Union of International Associations - Development through Alternation https://uia.org/archive-tags/development-through-alternation en References https://uia.org/archive/da/refs <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>1. Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps. Networking; the first report and directory. Doubleday, 1982</p> <p>2. Paul Feyerabend. Against Method; outline of an anarchist theory of knowledge. Verso, 1978</p> <p>3. Ivan Illich. Medical Nemesis; the expropriation of health. Pantheon, 1976.</p> <p>4. Jacques Attali. L'Ordre cannibale. Paris, Grasset, 1979</p> <p>5. Jacques Attali. Les Trois Mondes; pour une theorie de l'apres-crise. Paris, Fayard, 1981</p> <p>6. Nicholas Rescher. Cognitive Systematization; a system-theoretic approach to a coherent theory of knowledge. Oxford, Blackwell, 1979</p> <p>7. Edgar Morin. Pour Sortir du XXe Siecle. Paris, Fernand Nathan, 1981</p> <p>8. David Bohm. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge and Kegan Pual, 1980</p> <p>9. Immanuel Wallerstein. A world-system perspective on the social sciences. <em>British Journal of Sociology</em>, 27, 3, September 1976, pp. 343-352 10 Immanuel Wallerstein. Patterns and prospectives of the capitalist world-economy. Tokyo, United Nations University, 1981 (HSDRSCA-74/UNUP-300)</p> <p>11. Immanuel Wallerstein. La crise comme transition. In: ref. 11, pp. 10-56</p> <p>12. Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein. La Crise, Quelle Crise? Paris, Maspero, 1982 </p> <p>13. Herb Addo. Approaching the New International Economic Order dialectically and transformationally. Tokyo, United Nations University, 1982 (HSDRGPID-53/UNUO-318)</p> <p>14. Herb Addo. World-system critique of Eurocentric concepts of development. Unpublished manuscript, 1981.</p> <p>15. Douglas R. Hofstadter. Gödel, Escher, Bach; an eternal golden braid. Harvester Press, 1979</p> <p>16. Paul Levy. Reflexions sur les associations internationales non-gouvernementales oeuvrant pour la paix. <em>Associations Transnationales</em>, 32, 1980, 10, pp. 405-406</p> <p>17. Henri Atlan. Le Cristal et la fumee. Paris, Seuil, 1979</p> <p>18. Y. Prigogine et J. Stengers. La Nouvelle Alliance. Paris, Gailimard, 1979</p> <p>19. Rene Thom. Modèles Mathematiques de la Morphogènese. Christian Bourgois, 1980.</p> <p>20. Erich Jantsch and C H Waddington (Eds.). Evolution and Consciousness; human systems in transition. Addision-Wesley, 1976</p> <p>21. Erich Jantsch. The Self-Organizing Universe: scientific and human implications of the emerging paradigm of evolution. Pergamon, 1980</p> <p>22. Anthony Judge. Beyond method; engaging opposition in psycho-social organization (Paper for the methodology meeting of the UN University GPID project, Bucharest, 1981) [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/bmethod.php">text</a>] </p> <p>23. Anthony Judge. Patterns of N-foldness; comparison of integrated multi-set concept schemes as forms of presentation (Paper for GPID Forms of Presentation meeting, June 1980) [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs80s/84npats.php">text</a>] </p> <p>24. Anthony Judge. Needs communications; viable needs patterns and their identification. In: Katrin Lederer (Ed). Human Needs; a contribution to the current debate. Konigstein, Verlag Anton Hain, 1980, pp. 279-312 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/needs.php">text</a>] </p> <p>25. Penser / Classer. <em>Le Genre Humain</em>. Paris, Fayard), 2, 1982 (special issue)</p> <p>26. Anthony Judge. Anti-developmental biases in thesaurus design (Ppaer for the UNESCO Conference on conceptual and terminological analysis. Bielefeld, 1981). In: Proceedings, Gesellschaft fuer Klassifikation, Frankfurt/Main, 1981 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/antidev.php">text</a>] </p> <p>27. Anthony Judge. Alternation between development modes; reinforcing dynamic conception through functional classification of international organizations and their concerns. (Paper for a meeting of Integrative Group B of the UN University GPID project, Athens, 1982) [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/altdev.php">text</a>] </p> <p>28. Union of International Associations. Yearbook of International Organizations. Brussels, UIA, 1981, 19th ed.</p> <p>29. Gregory Bateson. Mind and Nature; a necessary unity. New York, Dutton, 1979</p> <p>30. Antonio de Nicolas. Meditations through the Rg Veda. Shambhala, 1978</p> <p>31. Ernest G. McClain. The Myth of Invariance: the origins of the gods, mathematics and music from the Rg Veda to Plato. Shambhala, 1978</p> <p>32. Patrick A Heelan. The Logic of Changing Classificatory Frameworks. In: Jerzy A. Wojciechowski (Ed). Conceptual Basis for the Classification of Knowledge. Muenchen, K G Saur, 1974, pp. 260-274</p> <p>33. C. A. Hooker. The impact of quantum theory on the conceptual bases for the classification of knowledge. In: Jerzy A. Wojciechowski (Ed), ref. 32</p> <p>34. Anthony Judge. Liberation of integration; pattern, oscillation, harmony and embodiment (Paper for the 5th Network Meeting of the UN University GPID project, Montreal, 1980) [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/liber.php">text</a>] </p> <p>35. Christopher Alexander. A Pattern Language. Oxford University Press, 1977</p> <p>36. Christopher Alexander. The Timeless Way of Building. Oxford University Press, 1979</p> <p>37. Alvin Toffler. The Third Wave. New York, William Morrow, 1980</p> <p>38. Ilya Prigogine. Order through fluctuation: self-organization and social system. In: Erich Jantsch (Ed), ref. 20</p> <p>39. Ilya Prigogine. From Being to Becoming; time and complexity in the physical sciences. San Francisco, Freeman, 1980</p> <p>40. Erich Jantsch. Design for Evolution; self-organization and planning in the life of human systems. New York, George Braziller, 1975</p> <p>41. Orrin E Klapp. Opening and Closing; strategies and information adaptation in society. Cambridge University Press. 1978</p> <p>42. Milton Rokeach. The Open and Closed Mind; investigations into the nature of belief systems and personality systems. New York, Basic Books, 1960</p> <p>43. Karl Popper. The Open Society and its Enemies. 1945 [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemies">summary</a>] </p> <p>44. James W Botkin, Mahdi Elmandjra and Mircea Malitza. No Limits to Learning; bridging the human gap. Oxford, Pergamon, 1979, ("A Report to the Club of Rome")</p> <p>45. Pitirim A. Sorokin. Social and Cultural Dynamics. New York, 1937, 3 vols.</p> <p>46. R Buckminster Fuller. Synergetics: explorations in the geometry of thinking. New York, Macmillan, 1975 (vol. I), 1979 (vol. II)</p> <p>47. Marie-Louise von Franz. Number and Time; reflections leading towards a unification of psychology and physics. London, Rider, 1974</p> <p>48. F. Gonseth. La Geometrie et le Probleme de l'Espace. Neuchatel, 1955, p. 583</p> <p>49. Kinhide Mushakoji. Scientific revolution and inter-paradigmatic dialogues. Tokyo, United Nations University, 1978 (Paper for meeting of the Goals, Processes and Indicators of Development project, Geneva, 1978)</p> <p>50. Keiji Yamada. Konton no Umi e: Chugoku-teki Shiko no Kozo (In a Sea of Chaos; the structure of Chinese thinking), Tokyo, 1975</p> <p>51. Magoroh Maruyama. Mindscapes, social patterns and future development of scientific theory types. Cybernetica (1980), 23, 1, pp. 5-25</p> <p>52. Magoroh Maruyama. Paradigmatology and its application to cross-disciplinary, cross-professional and cross-cultural communication. <em>Cybernetica</em> (1974), 17, pp. 135-156, 237-23.1</p> <p>53. Magoroh Maruyama. Heterogensitics; an epistemological restructuring of biological and social sciences. Cybernetica (1977), 20, 1, pp. 69-85</p> <p>54. Magoroh Maruyama. Epistemologies and esthetic principles. <em>Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society</em> (1978), 8, pp. 155-167</p> <p>55. Kenneth Boulding. The Image. University of Michigan Press, 1956</p> <p>56. J O Harvey. Experience. Structure and Adaptability. Springer, 1966</p> <p>57. Geoffrey Vickers. Freedom in a Rocking Boat; changing values in an unstable society. Penguin, 1970</p> <p>58. Anthony Judge. Representation, comprehension and communication of sets; the role of number. <em>International Classification</em>, 5, 1978, 3, pp. 126-133; 6, 1979, 1, pp. 16-25; 6,1979, 2, pp. 92-103 (Also UN University HSDRPGIP-22/UNUP-l 33) [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/numb0.php">text</a>] </p> <p>59. Fritjof Capra. The Tao of Physics. Boulder, Shabhala, 1975</p> <p>60. G Zukav. The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. New York, William Morrow, 1979</p> <p>61. George Spencer Brown. Laws of Form. London, G Alien and Unwin, 1969</p> <p>62. Francisco Varela. A calculus for self-reference. <em>International Journal of General Systems</em>, (1975), 2, pp. 5-24</p> <p>63. Frankfurt School (Habermas)</p> <p>64. Edgar Taschdjian. Nonlinear cybernetics. <em>Cybernetica, </em>25, 1982, 25, 1, pp. 5-15</p> <p>65. C. Muses. Time, experience and dimensionality; an introduction to higher kinds of number. In: Interdisciplinary. Perspectives of Time (<em>Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences</em>), 138, Art 2, 1967, pp. 646-660</p> <p>66. Manfred Eigen. How does information originate?: Principles of biological self-organization. <em> Advances in Chemical Physics</em>, 38, 1978, pp. 211-262</p> <p>67. Ramon Margalef. Perspectives in Ecological Theory. University of Chicago Press, 1968</p> <p>68. Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster. The Hypercycle; a principle of natural self-organization. Berlin, Springer, 1979</p> <p>69. Dane Rudhyar. The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music. Shambhala, 1982</p> <p>70. Arthur Young. The Geometry of Meaning. Delacorte Press / Seymour Lawrence. 1978</p> <p>71. Thomas T Ballmer and Ernst von Weizsaecker. Biogenese und Selbstorganisation. In: Ernst von Weizsaecker (Ed) Offene Systeme I: Beitraege zur Zeitstruktur von Information, Entropie und Evolution. Stuttgart, Klett, 1974</p> <p>72. Ron Atkin. Combinatorial Connectivities in Social Systems; an application of simplicial complex structures to the study of large organizations. Basel, Birckhauser, 1977</p> <p>73. Ron Atkin. Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space? London Penguin, 1981</p> <p>74. Ron Atkin. Mathematical Structures in Human Affairs. Heinemann, 1974</p> <p>75. Chadwick F. Alger (In GPID Group A Report)</p> <p>76. Anthony Judge. Integrative dimensions of concept sets; transformations with minimal distortion between implicitness and explicitness of set representation according to constraints on communicability (Paper for Integrative Group B of the UN University GPID project, Tokyo, 1980) [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs80s/80integ.php">text</a>] </p> <p>77. Carl G. Jung. The Collected Works of C G Jung. Princeton University Press, 1953-1971</p> <p>78. Anthony Stevens. Archetype; a natural history of the self. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982</p> <p>79. Jacques Attali. Bruits. Presses Universitaires de France, 1977</p> <p>80. Edgar Faure (Ed). Learning to Be; the world of education today and tomorrow. Paris, UNESCO, 1972</p> <p>81. Anthony Judge. Societal learning and the erosion of collective memory (Report for 2nd World Symposium on International Documentation, Brussels, 1980) In: Th Dimitrov. International Information for the 80s. New York, Uniflo, 1982 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/uninfo.php">text</a>] </p> <p>82. K Soedjatmoko. The future and the learning capacity of nations; the role of communications. