The future is now

Would it fundamentally change things if, as a society, instead of being focused on the here and now, we were thinking about the far distant future?
If we were thinking of ourselves as someone's ancestors, wouldn't we worry more about the kind of legacy we were leaving? Wouldn't politicians think farther than the end of their term when they would be up for reelection? Wouldn't citizens award them for doing so by then reelecting them?
Wouldn't parents worry more about how well-adjusted their children were going to be as adults than how to keep them busy for an afternoon or evening or weekend, monitoring their activities and acquaintances more closely than is the norm?
It seems like instead of thinking the future is the future, we have succumbed to that popular sentiment that the future is now. The future is now - the future of the 1950's. The things they were imagining and postulating are happening, are getting closer and closer to our grasp - but that doesn't mean we have gotten any closer to our future. By giving in to the notion that we are living in the future, we cheat ourselves of a very real future involving our grandchildren and great grandchildren.
In the Bible, one of the worst threats seems to be to cut off posterity, or to cause a curse to endure for generations. That curse wouldn't hold much weight against modern americans - affecting future generations does not increase the penalty to the individual because the immediate effect on the individual is all that individual cares about. Just look at the way we are treating the energy crisis and other environmental movements. All the scholars in those fields say our current standard of living is just plain not sustainable, but we don't care. We still drive our kids to school two blocks away because it is faster than walking.
The framers of the constitution, the founders of the nation, left us a very real legacy. They were trying to frame a government that would fit their needs and protect generations of their posterity against the kind of tyranny they had experienced. And they did a great job. They left their legacy and achieved a sort of immortality, where second graders learn their names and learn to respect and revere them in spite of what scholars uncover about their mortal indiscretions. If we thought more the way they did - thought about how the way we live will affect generations of our own posterity - perhaps we would be more worthy of remembering.
The future is now, but the past is now also. Instead of living in someone else's future, let's live in a past that we can help to shape to look better than it's shaping up to be now.