aufmerksam beobachtende Selbstvergessenheit?

Aber prinzipiell ist das richtig?

Siehe Wörterbuch: prognosticate

... ist wohl etwas mehr als 'betrachten'.

Na ja, aber wie macht man das in dem Satz.
Da es ja um einen Soziologen geht, der sich mit der Zukunft beschäftigt, würde es hier bedeuten, "der versucht, Vorhersagen für die Zukunft zu treffen, als ginge es um eine Ameisenfarm", ja?

'Im Vergleich zum Himmel war die Zukunft weniger anspruchsvoll, ohne Emotionen zu betrachten, als ob man Vorhersagen für eine Ameisenfarm träfe, etwas extrem wachsam Vergessliches.' - oder so ähnlich. - My 2 cents.

NOAD:
prognosticate - [trans.] foretell or prophesy (an event in the future): the economists were prognosticating financial Armageddon.
oblivious - not aware of or not concerned about what is happening around one: she became absorbed, oblivious to the passage of time | the women were oblivious of his presence.

I don't think 'prognosticating an ant farm' is actually grammatically correct, because 'prognosticate' means to predict an event. And 'downmarket' is a rather strange, awkward term here; I wonder if the writer was a native speaker.

I would also say that 'oblivious,' at least in modern English, normally does not mean forgetful, as the etymology might lead you to suspect, but rather unaware, inattentive, uncaring, uninterested.

So I would assume here that 'acutely observant obliviousness' means something like observant of even the finest details, but completely unaware of their importance, utterly blind to any larger significance.

It makes me think of people with autistic disorders, who IIRC may be able to observe behaviors acutely, but (without remedial training) can ascribe no social meaning to them, because they simply don't know or care that people's actions mean anything. I think that's actually a very good description of orthodox theologies that placed more emphasis on the afterlife than the present.

Ich denke, das müsste man freier machen:
- eine perfekt durchorganisierte Gesellschaft ohne jede Individualiät
- eine perfekt durchorganisierte Gesellschaft, in der die Individualiät des Einzelnen ausgeschaltet war.

@hm - us
that sounds actually pretty plausible, especially the "autistic disorder".
the writer is a native speaker and a rather famous one, but "prognosticating an ant farm" really sounds strange to me too.

Well, I´ll leave it for the next turn or for tomorrow.

Thank you, anyway

Interesting; now I'm curious. (-:

Just to be sure, I just checked Webster's 3rd unabridged, Random House unabridged, and the OED, and none of them seem to have any definition that would mean something like 'predicting the future with regard to' a place like an ant farm, which seems to be what the writer was trying to say. Typical collocations are things like prognosticate danger, fair weather, renaissance and revival, [the appearance of] a tyrant ...

I suppose one could argue that the writer meant 'predicting [the appearance of] an ant farm,' but that really wouldn't make any sense.

Anyway, it sounds impressive, even if it doesn't bear close examination. (-;

I would interpret it as him (= the sociologist) having turned into a religious fanatic, who views predicting and evaluating the future (here on earth) like watching and analyzing an ant farm, while heaven has so much more to offer.