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 33, 1981, 2, pp. 80-85</p> <p>83. Christina von Weizacker. Die umweltfreundliche Emanzipation. In: Humanoekologie. Wien, Georgi, 1975</p> <p>84. <em> General Systems</em> (Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research) 1956</p> <p>85. Ervin Laszlo. The Systems View of the World. New York, Braziller, 1972</p> <p>86. 3 G Miller. Living Systems. McGraw Hill, 1978</p> <p>87. Omitted. </p> <p>88. Richard Ericson (Ed). Improving the Human Condition; quality and stability in social systems. Washington, Society for General Systems Research, 1979.</p> <p>89. Jeffrey Stamps. Holonomy. San Francisco, 1981</p> <p>90. Arthur Koestler. Beyond Atomism and Holism; the concept of the holon. In: A Kiestler and J R Smythies (Eds) Beyond Reductionism. Beacon, 1969</p> <p>91. (See ref 6)</p> <p>92. E. Nagel and James R. Newman. Gödel's Proof. New York, 1958</p> <p>93. David Bohm. Fragmentation in science and society. In: W Fuller (Ed) The Social Impact of Modern Biology. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971 </p> <p>94. David Bohm. Fragmentation and Wholeness. Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, 1976</p> <p>95. Larry Dossey. Space, Time and Medicine, Boulder, Shambhala, 1982</p> <p>96. Johan Galtung. Methodology and Ideology. Copenhagen, Christian Ejlers, 1977</p> <p>97. Anthony Judge. Transcending duality through tensional integrity. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 30, 1978, 5, pp. 248-265 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/systen1.php">text</a>] </p> <p>98. Anthony Judge. Groupware configurations of challenge and harmony; an alternative approach to alternative organization. In: Richard Ericson (Ed). Improving the Human Condition; quality and stability in social systems. Washington, Society for General Systems Research, 1979, pp. 597-610 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/challhar.php">text</a>] </p> <p>99. Anthony Judge. Implementing principles by balancing configurations of functions; a tensegrity organization approach. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 31, 1979, 12, pp. 587-591 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/implprin.php">text</a>] </p> <p>100. Anthony Judge. Tensed networks; balancing and focusing network dynamics in response to networking diseases. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 30, 1978, 11, pp. 480-485 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/tensnet2.php">text</a>] </p> <p>101. Edward F. Haskell. Generalization of the structure of Mendeleev's periodic table. In: E F Haskell (Ed). Moral Force of Unified Science. Gordon and Breach, 1972, pp. 21-87</p> <p>102. Vinko Globokar. Drama and Correspondences. Harmonia Mundi, 20 21803-1 (Comment on recording)</p> <p>103. T. B. Hutchison, et al. The Production of Field Crops; a textbook of agronomy. McGraw Hill, 1936</p> <p>104. M. Sebillotte. Les rotations culturales; approche methodologique d'une politique dynamique. <em> Bulletin FNCETA</em>, janvier 1968, numero special</p> <p>105. Jeremy Rifkin. Entropy; a new world view. New York, Viking Press, 1980</p> <p>106. William Irwin Thompson. From Nation to Emanation; planetary culture and world governance. Findhorn, Findhorn Foundation, 1982</p> <p>107. E. F. Schumacher. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York, Harper and Row, 1978, p. 127</p> <p>108. Anthony Judge. Minding the future; a thought experiment on presenting new information. (Prepared for the forms of Presentation meeting of the UN University GPID project, Geneva, 1980) <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 35, 1983, 2 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/mindfut.php">text</a>] </p> <p>109. Anthony Judge. Development: beyond "science" and "wisdom". In: H Buchholz and W Gemlin (Ed). Science and Technology and the Future. K G Saur, 1979, pp. 738-762 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/sciwisd.php">text</a>] </p> <p>110. Anthony Judge. The territory construed as a map; in search of radical design innovations in the representation of human activities and their relationships. (Unpublished manuscript for the UN University GPID project) 1979 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/terrmap.php">text</a>] </p> <p>111. Yona Friedman</p> <p>112. Mary Catherine Bateson. Our Own Metaphor: a personal account of a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation. Knopf, 1972</p> <p>113. Anthony Judge. Collective learning from global calls for action. <em>Transnational Associations,</em> 34, 1982, 1, pp. 26-28 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/callglob.php">text</a>] </p> <p>114. Anthony Judge. Information mapping for development. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 31, 1979, 5, pp. 185-192 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs70s/78cmap.php">text</a>] </p> <p>115. Anthony Judge. Facilitating the networking processes of a transnational university using computer conferencing. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 30, 1978, 4, pp. 205-214  [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/pdfs/comp_conf_univ_78_i.pdf">pdf</a>] </p> <p>116. Anthony Pugh. An Introduction to Tensegrity. Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1976</p> <p>117. Hugh Kenner. Geodesic Math and How to Use It. Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1976</p> <p>118. Johan Galtung. Structural analysis and chemical models. In: Methodology and Ideology. Copenhagen, Christian Ejlers, 1977, pp. 160-189</p> <p>119. A. Streitwieser Jr. Aromaticity and (Huckel's) 4n + 2 rule. In: Molecular Orbital Theory for Organic Chemists. Wiley, 1961, pp. 256-304</p> <p>120. G. A. Miller. The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. <em>Psychological Review</em>, 63 (1956), pp. 81-97</p> <p>121. D. E. Broadbent. The magic number seven after fifteen years. In A. Kennedy and A. Wilkes (Eds.), Studies in long-term memory. Wiley, 1975 (pp. 3-18)</p> <p>122. Anthony Judge. The future of comprehension; conceptual birdcages and functional basketweaving. <em>Transnational Associations</em>, 34, 1982, 6, pp. 400-404 [<a href="http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/compbask.php">text</a>] </p> <p>123. E. Wigner. Symmetries and Reflections. Woodbridge, Ox Bow Press, 1979</p> <p>124. H. S. Stapp. S-Matrix interpretation of quantum theory. <em>Physical Review</em>, D3, 1971, pp. 1303ff</p> <p>125. Charles Handy. The Gods of Management: who they are, how they work, and why they fail. Pan, 1979</p> <p>126. Michael Maccoby. The Gamesman; the new corporate leaders. Seeker and Warburg, 1978</p> <p>127. Ernest G McClain. The Pythagorean Plato; prelude to the song itself. Nicholas Hays, 1978</p> <p>128. Rupert Sheldrake. A New Science of Life; the hypothesis of formative causation. London, Blond and Briggs, 1981</p> <p>129. C. H. Waddington. The Strategy of the Genes. Allan and Unwin, 1957</p> <p>130. Richard Newbold Adams. Energy and Structure; a theory of social power. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1975</p> <p>131. Ira Buchler and Henry Selby. Kinship and Social Organization; an introduction to theory and method. New York, Macmillan, 1968</p> <p>132. Jean Piaget. The Principles of Genetic Epistemology. Basic Books, 1972</p> <p>133. Union of International Associations. Global Action Networks; classified directory by subject and region. K G Saur Verlag, 1983 (Yearbook of International Organizations, vol. 3)</p> <p>134. John Keppel and David Keppel. Uncertainty: the ground for life. (Essex, USA, 1982: "first part of a manuscript in progress")</p> <p>135. Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler. Laws of the Game. New York, Knopf, 1981.</p> <p>136. Xavier Sallantin. L'invariant des jeux militaires, economiques et politiques. Paris, Laboratoire BENA de Logique Generale, Oct 1976</p> <p>137. Garrison Sposito. Does a generalized Heisenberg Principle operate in the social sciences? <em>Inquiry</em> (an interdisciplinary journal of philosophy and social sciences), 12, 1969, 3, pp. 356-361</p> <p>138. Richard Lichtman. Indeterminacy in the social sciences. <em> Inquiry</em>, 10, 1967, pp. 139-50</p> <p>139. Mary Douglas. Purity and Danger; an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966</p> <p>140. Mary Douglas. Natural Symbols; explorations in cosmology. Penguin, 1973. 141. Itsuo Tsuda. La voie du depouillement; ecole de la respiration. Paris, Courrier du Livre, 1975</p> <p>142. Denise Winn. The Manipulated Mind; brainwashing, conditioning and indoctrination. London, Octagon, 1983</p> <p>143. Sissela Bok. Lying; moral choice in public life. New York, Pantheon, 1978</p> <p>144. Sissela Bok. Secrets; on the ethics of concealment and revelation. New York, Pantheon, 1983</p> <p>145. Carlos Mallmann and Oscar Nudler (Eds). Time, Culture and Development. Pergamon, 1982</p> <p>146. Oscar Ichazo. Between Metaphysics and Protoanalysis; a theory for analysis of the human psyche. New York, Arica Institute Press, 1982 147 Stephane Lupasco. Le Dualisme Antagoniste. Paris,, 1973 (Du Devenir Logique et de 1'Affectivite, vol. 1)</p> <p>148. Archie J. Bahm. Polarity, Dialectic and Organicety. Albuquerque, World Books, 1977</p> <p>149. Solomon Marcus. Paradoxes. <em>Revue Roumaine de Linguistique</em>, 1982, no. 2</p> <p>150. Solomon Marcus and Monica Tataram. Paradoxical and antinomic aspects of the global trends in the world today. Bucharest, GPID Romanian Team, 1982</p> <p>151. Robert Aubroy, Ronald D Laing and Knut R Pflughaupt. The Way of the Warrior. Stuttgart, Forum International, 1982</p> <p>152. Kenneth E. Boulding. Ecodynamics; a new theory of societal evolution. Sage, 1978</p> <p>153. Paul D. MacLean. A Triune concept of the brain and behaviour. In: T. Boag and D. Campbell (Eds) The Hincks Memorial Lectures. University of Toronto Press, 1973</p> <p>154. Folkert Wilken. The Liberation of Capital. Allen and Unwin, 1982</p> <p>155. Ken Wilber (Ed.). The Holographic Paradigm and other paradoxes. Boulder, Shambhala, 1982</p> <p>156. Brandt Commission. Common Crisis North-South; cooperation for world recovery. London, Pan Books, 1983</p> <p>157. Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues. Common Security; a programme for disarmament. Pan Books, 1982 </p> <p>158. Stephen Pepper. World Hypotheses. University of California Press, 1942</p> <p>159. Anne Buttimer. Musing on Helicon; root metaphors and geography. <em>Geografiska Annaler</em>, 64B, 1982, 2, pp. 89-96</p> <p>160. V. V. Nalimov. Realms of the Unconscious; the enchanted frontier. Philadelphia, Institute of Scientific Information Press, 1982</p> <p>161. Gerald Holton. The roots of complementarity. In: Eranos Jahrbuch 1968, Zurich, Rheim Verlag, 1970, pp. 45-90</p> <p>162. W. T. Jones. The Romantic Syndrome; toward a new method in cultural anthropology and the history of ideas. Martinus Nijhof, 1961</p> <p>163. George Aseniero. A reflection on developmentalism; from development to transformation. In: Development as Social Transformation; reflections on the global problematique. United Nations University, forthcoming</p> <p>164. M. D. Waller. Chladni Figures; a study in symmetry. London, 1961</p> <p>165. Ralph Abraham. Vibrations and the Realisation of Form. In: Erich Jantsch and Conrad H Waddington (Eds). Evolution and Consciousness; human systems in transition. Addison-Wesley, 1976, pp. 134-149 [<a href="http://www.ralph-abraham.org/articles/MS%2315.Vibform/ms15.pdf">text</a>] </p> <p>166. Agesta Group (Sweden). Environment-International; twenty years after Stockholm 1972-1992 (Report on the implementation of the Stockholm Action Plan and on priorities and institutional arrangements for the 1980s) and a parliamentary view of the state of the world environment (Results of a survey carried out by the Secretariat of the International Parliamentary Conference on the Environment). Berlin, Erich Schrnidt Verlag, 1982 (Beitraege zur Umweltgestaltung, Band A83)</p> <p>167. Emmanuel Todd. La Troisieme Planete; structures familiales et systems ideologiques. Paris, Seuil, 1983</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:04:49 +0000 rachele 3114 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/refs#comments Notes https://uia.org/archive/da/notes <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>#1 This term is borrowed from Maruyama (51, 52, 53, 54)</p> <p><em>#2 </em>Currently special adviser to Francois Mitterrand.