity's beautiful self-reflective and evolving consciousness in the biosphere, the solar system and the cosmos.
*I'm sure there may be some great Sci fi books. One I know of is "Bringing It all Back Home" by Ursula Le Guin. Commentated by a historian tens or hundreds of thousands of years in the future, looking back to a time way beyond now - but the main civilisation has regressed back to a kind of tribalism, not quite the result I'm after!
**My list of recent hopefuls: City of Ember