Pollster's predictions fuel thoughts

He gives his thoughts in a new book, "The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream” (Random House, $26).

My conviction is that a better title would be "The Way We Are.” It is helpful to read about trends in national and personal lives, but this book, like others before it, actually can make us aware only of the fads and fashions of this era.

Zogby writes that he sees a future in which people will be satisfied to live with less while preserving the environment. They will search for greater fulfillment and be more global in their thinking.

The danger of predicting a massive paradigm shift is that events intervene to set life staggering back. And what about cause and effect? Are we Americans conserving energy because it's a fine thing to do or because our pocketbooks are flat? Would we go back to gas guzzlers if the price dropped drastically? Are we recognizing limits in how we live because of love of humanity or because our reduced means mandates it?

Sometimes our leaders motivate our attitudes. The 1980s were known as years of conspicuous consumption. President Reagan and his first lady held glittering social events — she in her designer gowns — and that may have whetted the national appetite. Recent administrations have been more subdued. Might some future occupants of the White House set material desires aflame again?

Speaking of predictions, many will remember when we were told people would be living on Mars before now. Speculation that taking a pill would replace cooking thrilled my mother in my childhood. And where are those cars that were supposed to go on land, air and water? Many got rich warning that the Communists would rule the world if we were not watchful.

I learned in political science classes this fact: Public opinion changes slowly through the march of conventional wisdom, but it can swing quickly as the result of a drastic event.

Energy conservation becomes much more urgent in consumers' minds when $4 gasoline looms; bridge safety gets higher priority after some structures collapse; isolationist sentiment dissipates when an Adolf Hitler rocks the world; and terrorism becomes front-burner when planes are flown into buildings.

Zogby has been successful in public opinion polling about imminent events, and he may be right about trends for the future. But let's take the predictions with the proverbial grain of salt.

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