</p> <p>#2 cf Bateson: "A self-healing tautology, which is also a sphere, a multidimensional sphere" (29, p. 207)</p> <p>#3 In the light of the possibility of insights from generator design, this suggests the possible importance of polyphase <strong>revolutionary cycles</strong> (in an engineering sense) as a necessary basis for an adequate meta-answer.</p> <p>#4 The concern of marxists with "concrete" situations is presumably the way in which a fourth focus is introduced to anchor the three of the dialectic.</p> <p>#5 Handy notes the marked correspondence to the four organizational characters of Michael Maccoby (126): jungle fighter, company man, gamesman, and craftsman.</p> <p>#6 As is implied by the Club of Rome report "No Limits to Learning" (44) in terms of the trivial sense that there is some new permutation of possibilities reported every day (e.g. in the media). This aspect of the report was criticized in an earlier paper (81).</p> <p>#7 Given the fundamental role of the benzene molecular configuration as the basis for most living organic structures, it is worth asking (in the light of section 5.2.) why it is composed of <strong>six</strong> atoms. In answer is that it combines minimal strain on the distribution of each carbon atoms four valency bonds, and that it results in a minimal energy configures (119). It is worth reflecting on this model in the light of the research showing that the upper limit for effective committee or task force organization, the basis for social organization, is seven, plus or minus one (120, 121).</p> <p>#8 Also worth exploring is the contrasting concept of a "resonance particle" in nuclear physics. This is any exceedingly unstable <strong>high</strong> energy partivle, which may be considered as a composite of several relatively stable low energy particles, into which it may decay.</p> <p>#9 A more complex 64-phase learning cycle is that in the Chinese "Book of Changes" which was discussed in an earlier paper (34). A simpler one is the 3-phase dialectical process. Tentative descriptions of cycles involving from 1 to 20 phases are given in an earlier paper (22, Appendix 2).</p> <p>#10 These are in fact aspects of the multi-facetted definitions of left- and right-hemisphere thinking discussed earlier.</p> <p>#11 There are a number of features of E Haskell's coaction cardioid diagram (66) which could be reinterpreted to enrich Diagram 7.</p> <p>#12 This diagram bears some relationship to that indicating stable isotopes of increasing atomic weight.</p> <p>#13 A spiral representation could be developed from a combination of Diagrams 6 and 7.</p> <p>#14 Platonic tuning theory forms part of the mathematics of Diophantine approximation.</p> <p>#15 Aside from the pattern creating function of visions, Sheldrake does not exclude the possiblity that <strong>future</strong> systems may exert an impact on present systems by morphic resonance (128, p. 96)</p> <p>#16 "This dialectical movement in which a force, in its fullest development, turns into its opposite is called enantiodromia, a concept from ancient alchemy that was reintroduced into modern philosophy by C.G. Jung" (12, p. 41) It may be seen at work in the frequently remarked "convergence" between the supposedly opposed policies of the USA and the USSR.</p> <p># 16 As the purveyor of a new "answer" he is then obliged to state "Of one thing there can be no doubt. The entropy view will triumph." (105, p. 9)</p> <p>#17 A review and analysis of such fourfold structures is made by Maria-Louise von Franz (12)</p> <p>#18 Note the subtler significance of initiative (.......) in the Japanese game of go.</p> <p>#19 Note that in this metaphor "one-sided" games are eventually self-defeating. They do not ensure game quality, nor does the ability to monopolize the ball.</p> <p>#20 Bohm's work (discussed below) is perhaps the mathematical formulation appropriate to heterogeneity.</p> <p>#21 Vickers demonstrates that "The nature of the trap is a function of the nature of the trapped." (57, p. 69)</p> <p>#22 The sets of basic categories defining the UNU GPID project, for example, is compared in an earlier paper with those of traditional cultures or of non-social science disciplines (23).</p> <p>#23 Consider the <strong>numbered</strong> elements in (numbered) sets of any governmental resolution, programme or medium-term plan. The seemingly arbitrary (Cartesian) approach to such numbering contributes to their alienating effect, and to the disharmony between them.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:03:24 +0000 rachele 3113 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/notes#comments 10. Conclusions https://uia.org/archive/da/10 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>The major criticism of this paper in an early form was that it did not take a "position" or advocate a "stance". The reason for this is that this paper is about the necessity of moving beyond the mind-set which engenders answer arenas in which stance-taking is perceived as the only viable activity. In a turbulent environment some more dynamic response is required than that of "drawing the line" somewhere - the conceptual equivalent of a "Maginot-line". A sailor on the deck of a ship in rough seas would fall over if he attempted to maintain a "stance" - rather than shifting his weight from leg to leg in response to the movement of the ship, (cf Vickers book: <em>Freedom in a Rocking Boat </em>(57)). The problem of the sailor, if he is to achieve anything under such conditions, is to learn to "walk" rather than simply "standing".</p> <p>Expressed differently, the criticism is that some central "point" is not being made. This is so. If anything, the "central point" here deals with the tangential strategies of "not-making" a central point, since it is the <strong>overdefinition</strong> associated with any such action which seems to occupy and obstruct the necessarily <strong>undefined </strong>nature of the space through which transformative human and social development emerges "from the future". The paper focuses on the dynamics by which all points attempt to become the central point by denying the relevance of other points. In the same geometric metaphor, this paper does not favour a particular ideological "line" of argument, nor does it focus on a particular "area" of concern. The question discussed is rather one of how such different "points", "lines" and "areas" fit together and interrelate to constitute a viable "container" for comprehension of the human and social development process. The peculiar feature of this container is that it must be able to contain the undefined. The nature of the design problem has been compared to that of containing plasma as a source of fusion energy. Plasma also has unique global characteristics which call for a special configurative approach, especially since any contact with its container drains away its energy, thus dematuring it.</p> <p>A second criticism was that the paper covered too many dimensions and was too complex. Here the question is whether simple answers at this time are productive rather than downright dangerous, other than in specific settings. There is widespread hope that a simple answer can be formulated, with many believing fervently that such answers exist in single phrase statements such as "peace", "love", etc. Such belief obscures the richness and significance of the fundamental disagreement concerning the ways such conflicting answers can be implemented in practice. Morin (7) and Boulding (152) both note the dangers of single factor explanations at this time. In Boulding's words:</p> <blockquote> <p>"The evolutionary vision sees human history as a vast interacting network of species and relationships of many different kinds, and there really is no "leading factor" always in the forefront. At times, changes in material technology are the major mutational developments and create niches for social changes of various kinds. At other times, however, intellectual or spiritual movements take the lead and create niches for new material artifacts and technologies; sometimes climatic changes dominate the scene; or sometimes biological mutations dominate, such as the disease bacteria that caused the great plagues." (152, pp. 19-20) </p> </blockquote> <p>The problem is to find some comprehensible way (or set of ways) of interrelating the simple answers which must necessarily emerge as short-term local responses to such an environment. Hence the reason for advocating <strong>patterns of alternation between the necessary simplifications.</strong></p> <p>The difficulty is illustrated by such admirable initiatives as those of the Brandt and Palme Commissions (formally titled the Independent Commission on International Development Issues and the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues). Like their predecessors, these bodies have produced reports on the global situation with carefully thought out recommendations (156, 157). In the light of the arguments of this paper it is difficult to escape the conclusion that such commendable <strong>recommendations for global change are expressed in a language which is out-moded and incapable of engendering the credibility required to mobilize support to implement them.</strong> Such weakness is disguised by the apparent success of the public relations exercises by which the reports are launched, the manner in which they are briefly taken up by parliaments, universities and the media, and the implementation of a few of their non-controversial recommendations from what was conceived as an integrated package. The limited effectiveness of such an approach is well-illustrated by a recent report evaluating the implementation of the Action Plan formulated by the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (166).</p> <p>Such reports, in appealing to those who place great hope in simple answers (e.g. "cooperation" or "total disarmament"), fail to internalize the significance of other simplistic positions by which their implementation must necessarily be frustrated, as the historical record has repeatedly shown. The transformative development which is possible emerges from the relationship <strong>between</strong> such answers, not through the elimination of one or the other (or the constituencies to which they appeal). A different language is required to render such possibilities more credible and more fruitful. Such a language should not deny the simple answers, rather it should place them in a ("conceptual") context which encodes the dynamics by which they need to challenge each other to separate the "essence" of each from the "dross" from which the dangerous abuses of any simple answer can emerge. In this way a form is given to the context in which each such answer has a function.</p> <p>It is distressing that even in such an intellectually well-endowed country as France, for example, any individuals capable of a leadership role or some degree of influence find it necessary to align themselves, right or left, and then engage in savage and often childishly unsympathetic misrepresentations of the difficulties of the other party, whilst disguising those of their own. Increasingly authorities of any tendency can only maintain credibility and dignity when those who disagree with them are absent or silenced <strong>What body or school of thought perceives the need for opposing tendencies in order to contain the complexities of the problematique?