A Loyola law student returns home from City Hall where he is an aid to New Orleans’ newly-elected black mayor, Robert Tucker, who 10 years ago was chief assistant to former Mayor Moon Landrieu.
He switches on the TV and catches President George Wallace’s announcement of a revolutionary breakthrough in the energy crisis: the United States has tapped a limitless source of heat deep within the earth’s surface.
Beside him, his wife feeds their new-arrived extrauterine (bottle) baby. Though the young mother is a City College student, she has plenty of time to care for her baby. All classes are taught on television. She simply tunes in. The year is 1984.
This glimpse of the future emerges from a journalism class project in which six students spent several weeks plying predictions from more than 45 Loyolans. The reporters asked students, faculty and administrators what they thought life would be like when most current Loyola students will be in their 30s.
Prophecies envelop the international, national and local scene, including the university itself in 1984. Predictions range from hopeful to frighteningly pessimistic as respondents talk about “big brotherism” in government, censorship, police repression, the age of computer medicine, religion, the black and feminist movements, and other topics.
United Nations more efficient
Forecasting the international climate in 1984, Drew D’Angelo, a law school senior, predicts a more powerful and efficient United Nations as a deep interdependency develops among nations. Governments will bargain more, according to Mike Winters, another law school senior.
“Politics will be like a card game. You give us oil, we’ll give you wheat,” Winters said.
International competition for U.S. food products will increase though fewer people will be employed within the U.S. agricultural sector, says Dr. Lowell Smith, dean of the College of Business Administration. Despite more efficient farm machinery, Dr. Smith predicts that food productivity in 1984 will be about the present level.
The dean foresees more Russian-type wheat deals as world-wide demand for food swells, pushing the U.S. to the limits of its farm productivity.
Food prices soar
The result, he says, will be higher food prices and a rate of inflation far higher than at present. He says the Government’s attempts to tighten the money supply and cut governmental spending will only increase unemployment. On the positive side, he sees an expansion in the production of steel, energy and an expansion of mass transportation and in the construction industry, except for housing. Manufacturing will grow modestly in the 1980’s.
U.S. moves toward “Big brotherism”
Another gloomy forecast for 1984 comes from law instructor, Dr. Shael Hermann, who looks ahead to a controlled, censored society. The country, he says, is moving towards “big brotherism” because of public apathy toward governmental control and criminal procedure.
“Based on history,” he said, “the first thing a government picks on when trying to move toward a controlled society is control the expression of sexual acts.” He cites current Congressional rulings on pornography.
Dr. Hermann also sees computers in 1984 as a greater threat than ever to the privacy of individuals.
“By 1984, my shirt size will be on the computer. We’re either going to give into big brotherism or revolt and return to a Jacksonian, 19th Century type of government.”
Many respondents predict an expansion of police activity in 1984, and a few think the crime-ridden nation will evolve into a virtual police state. The police of 1984 will be able to frisk anyone for no stated reason and to arrest anyone for no particular reason, Dr. Hermann said.
Anthony Mawson, City College criminology instructor, cites recent legislation giving police more authority to search citizens as evidence of a trend toward a police state.
The crime rate in 1984, according to Dr. John Joerg, associate professor of English, will be out of hand and a police state will inevitably result.
But Adrianne Boidell, an A&S freshman, sees violence mounting in the 1980’s.
“Poor people want the same material goods as the upper class, and they see violence as a means to obtain them,” she said.
Crime will decrease
Some think crime will lessen in the next decade. Dr. Conrad Raabe, chairman of the Political Science Department, says crime, which is mostly black on black now, will decrease as the educational level of blacks and their capabilities for achievement increases. He believes that, “crime is created by people who have no great expectations.”
Corruption within the high levels of government will be a thing of the past, according to history professor, Peter Cangelosi. He says that another Watergate situation is unlikely for at least two generations.
A “consciousness-awareness” will exist between politicians and a cynical public, Cangelosi said, and the politician of the future will be as the child caught cheating-hesitant to cheat again.
A prominent third party will dominate the political scene in 1984, according to Tom Koval, A&S senior, who points to increasing numbers refusing to be identified as either Republican or Democrat.
But Dr. Raabe rejects any likelihood of a powerful third party. He points out that the two-party system has been in existence since the Revolutionary War, and affiliation with either party is vital for political success.
Will blacks dominate politics?
Who will be president in 1984? Dr. Joerg thinks Alabama Governor George Wallace will be. With Wallace in the White House, he says, “blacks in America will be like the Jews in Nazi Germany and everything will be blamed on them.”
Other respondents, however, predict that blacks will gain enough political influence to become the most politically powerful group in the country in 10 years.
