Learning to ruminate the history of civilization (1)

Humankind is confronted today (September 2001) to very serious local,
regional and global problems generated by a post- and ultra-modern
colonialism (expansionism) managed by an intelligent decision making which
seems to be rather shortsighted, narrow minded and unable to recognize its
mistakes

In May 1967 Bertalanffy wrote:

"...the ambivalence of science and technology has become apparent. The
menace of thermonuclear war, the population explosion, the social problems
in a cybernetic society are commonplace. The historian will note that
similar anxieties, though in a minor key, accompanied previous crises such
as the invention of airplanes and air raids, the birth pangs of
industrialization in the Victorian age, the introduction of firearms in the
late Middle Ages, and presumably the appearance of war chariots when
peoples from the Asiatic steppes overran the agricultural communities in
the Near East at the dawn of history. Doomsday has often been prophesied in
the course of history. What appears to be new, however, is that an old
intellectual attitude has broken down. Since Bacon of Verulam, the
perfectionist philosophers of the eighteenth century, and the belief in
progress of the nineteenth, advance of mankind by science and technology
was taken for granted. Even earlier, Plato believed that the human
predicament was amenable to solution if only philosophers became kings or
kings turned into philosophers. That Reason does not automatically lead to
a solution of the human problem and, by and large, has little influence in
the sanguinary course of human history, was the disappointing discovery of
our time." (In Preface of "Robots. Men and Minds", 1967).

His critical appreciations made him to believe that the need for a general
systems consciousness was a matter of life and death for the future
generations, but he "was a true pioneer (and) he suffered a fate not
unusual for pioneers: the full recognition of the validity and significance
of his theories late in life or posthumously, and the subsequent
reemergence of his original notions in different fields and forms,
sometimes without reference to his earlier statements." International
Encyclopedy of the Social Sciences (Quoted by Davidson, Uncommon Sense,
1983)

Bertalanffy died in 1972. Until today, most of his warnings have been
disregarded in general by the decision making that has prevailed since the
end of the 2nd World War and in particular by many systems researchers,
scholars and experts who tend to perform as accomplices of decision makers.
Humankind faces at present a very serious crisis generated by civilizing
(?) actions intelligently conceived and cleverly implemented in order to
maintain the trends of the prevalent civilization, despite the evidence of
its increasing inconsistency with its own societal engagement; in spite of
its growing incongruity with the planetary possibilities.

"Man makes himself" (Gordon Childe). This assertion has been considered
indispensable for comprehending how our ancestors became human minded; it
seems to be dramatically valid along the whole trajectory of civilization
for explaining the controversial history of every society constituted.
Consequently, nowadays it is not only impossible, but it would be tragic
and catastrophic to ignore how billions of humans have continued
'pedalling' in the sense allowed by civilizing trends while trying to
remain motivated, though fallaciously, by the main four events that
characterized the last 20th century :

1. The First World War (1914 -1918) among European countries;

2. The Second World War (1939 -1945) among European countries, Japan and USA;

3. The actions conceived, organized and implemented during the postwar
period (starting around the 1950s) which allowed some winners and loosers
of the First and Second World War, being included several regimes
functioning in accordance with the modernized capitalist ideology and the
former U.S.S.R. presumably socialist, to become economically richer by
continuously taking advantage unilaterally of natural resources located
anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile the less developed countries became
systematically poorer and poorer. No doubt that some systems methodologies
have been also conceived and implemented for the benefit of the winners of
what might be considered de facto the Third World War - an economic one -
which was not even declared.

4. The trends of the prevailing civilization, which have become during the
last decade seriously contradictory though they are announced everywhere,
through a powerful mass media, as the unique possibility of organizing
faster and faster everything related with the human way of life
(transportation, communications, data processing, internet since 1995,...).
These tendencies cannot be sustained anymore, neither according to
traditional procedures and even less humanely. These trends intend to be
altogether a drive toward a post- ultra modern perspective for the
evolvement of the human society, claiming that every modern human may and
must go - willingly or not - faster and faster everywhere , anywhere and
nowhere. They are basic factors of policies concerned with globalization of
business, finances and all kinds of economic transactions, which are
announced as if they were the panacea needed for pushing ahead the
evolvement of the 'civilized way of life'. However it is a controversial
globalization that has caused the emergence of many dissidents who argue
that it has started the Fourth World War - an economic and political one -
which aims, supported ideologically by an inhuman neoliberalism, at
destroying borders, governments and nationalisms because they are not
longer necessary. This event has become already the source of a generalized
globalization of unemployment, criminality, misery, corruption,... and also
frivolity, hypocrisy,...

Some months ago started conventionally the 3rd millennium, without being
altered the conditions that pretend to maintain the trends of the
prevailing civilization. However, some powerful decision makers, while
inevitably realizing their growing inconsistency, have considered
absolutely necessary to advance from the credence in the unipolar world or
"the end of history" towards a new (?) perspective conceived cleverly
inside powerful corporations. Intelligent minds have started to "examine
the spread of 'grey' areas. This grey reflects the uncertainty about
changes that still defy analysis: crises with no political or military
outcome that persist while the international community looks on, powerless
and unconcerned" The immediate perspective looks as if it were a very new
kind of fight against humankind, it could become the Fifth World War (the
first one of the 21st century) - an economic, political and pseudo cultural
one - that apparently aims at making possible the emergence of a new
international division "between a 'useful' world, on which the powerful
focus, and a 'useless' one whose stability does not justify the loss of a
single western soldier" (Pierre CONESA,: Places of no importance, section
"Le Monde diplomatique" published by the Guardian Weekly, March 2001).

But few hours ago a suicidal terrorism that was not expected has caused the
suffering of many people who were not responsible of the serious
inconsistency that has been accelerating the degradation of the whole
civilizing adventure.

Could humans, identify a possible WAY?

It could be the R'ta (Vedic principle) that Edward Goldsmith learnt from
Krishna Chaitanya as being "the behaviour pattern adhered to by early
Indian society to maintain the critical order of the cosmos"

It could be the "steady state" or "flow equilibrium" that need humankind as
an open system requiring urgently to function peacefully.

elohimjl
Received on Fri Sep 14 13:43:13 2001