</strong> Presumably any such insight is confined to the much maligned "floating voters". No one of influence argues in public for the need to alternate continually between conflicting policies - and yet it is precisely through such alternation that organized society has developed. If everyone of influence is only associated with a <strong>part(</strong>y), who then speaks for (alternation between the parts within) the whole? <strong>Can the whole be given more effective expression?</strong></p> <p>A third criticism was that too many authors were quoted rather than simply cited. This was one deliberately to convey a better understanding of the very different conceptual languages used by authors with different backgrounds - each offering new insights and shades of meaning on a central <strong>undefined</strong> concern. As Nalirnov states: "And since it is language which is discussed, it is important not only <strong>what </strong>has been said but also <strong>in what way</strong> it has been said. Hence the abundance of quotations in the book." </p> <p>The essential argument of this paper, as repeatedly emphasized, cannot be given explicitly because there can be <strong>no one language </strong>appropriate to the meta-answer required. It can only be presented "tangentially" as a <strong>configuration of distinct languages</strong> - whether as the insights from different backgrounds or as an understanding of an N-fold set of distinct approaches from a particular background. This paper is an exercise in presenting information in this way. None of the perspectives given as example is individually either necessary or sufficient, but some such set of contrasting perspectives is necessary to provide the requisite conceptual variety to contain the undefined. (The problem is somewhat analogous to that of establishing a sufficiently long baseline in terrestrial or astronomical surveys, or to that of constructing a sufficiently large array of differently oriented receptors in radio-astronomy. Hopefully a <strong>pattern of resonance</strong> can be detected within the configuration of perspectives emerging from such very different languages, for it is only on the foundation of such resonance that a viable global approach can seemingly be designed.</p> <p>This paper is in effect an exploration of how the relationship between "local" and "global" may be comprehended in practice as a guide to action. The conventional geo-political interpretation favoured in the GPID Group A Report (75) is considered to be merely one aspect of this problem which has the disadvantage of reinforcing nation-state oriented category schemes. There is a dangerous trap in the belief that global thinking necessarily results from the interaction of (s)elected people from different nations and cultures. The very (s)election process ensures the specific, and consequently, non-global nature of such groups. Such elite groups, whether in the General Assemblies of the United Nations or of the Fourth World "peoples groups", for example, may well be considered "local", as is evident from the fact that the participants usually have more in common with one another than with the masses whose interests they supposedly represent. In this sense the global characteristic which needs to be distinguished from what is conventionally called "global" is that in which the conventional global/local complementarity is embedded. Any definitions or institutionalizations of it are necessarily a local phenomena.</p> <p>This draws attention to another aspect of the global/local relationship associated with language in its most general sense and the "logical" problem of interrelating specific (local) conceptual or functional frameworks which have no "categories" through which to recognize each others relevance. The conventional approach to this aspect has the disadvantage of reinforcing the fragmentation into disciplines and specializations with their associated institutions, curricula and mutually exclusive jargons and systems of categories. The GPID Group A Report does not touch on this dimension and the manner in which it currently leads to a fragmentation of whatever integrity is to be conceived as engaged in the process of human and social development.</p> <p>A third aspect is that in which "local" denotes a specific period of time and "global" is the relationship between (all) such periods, however that is to be conceived. How is the succession of phases in any development process to be understood in terms of time? The conventional approach to this reinforces a distinctly linear and a-cyclic understanding which does not correspond to the richness of the human biological and psycho-social response to time (145).</p> <p>Perhaps even more difficult to clarify is the relationship between local and global in the case of values, especially when global values are subject to some localization process which obscures their nature, despite protest, of local advocates to the contrary. Local values in their most explicit form determine the characteristics of behaviour patterns in particular socio-cultural settings. But paradoxically it would seem that the more global values are most effective when characterized by a considerable degree of ineffability and ambiguity, possibly associated with symbols allowing different levels of interpretation. It is their underdefined global nature which allows them to exert an integrative force on incompatible activities which have been overdefined locally or through any explicit programme. Underdefinition in this sense is a characteristic of the "emptiness" given prominence in Eastern philosophies and of the "untouchability" of the sacred in both Eastern and Western religions. It would seem that such underdefinition has the effect of "pulling" the human and social development process forward in a continuing attempt to "fill the definitional vacuum" - the nothingness of the "semantic vacuum" in Nalimov's terms (160, p. 75-94). As such it exerts a powerful integrative force which Boulding notes in connection with sacredness:</p> <p>"The whole question of the role of "sacredness" in human society has been inadequately explored. Sacredness is part of the integrative structure and its erosion may easily destroy those integrative structures that hold societies and organizations together. A good deal of human history indeed is written in terms of the substitution of one system of sacredness for another....But exactly what the dynamic processes are that create or destroy sacredness is a puzzling question." (152, p. 226-7)</p> <p>Seen in this light there would seem to be merit in considering the vital role of (global) leadership in relation to the sacred conceived as the undefined. In effect leaders have a special function as intermediaries processing, filtering and interpreting the inconceivable - a role many priesthoods have been happy to monopolize. The role is misused however when those led are completely deprived of the right to the undefined in an essentially overdefined society. In this sense <strong>access to the undefined is a catalyst for transformative human and social development.</strong> It is in this respect that charismatic leaders function as a kind of integrative "keystone" in whom different groups, operating in a necessarily overdefined mode, can find whatever is needed to hold them together. Successful leaders therefore embody a certain degree of ambiguity in order to be "all things to all men". To what extent does the United Nations fulfil this leadership function and to what extent does it act to overdefine the domains in which it claims to lead?</p> <p>The current difficulty is then not so much with answers but with the lack of any operational perspective on the relationship between answers. The impotence of the current approaches is unfortunately disguised by the plethora of unrelated studies on "motherhood" problems like "population", "energy", "environment", "food", and "health", whose limited global significance nobody dares to question. In the Club of Rome's terms, the majority of such studies constitute maintenance (adaptive) learning by society, as opposed to the needed innovative (shock) learning capable of anticipating new dimensions of the problematique (44). Academic work does not seem able to move beyond its propensity to be satisfied with patterns of categories within specialized (local) frameworks. Such a fragmented approach, and its inherent assumption of simple sectoral answers, is severely criticized as "developmentalism" by authors such as Addo (13) and Aseniero (163) associated with the Starnberg Group within GRID. Aseniero, for example, concludes: "Contemporary or historical, the question of transformation dynamics admits of no easy answers; the mistake is to assume, as the developmentalist theory of stages does, that the answer is obvious from the start." (163)</p> <p>The emphasis here on development as learning introduces the challenge of <em>a </em>dynamic dimension which involves both the "observer" and the "developer" in the transformation process as participants rather than as manipulators. The learning process cannot be limited by the preoccupations of those who favour a single answer. It challenges the long-term global value of any "unified world model" or any corresponding "unified world government" with a "world action plan". Any monolithic over-arching structure, even if decentralized, can only fail to internalize the essentially discontinuous nature of transformative change, which must challenge pre-existing organization. Such a structure is therefore obliged, using a sexual metaphor, to take one of the two sex roles. If it takes the male role, at present it reinforces phallic authoritarian (alpha) structures which, when they are not paternalistic, will tend to "rape" the "peoples of the world" who are cast into the corresponding female role. If it takes the female role, at present it reinforces associative (beta) structures which, when they are not restrictively maternalistic, invite rape on the part of any group capable of adopting an authoritarian mode. Violence is discharged but not contained.</p> <p>This paper has attempted to clarify the learning cycles through which the essential dynamism of any more subtle ("dancing") relationship between these two modes can be embodied. "The fixed idea is the enemy of all free thinking. It is far more difficult to accept that two opposing ideas may not be mutually exclusive than, in a desire for absolutes, to plump for <em>one </em>or the other." (142, p. 211).</p> <p>It is in the dynamics of an "androgynous" pattern of alternation or resonance between two or more such modes that the possibilities for a planetary meta-answer lie. But, as with the ideal of marriage, there are many well-recognized patterns of unfruitful organized relationship which are valuable to the non-transformative existence of both partners. Fruitful, transformative union, when it occurs, may involve shared ecstasy of long-term significance (on which ideals are focussed), but the moment of union between opposites is temporary (although possibly recurrent). Permanent union is clearly impractical and sterile in the light of current understanding.