“Blacks will use the white man’s tool, the block vote,” says Jack Hoffstad, a law school junior, “as a significant political hammer.”
Despite his political strength, however, the black man will receive only tacit social acceptance from whites, according to Hoffstad.
But Herman Bastian, a law student, thinks the south will lead other sections of the country in establishing and maintaining racial harmony. There is a greater understanding in the south concerning the plight of blacks, he said, because there are more poor whites there in a similar predicament.
While some see blacks gaining political influence in 1984, others see women losing it.
Judith Brand, senior dental hygiene student, thinks few women will infiltrate government, though they will have more educational opportunities.
“There are laws that schools have to take certain amounts of women, but there won’t be a law saying we have to have so many women in [political] office,” she said
Maureen Concannon, a drama-speech major, sees more legal rights flowing to women from the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
In 1984, women will be more interesting, she said. They will enjoy their own sex more, and “fewer women will feel they have to marry to survive.”
Ms. Concannon also believes that abortion laws will be repealed due to the greater availability of contraceptives, which will, “almost be doled out, especially in poverty-stricken areas.”
Contraceptives more available
Dr. John Christman, vice president for research, predicts contraceptives will be readily available to high school and junior high students.
He also thinks men or women could be rendered infertile for periods up to 10 years or permanently, or for short periods of about one or two years or even overnight.
Dr. Christman sees massive new techniques in medical surgery, and is “terrified” of what will happen in the field of exrauterine development.
“No one will stop it, and I can guarantee it will be wrongly used,” he said, referring to extrauterine babies. “We won’t recognized the negative aspects until we’ve opened the Pandora’s Box,” he said.
Institutional religion declines
The Rev. Stephen Duffy, Chairman of the Dept. of Theology and Religion, prophesies a decline in institutional religion as the public becomes more distrustful of institutions generally. He cites a lack of public confidence in universities, governments, and oil companies.
By 1984 people will have left the mainline religions such as the Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches, he said. The mainline religions, he explained, have redefined their fundamental teachings and have opened themselves to questions and confusion.
What will take the place of institutional religion?
“Some people won’t find anything,” he said. “Others will associate themselves with small groups such as with experimental liturgies in experimental parishes. And some will flock to Oriental religions or to the fundamentalist and evangelist religions which offer greater clarity.”
Jim Meyer, a history major, thinks people in 1984 will seek religion through self-awareness.
Some people are alienated by the hypocrisy and inconsistency in most churches and by religions fighting one another, he said. These people will look within themselves and to each other to find religions.
At the same time, Meyer believes that Faddist religions, such as the Jesus Freaks, will diminish in popularity, as people look more within themselves to find God.
Medicine will be computerized
Although some Loyolans offer doomsday prophesies concerning the U.S. in 1984, some see a few bright spots on the horizon.
The 1980’s will mark the computer age of medicine, according to Barbara Cretini, instructor in medical technology.
“The technician will take a blood sample, put it into one end of a computer and get results immediately.”
Most biochemical and biological testing will be completely computerized, said Rev. John Mullahy, chairman of the Biology Department.
“The computer will be able to perform twenty-five tests in a few minutes,” while assessing the patient’s medical history and printing his bill. He also thinks medicine will be completely socialized in 1984.
“In 1984, medicine costs will be more equalized, and we’ll have more clinics and hospital facilities, especially in rural areas,” he said.
Dean Smith predicts an increase in general employment within the health care industries, particularly in long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes and sanitariums. A million new jobs a year will spring up in the technological fields in service industries; 25% to 40% of which don’t exist now, he said.
Energy problem “resolved”
Many respondents think in the next decade the country will head toward energy self-sufficiency, with a growing reliance on natural gas and petroleum from coal, automatic power generation, and thermo-nuclear power.
According to Dr. David Keiffer, associate professor of physics, solar cells will be used to supply energy. Scientists also will concentrate on fusion, the merging of different elements into a union which produces energy.
“Once this is controlled, your sources are unlimited,” Keifffer said.
“The propaganda value will have gone out of the importance of space travel by 1984.”
Dr. Christman, who sees no rapid solution to the energy problem, believes that the U.S. will just begin to do serious research into alternate energy sources in 1984. However he does see one major breakthrough by then.
“The United States may know how to tap the unlimited supply of heat trapped within the earth which we now don’t know how to use except in Iceland where the heat pockets are close to the earth’s surface.”
Americans will rally to solve energy and pollution problems by changing their mode of transportation, according to Mr. Walter Maestri, assistant dean of Arts and Sciences.
“Americans tend to be pragmatic,” said Mr. Maestri, who predicts a large-scale change in transportation which, in 1984, will feature a monorail system.