</p> <p>The new global order appropriate to the times is perhaps best conceived as a resonance hybrid composed of alternatives woven together by policy-learning <strong>cycles</strong> rather than by structures. The medium of such cyclic action is partly the world-wide network of independent organizations which give form to world society and guarantee its "functional roundness" through the variety of their specific preoccupations (1 33). These acquire and lose global significance according to the phases of the cycles. Within such a cyuclic context, different local priorities are alternatively integrated together and then later displaced by others. <strong>There is no ultimate integration or pattern of priorities</strong> at the global level. The kind of global integration is not purely spatio-structural, it involves dynamics over time as expressed in multi-phase cyclic "structures". The required global answer can only be expressed dynamically, namly with an inherent degree of uncertainty, in contrast to the rigid conceptual, institutional and value structures by which answers are currently over-defined and localized, with the consequence that they can only attract limited support.</p> <p>This paper redefines the context in which the immediate questions "what should <strong>we</strong> do?" or "how should <strong>we</strong> act?" can be usefully answered. Part of the difficulty lies in the <strong>self-justificatory nature of the compulsion to act</strong> which at present gives rise to a highly turbulent society. For Nalimov this necessity to act reveals the schizophrenic nature of society. People are impelled to act by the perception of the discreteness of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, truth and falsity, and by the energy which such perception engenders. Such action is based on the decisions by which this discreteness emerges (160, p. 17). And:</p> <blockquote> "We might say...that a person posing a question, on the unconscious level gets an answer as a probabilistically given preference function constructed on the semantic continuum. Then conceptualization takes place on the conscious, logically structured level: the continuum is cut into separate blocks corresponding to the maximum probability concentration. Clear-cut conceptualization oppositions create the polarization without which the passionate temperament of individuals...that <strong>provides society with its energy </strong>could not have been realized. But aperson is never separated from his unconscious: the latter sooner or later liberates the person from the power of what it has generated on the conscious level." (160, p. 294) </blockquote> <p>For Nalimov <strong>any such decision is perhaps absurd,</strong> since it is an attempt to represent discretely a fuzzy situation which is by no means necessarily determined by a needle-shaped function of the distribution of probabilities. Furthermore, discrete formulations of goal, success or failure are no less absurd. "Goals emerge and spread in societies like infectious diseases." (160, p. 10). There are "many examples of a goal being too straight forwardly chosen, leading to wild perversions and turning from the coming blessing into an everyday burden," (160, p. 17) And yet <strong>decisions to act, however misguided, are essential to the dynamic continuity of society</strong> as Nalimov recognizes in quoting the Bhaga vad-Gita: "This world in linked by doing." (160, p. 58). What he apparently fails to render explicit however, is the possibility that the set of all such discrete polarizations, of whatever quality, might be understood in terms of configurations, about a common global focus, offering a variety of local learning pathways.</p> <p><strong>To </strong>the necessity of such intense <strong>local "doing"</strong> might then correspond some kind of <strong>global "not-doing"</strong> which Nalimov describes as follows:</p> <blockquote> "Perhaps the culture of the continuous vision of the world will become "the culture of not-doing", where preference will be given to spontaneous development, and not to the unreserved and destructive activities in the name of a goal to which we are ascribing an unconditional value. But can we possibly imagine such a culture of "not-doing"?....Contemporary technology tempts us to invent and realize grandiose projects. However, ecological forecasts, if possible at all, can only be made in a soft probabilistic form. Is it not safer to act more cautiously, by introducing into the projects beforehand ways of retreat....Is such a culture of soft doing possible at all?" (160, pp. 17-18) </blockquote> <p>The danger in interpreting "not-doing" lies precisely in the fact that its significance lies in its undefined nature, tangentially described by sets of local "doing". In terms of development through alternation, focus on not-doing (as a particular preference) must alternate with focus on doing. This paper is a contribution to understanding how this can be brought about - or better understood as already operating.</p> <p>For there to be a viable response to the current condition in the immediate future, the present answer economy must be transformed by reinterpreting it through a more seductive idea. There is a need to embed "nation-state" thinking within a context of "alter-nation process" thinking. Hence the merit of propagating an essentially human sexual metaphor to "contain" the dynamics of discontinuity faced by humanity and facilitate widespread understanding of the nature of the "pattern which connects". For, as Bateson warns:</p> <blockquote> "Break the pattern which connects the items of learning and you necessarily destroy all quality." (29, p. 8) </blockquote> <p>The question is not only whether we can find ways of rendering comprehensible the non-linear geometries which express parts of this pattern, and on which we have yet to learn collectively how to live (in Atkin's terms). For although configurations of metaphors are vital to collective comprehension of the <strong>possibility</strong> of "life on a different geometry", the immediate challenge is to learn from them how to catalyze the emergence of new organizations of values, concepts, information and people to reflect that understanding in <strong>operational </strong>programmes capable of managing our resources, material or otherwise.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:01:39 +0000 rachele 3112 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/10#comments 9.9. Implications for the human self-image https://uia.org/archive/da/9-9 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>The current sterile debate, reinforced by the differences between Western and Eastern cultural traditions, as to whether the significance of an individual lies only in his individuality and its transformative development or only in his social context and its transformative development, can be viewed in a new light of the arguments of this paper. Each of these opposing views clearly offers valuable insights, but the transformative development of the human self-image results from the process of alternation between them.</p> <p>The change of focus can perhaps be best illustrated by the possible reinterpretation of the "stimulus-response" image of man favoured by behaviourists. This focuses on the way in which a given stimulus gives rise to a given response (as well as on ways of conditioning the desired response). In a simplistic concept of organization a leader may be conceived as providing key stimuli and ensuring appropriate responses. This asymmetrical approach was the original basis for government and corporate funding of research on the uses of media.</p> <p>In a symmetrical approach a stimulus from one individual gives rise to a response, which is in turn perceived as a stimulus to which the original stimulator in turn responds. The two parties can then continue alternating between the roles of stimulator and respondent in a resonant exchange in which each takes initiatives and is conditioned by responses. Whilst this is fairly obvious, the interesting question is how the resonant exchange may be "tuned" as a vehicle for the expression of more significant possibilities. Clearly the classic asymmetric approach is just an extreme example of forced tuning by one party in his own interest. Courtship behaviour can be an example of more symmetric resonance which is progressively tuned to levels of greater significance, if it is successful.</p> <p>Of greater significance in a social context is the manner in which the individual engages in resonant exchange with each of the members of the groups in which he participates. Each exchange is necessarily different, but the question is how these exchanges interweave in a process of mutual entrainrnent to constitute the resonance pattern of the group. And how may such a resonance pattern be tuned in turn and how many different resonators can "fit" together into what sort of pattern?</p> <p>In such a context the individual is as much a non-localized pattern of propagation through the resonance network as a locus of interference within that network. Each individual is partly encoded by all the people with which he is in contact - "we carry a bit of everyone within us". This approach not only suggests possibilities for interpretation of the individual in relation to others but also for the individual in relation to the sub-personalities which constitute his psychic make-up. He is as much a resonance pattern between such subpersonalities as identified with any one of them.</p> <p>There has been much recent work on the biological cycles by which human beings are characterized. Time-budget analysis has demonstrated the variety of alternative activities in which humans involve themselves at different stages of development (145). The arguments of this paper suggest that there is a case for exploring the nature of a human self-image based on alternation, whether between activities, roles or modes of perception.</p> <p>Validating the phases through which alternation takes place then places extreme phases in a new context. In the light of Paul MacLean's work on brain evolution (153), some phases may indeed be governed, for example, by the lower lirnbic brain corresponding to the "reptilian" phase of main's evolution. (Political leaders are occasionally perceived as functioning primarily in this mode when grasping to retain power.) But the point is not simply to condemn such phases and attempt to "rise above them".</p> <p>Although such attempts are also appropriate, eliminating such phases completely would effectively destroy important behavioural pathways in the psycho-social ecosystem through which learning takes place. In the natural environment also it is not simply a question of eliminating "primitive" species, but rather of ensuring their appropriate function in the ecosystem. In this sense the alternation phases need to pass through all the "species" necessary to the healthy functioning of man's psychic ecosystem.</p> <p>Seen in this light the widespread attempts to define some groups or modes of behaviour as "good" and others as "bad" do not help to move beyond the resulting dynamics. Human beings are much more richly textured than such simplistic categories imply - as any literature shows. Whilst labelling some as "guilty" and others, especially oneself, as "innocent" is a necessary behavioural pattern under certain <strong>local</strong> conditions, it is also necessary to be able to operate in the opposite mode. If we do not understand how we are part of the problem, we cannot understand the nature of the "answer" required. It is even more desirable to recognize that it is not a question of being guilty or innocent, but rather of being guilty <strong>and</strong> innocent as a responsible participant in the current <strong>global</strong> condition of society. In this sense being human is the ability to live creatively with this paradox.</p> <br clear="all" /> <table align="center" border="1" width="80%"> <tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" align="center"> <div align="center"><strong>Personal space sub-component of Group A's integrative schema</strong> </div></td> </tr> <tr align="left" valign="top"> <td height="2" width="50%"><strong>Modern physics consciousness/assumptions<br /> </strong>Boundaries are arbitrary imposed by observer's relationship to observed<br /> Complementarity of incompatible explanations <br /> <em>"The sun does not necessarily rise or set"</em> <br /> Dynamics: breathing (as a metaphor)</td> <td height="2" width="50%"> <p><strong>Classical (Newtonian) physics assumptions<br /> </strong>Boundaries are mechanically defined<br /> Observers relationship to observed implies not ambiguity<br /> <em>"The sun rises" </em><strong><br /> </strong>Dynamics: exercise</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" align="center"> <div align="center"> <img src="/sites/uia.org/files/img/webarchive/devel-alter/9-9-1.jpg" alt="Personal space sub-component of an integrative group schema" /></div></td> </tr> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td colspan="2"> <p><strong>"Metaphys</strong><strong>i</strong><strong>cal"<br /> </strong>Conscious experiential involvement of observer in environment dissolving the observer-observed dichotomy<br /> Japanese concept of hara (zen) and inner strength (and some western concepts of "maturity" and "wisdom")<br /> Dynamics: sartori, samadhi, etc.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p>If nothing else, human beings are only partially defined by the static categories in each of the many conceptual "languages" which attempt such definition. The essence of being human is uncontained by the patchwork aggregate of these definitions - it is a "quality without a name". It can be more appropriately "defined", especially as a self-image by the person concerned, by the <strong>dynamics</strong> of alternation <strong>between</strong> the roles, categories, activities and modes of being by which people are usually characterized. A richer and more "global" understanding of being human lies in identification with the "dance" between these specific, "local" or temporary definitions. The "dancer" is not limited by such specifics through which he expresses himself. Experientially he is more closely identified with the process of "dancing". Hence the production of books on the conceptual frontiers of physics with titles such as: "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters". (60)</p> <p>The relationship between the individual's different attitudional postures in the dance has perhaps been best clarified by David Bohm. Each of the series of conflicting images with which an individual identifies can be conceived as a lower-dimensional projection of a higher-dimensional actuality which is their common ground but which is of a nature beyond all of them thus constituting a challenge to comprehension. In this higher-dimensional ground an implicate order prevails in which what is is movement, represented in thought as the co-presence of many phases of that order. Any particular attitude or posture is ultimately misleading although necessary as a well-defined vehicle of expression of the movement characteristic of the undefined totality of that higher order (8, pp. 209-210). The special merit of Bohm's presentation is that he demonstrates that, far from being an inaccessible mathematical abstraction, "the experiencing of the implicate order is fundamentally much more immediate and direct than is that of the expliate order, which...requires a complex construction that has to be learned." (8, p. 206). His work is leading to a reassessment of the hoary mind-body question by combining his concept of "holomovement" with that of the holographic paradigm (155).</p> <p>In effect it is not so much a question of the human self-image in the face of the undefined - certainty facing uncertainty. Nor is it only a question of "containing" the undefined by a configuration of responses. The challenge is to embody and express the undefined, as is intuitively recognized in the appreciation of the vitality of human spontaneity. The direction of human development may then be seen to lie in the progressive embodiment (or "marriage") of more fundamental forms of the paradoxical relationship between discipline and spontaneity. The current social development crisis may be interpreted as the crucible in which human beings learn to perceive themselves in such terms. The attitude called for by these uncertain times is thus one of disciplined spontaneity or spontaneous discipline. This is not achieved by the present schizophrenic alternation between "discipline" and "spontaneity" which makes of each mode a shadowy evil to be combatted by the other.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:00:15 +0000 rachele 3111 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-9#comments 9.8 Implications for information processing https://uia.org/archive/da/9-8 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>The transformative right-hemisphere step advocated in the previous section can be advantageously complemented and challenged by a left-hemisphere focus on innovations in structured information processing. As argued in an earlier paper (81), the information systems currently installed or envisaged facilitate, in the Club of Rome's terms, maintenance (adaptive) learning but not innovative (shock) learning. This applies particularly to the development information systems promoted by the intergovernmental community. Maintenance learning calls for information systems in support of existing programmes for problems recognized in the past. Innovative learning calls for systems which enable unforeseen future problems to be anticipated:</p> <blockquote> "Innovative learning is problem formulating and clustering. Its main attributes are integration, synthesis, and the broadening of horizons. It operates in open situations or open systems. <strong>Its meaning derives from dissonance among contexts.</strong> It leads to critical questioning of conventional assumptions behind traditional thoughts and actions, focusing on necessary changes. Its values are not constant, but rather shifting. Innovative learning advances our thinking by reconstructing wholes, not by fragmenting reality..." (44, p. 42). </blockquote> <p>The systems required involve a degree of preparedness and an ability to redefine classificatory frameworks (not just to reshuffle and augment predefined lists of categories in a participative environment). These possibilities have been designed out of most existing systems. This may be seen in the cumbersome way in which the intergovernmental community has to re-equip itself at the information level for each newly discovered problem (e.g. environment, energy, etc.). The academic community is in a similar situation.</p> <p>Bateson makes the point:</p> <blockquote> "At present, there is no existing science whose special interest is the combining of pieces of information. But I shall argue that the evolutionary process must depend upon such double increments of information. Every evolutionary step is an addition of information to an already existing system. Because this is so, the combinations, harmonies, and discords between successive pieces and layers of information will present many problems of survival and determine many directions of change." (29, p. 21) </blockquote> <p>As argued elsewhere (81): "Retrieval systems focus queries in the light of the user's existing knowledge and biases." The Club of Rome report notes: "We submit that many of the difficulties of learning today stem from the neglect of contexts." (44, p. 23) Soedjatmoko states: "Part of our incapacity to comprehend fully what is happening to us in the changing conditions of the world, despite the plethora of available information, lies in the operational inadequacies of present conceptual frameworks." (82)</p> <p>What is needed at this time is a new variety of computer software which facilitates <strong>conceptual pattern formation</strong> as part of the inquiry process. The challenge is to facilitate accumulation of patterns, and of patterns of patterns. But this is not only a spatio-structural problem, but also a temporal-dynamic one of <strong>facilitating the discovery of the cycles of which existing categories are phases</strong> - as in Bohm's concern with "holocyclation" (93). This is in total contrast to current approaches which only meet the needs of users who assume that they know the pattern about which they require further information. <strong>Existing systems reinforce contextual ignorance</strong> and belief in the irrelevance of that of which users remain ignorant. This is valid locally but dangerous globally. There the challenge is to clarify how, when or where <strong>anything may become relevant.</strong> But even locally a category scheme which is unable to embrace the experience of a bird singing outside an office window is likely to be of dangerously limited value to any programme of human and social development. The categories of the United Nations Environment Programme, for example, ignore almost completely those species which do not have an economically significant relationship to man, thus effectively reinforcing the concept of the planet as a hydroponic system denuded of "non-functional" species.</p> <p>A major disadvantage of the current approach to organizing information is that it is producer rather than consumer oriented, and is thus inaccessible to all but the most motivated learner - precisely the person who effectively already "knows what he wants" and has little interest in topics he consequently perceives as irrelevant, e.g. to his own planned production of further information The current approach does not face the challenge of designing non-manipulative <strong>information systems for people who do not know what they want,</strong> namely systems capable of responding to the condition of the uncommitted or apathetic who have not yet engaged in some development programme.</p> <p>A different approach, that could be facilitated by video disc technology, would be one in which a discipline or topic was organized in terms of a number-based technique of fragmentation into sets. Information would be structured into learner-oriented units of different levels of content complexity (as is already done in programmed learning techniques). But the basic idea would be to deliberately arrange such units in sets of 1, 2, 3 or N elements. In any given set the units would be chosen and defined as complementary elements such that a pattern of relationships emerged between them. But the user would have the option of selecting sets in which the unit contents were such as to make the relationship neutrally comparative or mutually challenging, even to the point of negating each others positions. Thus the user could then alternate "backwards and forwards" through the information in terms of variables such as:</p> <ul> <li> number of units in a set, depending on the user's tolerance of quantity and resistance to overload (i.e. attention span) </li> <li> level of complexity of unit content </li> <li> level of exposure desired to units formulated such as to bring out mutually contradictory, critical or challenging relationship between them, (in the light of the current debate between schools of thought) </li> <li> level of uncertainty acceptable in the formulation of the unit content </li> <li> preference for formulation in text or graphic modes of various types, from scientific through metaphoric to poetic imagery </li> </ul> <p>Organizing information in this way raises the interesting question as to how to identify, at a given level of complexity, the concept units to be included in such sets when the number of units equals 1, 2, 3 to N. For given choices of the last four variables above, what could be selected as the 10 key concepts of political science, for example? Where N is of the order of 150, the details of the nation-state system can obviously be elaborated. But what can be discussed in psychology when N=150?