Dr. Marcus Smith, Professor of English, predicts a resurgence of the railroad industry. Brian Neville, an A&S student, foretells the end of motor cars and the death of the internal combustion engine in 1984.
Dr. Christman predicts 1984 homes will be thermally efficient with fewer windows and preheating coils in the roof using the sun to heat water.
“We may find ourselves faced with the terrible dilemma of either having to learn to live above ground or go underground,” Dr. Christman said. “If we put ourselves 40 feet underground, it will take a hell of a lot less energy to survive.”
Just as the energy crisis and increased inflation affects hou
sing and transportation, so will it affect athletics, according to Jim Mains, Loyola Intramural Athletic Director.
Sports enthusiasm will increase
Increase leisure time will be the result of a four-day work week, and people will come to realize it is unhealthy to sit home and watch TV for the three-day weekend, Mains said. Therefore, enthusiasm will increase for sports and recreation on both the professional and amateur levels, he said.
Sports themselves will be different in 1984. The rules of all sports will change as players, particularly professionals, become bigger and faster, and players will dominate a game only through over-all ability, not merely because of the size, Mains said.
Because of the energy situation and inflation, more college games will be played regionally. Thus, it will be improbable that UCLA, for instance, will play an eastern school like North Carolina State. Mains also believes that the NCAA will find new ways to help the smaller schools from going bankrupt.
As fans tire of football, basketball, and baseball, they will appreciate international sports more. Mains said soccer will be the nation’s number one sport in 1984.
Sports also will become more unisexed, Mains said, with women participating much more in non-contact sports.
Locally, Mains believes that Loyola’s intramural program will expand because students will be exposed to a variety of sports such as cling, jogging, and volleyball.
Completion of the Superdome will spur interest in athletic competitions in New Orleans.
What will New Orleans be like in 1984?
Dr. Patrick McCarty, Chairman of the department of Music Theory and composition, believes that New Orleans will become more reliant on tourism than on industry, while outlying parishes will become more industrialized. The city will be a place, “where people will come to do office-type business, and as tourism increases, New Orleans will become, ‘Preservation Hall for early Americana’.”
Douglas Melancon, a freshman Communication major, pictures New Orleans in 1984 more like New York with a multitude of skyscrapers and increased business. More bridges will span the Mississippi River, he said, and workers will have easier access to New Orleans.
Melancon predicts that more visitors will come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 1984. But the city will undergo a slack in tourism due to increased crime before tourism peaks again in ten years.
And how will Loyola University fair in ten years?
Tangeyon Wall, an education major, predicts the elimination of the Common Curriculum, with its Mode of Thought and Dialogue courses. Because too much concentration is currently spent on these required courses to the neglect of a student’s major course work, they will be eliminated as an inconvenience, she said.
Dr. McCarty believes Loyola in 1984 will be a small, quality university, much better known, and thus able to attract more out-of-state students. A high percentage of the student body will be on full or near full tuition scholarships supported by WWL, he added. And dorms will be co-ed in ten years, Dr. McCarty said.
Cable television comes to Loyola
And some students won’t have to leave home to attend classes, according to Rev. James C. Carter, acting president of Loyola. Carter said that most City College classes will be taught via television. Cable television will not be used by full-time students, but would be best aid the continuing education student, Carter said.
“The guy who has a full-time job and has to miss supper in order to make a 6 p.m. class will only have to switch on television to tune in his lesson,” he said.
This will help ease the parking and commuting problem, he added, and will aid students who are uncertain about signing up for a course.
“A guy can sample various courses and then decide the next semester if he wants to take it for credit,” Carter explained.
He said cable TV would not weaken the ability of teachers.
“If you’re going to produce over TV, you have to do a good job,” he said. And it won’t reduce person-to-person contact between student and professor as all grading and tresting will be done on campus.
And in 20 years, students may be taking courses in the Residence Halls.
“The won’t even have to get out of bed, and the student who misses class will dial a number and tune in the missed class,” Carter predicts.
There are others who foresee no changes in 1984 at Loyola, or anywhere else in the nation.
Dr. Gary Herbert, professor of philosophy, feels that change occurs only through, “theoretical eruption, not merely time.” And, he explained, no such eruption in human action has occurred since the seventeenth century’s Enlightmentment Period.
So despite many startling changes envisioned by Loyolans in 1984, another possibility for the future still exists: Life in 1984 may be much the same as today.
Editors Note: The authors of “Loyolans Prophesy 1984” are David Lancer, Carolyn Portier, Vicki Salloum, Eugenie Vidal and Darrell Williams. This is one of several projects which students in Professor Tom Madden’s advanced journalism class have undertaken this semester. Copyright by the Loyola MAROON