</p> <p>This suggests that any information or argument should be presentable in such a multi-facetted form in order to facilitate learning - a possible basis for the organization of the proposed Encyclopedia of Social Science Concepts (under the auspices of UNESCO, ISSC and COCTA). It implies that a learner should be able to approach any topic in terms of his preferred decomposition of it into N elements, namely in terms of the number of distinctions or the degree of explicit difference with which he likes to work. Note that the problem in any policy or strategy situation is to maximize the number of factors the leadership can effectively grasp - and communicate, if popular approval is necessary. Information has to be packaged in terms of whatever value of N is acceptable. This technique has not been developed.</p> <p>A special advantage of this approach is that it requires that units of information in conflictual relationship be juxtaposed, in case the learner wishes to be exposed to the nature of that conflict. In effect it calls for the ability to juxtapose both a viewpoint and that of its most explicit denial. This counteracts the tendency of "protect" users from "mis-informed" alternative viewpoints. And even when the viewpoints are simply different (N greater than 2), rather than mutually denying (N equal to 2), it enables the user to learn to distinguish between N <strong>shades of difference,</strong> and appreciate the variety detectable at that "diversity tolerance level".</p> <p>An approach of this kind clearly offers many advantages in the exchange of information between people of different backgrounds - sharing mind-sets. Given the developing trend to write and exchange papers in a computer conferencing mode, this approach could well be used as a way of organizing such presentations of information - in contrast to the conventional near text mode such as used in this paper. It obliges the author, or some processing service, to work his way through the concepts inherent in his presentation at various values of N, rather than distribute lists of factors, points, principles, concepts or recommendations throughout the paper in various unrelated forms.</p> <p>This obstructs the learner's access to the essence of "what he is getting at", at whatever values of N he is prepared to explore the information. Such an approach would free collective authors (such as the Brandt Commission, or the GPID project which inspired this paper) to interrelate a more complex pattern of concepts by which their collective understanding could be contained.</p> <p>The need is for pattern building computer software to enable users to interrelate and nest their range of preoccupations in a flexible, non-simplistic manner which is inherently integrative. This is not to be confused with the extensive work on "pattern recognition". It is a question of facilitating <strong>category and symbol management</strong> in which boundaries are open to redefinition. It is such redefinition which facilitates transformative development.</p> <p>Some possibilities have been discussed in earlier papers (81, 114) to counter the current erosion of collective memory, namely negative societal learning. The related implications of information networks for a transnational university have also been explored (109, 115). It is to be hoped that the newly created, development-oriented World Centre for Computer Technology and Human Resources (Paris) will focus on such questions. They correspond to Attali's concluding plea for the mobilization of "technologies reductrices des couts d'organisation." (5, p. 295)</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:58:35 +0000 rachele 3110 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-8#comments 9.7. Implications for forms of presentation https://uia.org/archive/da/9-7 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>This paper has stressed the limited value of various conventional modes of expression. These arguments necessarily apply also to papers of this kind. The question is whether it is possible to devise some means of by-passing the desperately slow learning cycle associated with research-education-policy formulation-implementation in a world in which the education gap is increasing rapidly. If the current crisis is to be taken seriously, people must acquire access to an appropriate response by some other means. The problems of doing so have been reviewed in earlier papers (27, 108, 109, 110).</p> <p>The unfortunate characteristic of answer propagation as currently practised with all the skills of media specialists is that it is conceived in terms of mechanical metaphors such as "hitting" a "target" audience and achieving "impact". This is the approach used both by the public information programmes of the United Nations family of organizations and by grass-roots initiatives such as the current Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose. This could be described as a "particle" approach acting to achieve the <strong>displacement</strong> of people from one mind-set to another. The arguments for this paper suggest the need for a complementary "wave" approach acting to achieve the <strong>entrainment</strong> of people in terms of their current mind-sets. Propagating an answer by resonance may prove to be a more appropriate mode in dealing with the "field" of world opinion. Particle propagation tends to be considerably slower than wave propagation, as well as being easily blocked or deflected.</p> <p>The challenge is to make available something simple enough to be comprehensible and yet "seductive" enough to retain peoples involvement. On the other hand, if it is to be of any value at this time, it must also be sufficiently complex and coherent to encompass the complexity of a social reality in crisis, and yet empower people to act together to contain the crisis in such a way as to be transformed by the unique learning opportunity it constitutes. This is a tali order, far beyond the capability or ambition of conventional international programmes.</p> <p>Under the circumstances it is appropriate to look at unconventional possibilities. One approach is through existing processes, penetrating all levels of society, which already hold most peoples attention, transform their awareness, and govern their actions. The challenge would then be whether it was possible to "code" onto these, as a kind of "carrier", a second level of meaning. The "double meaning" should then offer a totally new set of insights suggesting new patterns of action.</p> <p>Some possibilities for this approach are:</p> <blockquote> (a) <strong>Popular music and dance:</strong> This has however been tried already with peace songs and UNICEF concerts. Its weakness is that it is inherently a right-hemisphere approach fussed on specific messages. More may be achieved by the traditional technique of attaching meaning to dance patterns. <br /> (b) <strong>Spectator competitive sport:</strong> The weakness here is the passive role adopted by the spectator. It also seems difficult to encode a rich new level of meaning onto games, although Sallantin's work might change this. On the other hand, many ball games encode alternation processes, as Thompson effectively points out. If it were possible to develop another seductive level of interpretation of football, for example, this could propagate extremely rapidly and activate a more dynamic pattern of apprehending the current social condition. It is quite possible that such an interpretation is already active implicitly, below the conscious threshold, and is the basis for fascination with such games. <br /> (c) <strong>Strip cartoons:</strong> The problem here lies in the constraints on their production, distribution, and use. Note however that the UN University and UNESCO are supporting Yona Friedman's innovative use of this medium (70). <br /> (d) <strong>Rumour, scandal, and humour:</strong> Here the difficulty is in ensuring some coherence and force to the pattern of meanings, despite the advantages of the speed of dissemination. <br /> (e) <strong>Astrology and divination:</strong> These lend themselves to multiple levels of meaning within a coherent framework, but the difficulty lies in the settings in which they are used. <br /> (f) <strong>Traffic circulation:</strong> The familiar movement of traffic offers a very explicit substrate onto which the relationship between conflicting purposes can be encoded. It clarifies possible relationships between traffic moving in opposite directions and in cross-cutting roads to (or from) which access may be required. The control of such cross-over points by traffic lights provides an interesting example of alternation (possibly privileging certain traffic streams at certain times by adjusting the cycle). The progressive complexification draws attention to co-present developmental stages involving one-way traffic, round-abouts, filtering systems, clover-leaf intersections, underpasses as well as the contrast between highways and side roads. Present policy control in this metaphor can be compared to a procession (or "progress") in one direction with the support of security forces. This requires that all access roads be blocked off and all opposing traffic suppressed. When the procession has petered out, another such "convoy" may be organised in the opposite direction for the traffic stream blocked by the first. This reflects a distinctly antiquated approach. It takes no account of the sophisticated blend of control and delegation of responsibility to drivers which is characteristic of modern traffic patterns. These feature "public" and "private" vehicles, pedestrian-only streets, and a complete openness to traffic for different official and unofficial purposes (holiday, goods transport, business, aid, etc.). <br /> (g) <strong>Myth, legend and tales:</strong> These are traditional carriers for double meanings. (Note the current attempts to distribute Sufi tales.) The question is whether the world's problems could be readily coded into active myths in such a way as to engender appropriate responses. They suffer from the childhood contexts in which they are first heard and have lost significance in industrialized countries. <br /> (h) <strong>Dialogue:</strong> This has been an explicit concern of the GPID project. The problem is how to engender more fruitful dialogue. The available models for the dialogue process tend either to be overly structured as artificial impositions within any social context or excessively unstructured in reaction to that alternative. As with networks they may then be characterized as suffering from "flabbiness". Better guiding metaphors are required for the dialogue process which is in principle an excellent model of alternation. <br /> (i) <strong>Weather and ecosystem:</strong> The case for this substrate was argued in an earlier paper (110), although there the emphasis was placed on the generation of "maps". The relationship of geographical metaphors to world hypotheses, such as the four of Stephan Pepper (158), has been reviewed by Anne Buttirner (159), both as a means of illustrating the value of looking at some of the root differences underlying contrasting modes of analysis and description, and in order to discover new metaphors to "elucidate some of the connections between descriptive and normative practice". Buttimer sees this as a way of affirming the possibility of a plurality of potential stances on the diversity of experiences. Such an approach has the merit of being universal, rich and engendering active involvement. But as a carrier it is not yet sufficiently "seductive". At a less conscious level, this approach has however been successfully used by animistic cultures. Specific animals may also be perceived as encoding a design response, which attempts to provide an "answer" to the "containment of uncertainty". This is achieved in one approach by functions based on the interference patterns generated by bilateral symmetry (eye, ear, brain), quadripedal organization of mobility, with a five-fold organization of manipulators. <br /> (j) <strong>Sex, courtship and family life:</strong> Given the vital significance, described earlier, of the dynamic relationship between "opposites" or "incompatibles", there would seem to be a strong case for coding this onto the essential dynamism of courtship, sex and the restraints thereon. This is complex, "seductively" fascinating, universal, participative, and (directly or indirectly) a major preoccupation of most people who consequently have an extensive understanding of its many dimensions. It also has a productive dimension in the coherent pattern of value-loaded interpersonal relations it engenders through birth and bonding. The transformative power of sex (brought to light by Freud) is also well-recognized by the younger generations, possibly because of conservative attempts to regulate it. It has already acquired political significance through feminist concern for sexual and family politics. Sex thus has credibility (to coin a phrase) far in excess of any "international development programme". Note that sex has been used as a substrate for spiritual meanings in tantric yoga, in Hindu temple sculpture, and less explicitly, in classic Persian poetry, and in many myths and symbol systems. Finally it is a major preoccupation in the audio-visual media. </blockquote> <p>The merit of the last two possibilities is that they effectively involve <strong>coding the world problematique back onto the world and onto human beings,</strong> which would seem to be a conceptually elegant response to the problem of self-reflexiveness (15). There is also merit in relating a conscious pattern of significance to a substrate by which people are usually governed unconsciously. In Jungian terms this is an appropriate and fruitful form of marriage between conscious and unconscious elements. Humanity's inability to relate creatively to aspects of these unconscious elements (e.g. the environment and the reproductive instinct) severely aggravates the problematique (e.g. environmental degradation and the population explosion).</p> <p>Such an approach is not as incongruous as might be suspected. Mary Douglas, an anthropologist, has argued that the organic system provides an analogy of the social system which, other things being equal, is used in the same way and understood in the same way all over the world. The human body is capable of furnishing a natural system of symbols, but the problem is to identify the elements in the social dimension which are reflected in views of how the body should function or how its waste-products should be judged (139). In a more recent study she points out that according to the "purity rule":</p> <p>"the more the social situation exerts pressure on persons involved in it, the more the social demand for conformity tends to be expressed by a demand for physical control. Bodily processes are more ignored and more firmly set outside the social discourse, the more the latter is important. A natural way of investing a social occasion with dignity is to hide organic processes." (140, p. 12)</p> <p>But such dignity, despite its value, is essentially static and conservative, denying the dynamics of development, decay and renewal - more effectively contained by the essentially hum folk rituals of carnival, etc. It is then easier to understand how oversimplified and "inhuman" our highest ideals become when they reject such bodily functions as digestion, excretion and intercourse. Douglas points out how uncomfortable some religions are with the association of such processes with a deity and consequently the difficulty they have in dealing with whatever they reject. Similarly in society's major institutions, there is no explicit conceptual link with that of themselves which they reject. The <strong>attitude towards bodily waste products is indicative of the degree of creative acceptance of the "loss" portion of the cycles</strong> discussed earlier.</p> <p>As might be expected from earlier arguments, she identifies <strong>four</strong> distinctive systems of natural symbols, namely <strong>social systems in which the Image of the body is used in different ways to reflect and enhance each person's experience of society:</strong></p> <ol> <li> Body conceived as an organ of communication: "The major preoccupations will be with its functioning effectively; the relation of head to subordinate members will be a model of the central control system, the favourite metaphors of statecraft will harp upon the flow of blood in the arteries, sustenance and restoration of strength."</li> <li> Body seen as a vehicle of life: As such "it will be vulnerable in different ways. The dangers to it will come....from failure to control the quality of what it absorbs through the orifices; fear of poisoning, protection of boundaries, aversion to bodily waste products, and medical theory that enjoins frequent purging."</li> <li> Practical concern with possible uses of bodily rejects: As such it will be "very cool about recycling waste matter and about the pay-off from such practices....In the control areas of this society controversies about spirit and matter will scarcely arise."</li> <li> Life seen as purely spiritual, and the body as irrelevant matter: "In these types of social experience, a person feels that his personal relations, so inexplicably unprofitable, are in the sinister grip of a social system. It follows that the body tends to serve as a symbol of evil, as a structured system contrasted with pure spirit which by its nature is free and undifferentiated. The millenialist...believes in a Utopian world in which goodness of heart can prevail without institutional devices." (1*0, p. 16-17) </li> </ol> <p>Clearly such distinct attitudes can well determine the kinds of political tendencies discussed earlier. It is unfortunate that Douglas did not broaden the scope of her study to include sexual behaviour. For although she recognizes its fundamental importance (140, p. 93), she confines her concern to the significance of attitudes to the waste-products (of a single body) in determining behaviour within family systems. An equivalent focus on sexual behaviour would provide insight into the ways in which attitudes to alternation are similarly encoded and into the possibility of employing courtship and sexual symbols to enrich understanding of alternation processes in society.</p> <p>Another bodily activity which encodes alternation is of course respiration, a favourite preoccupation in Eastern philosophies (141). Again, however, this is focussed on a single body and is therefore far less controversial and "seductive" as a form of presentation. This is the price of being less rich as a substrate for the generative dynamics of the relationship between opposites.</p> <p>Emmanuel Todd has explored the hypothesis that family relations constitute a model for the socio-political relations in each society. He points out that until recently this old hypothesis has provied quite useless due to the embryonic state of social anthropology. He argues that any such comparisons have lacked significance because of the narrowly <strong>eurocentric</strong> (cf. Addo (14)) concept of valid socio-political forms.</p> <blockquote> "Est-il difficile d'adrnettre que la repartition mondiale des ideologies politiques et religieuses ne definit pas une strcture dichotomique mais un ensemble multi-polaire et dont tous les poles - communistes, liberaux, catholiques, sociaux- Democrates, hindous, musulumans, bouddhistes - sont egalement normaux, legitimes et dignes d'analyse" (167, p. 12). </blockquote> <p>For Todd the family structure is an infralogical mechanism governing the reproduction of specific human values. This leads him to question the "grand illusion" that politics make society rather than the converse. Each culture, founded on a specific anthropological base, then engenders an ideological form of its own family values (167, p. 24).</p> <p>Emphasizing that it is just one of many possible descriptions (167, p. 34), Todd starts with the value dimensions liberty/authority and equality/inequality which allows him to distinguish four family types on the basis of (in)equality of children rights to parental heritage, and possible cohabitation of married children with their parents. </p> <p>He considers that this revision of a classic eurocentric study is unable to reflect the diversity of non-European family structures because it does not take account of the anthropological significance of endogamic marriage relations, especially characteristic of non-European cultures. Todd then presents seven (-lus one) family types which he associates with different socio-political systems:</p> <ul> <li> Exogamic communal family (e.g. Russia, certain Slavic countries, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Northern India) which favours the emergence of communist socio-political systems. </li> <li> Exogamic authoritarian family (e.g. Germanic countries, Sweden, Norway, Gaelic countries, Northern Spain, Japan, Korea, Jews, Gypsies) which favours an asymmetric pluralism characteristic of socialist and socio-democratic forces. </li> <li> Exogamic egalitarian nuclear family (e.g. Northern France, Northern Italy, Greece, Poland, Latin America, Ethiopia) which favours the emergence of individualistic systems of one kind. </li> <li> Exogamic absolute nuclear family (e.g. Anglo-saxon world, Netherlands, Denmark) which favours the emergence of a second kind on individualism </li> <li> Endogamic communal family characterized by frequent marriage between children of brothers (e.g. Arab countries, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and southern Soviet Republics) which favours socio-political systems such as that based on islam. </li> <li> Endogamic (asymmetric) communal family characterized by frequent marriage between children of brother and sister (e.g. Southern India) which favours emergence of the caste system. </li> <li> Anomic family, characterized by flexible heritage and cohabitation arrangements with possible consangunions marriage (e.g. South-East Asia and South American Indians) which favours political ambivalence and socio-political systems such as that based on Buddhism. </li> <li> African family systems (which Todd points out have only been studied to a limited extent). They are characterized by dynamic instability of the domestic group land polygyny. These favour the emergence of socio-political systems dependent on the army as the main force capable of maintaining control. </li> </ul> <p>The unfortunate feature of this presentation is that it appears excessively deterministic. This is in large part due to the absence of any indication as to how family structures themselves develop in conjunction with socio-political systems. It does not reflect the way in which ail such variants tend to emerge side-by-side within a given post-industrial society. In the light of the learning cycle approach, each such pattern is best viewed as a "frozen" portion of such a cycle - or as a "standing wave". Furthermore none of the modes is necessarily pure. As remarked in the case of Douglas, what is required is a study which brings out more clearly the rich variety of different types of alternation in the interactions between people (possibly conditioned by such family structures) and the transitions between them.</p> <p>The approach advocated therefore involves the simple pleasure of activating a new metaphor which can enchant, empower, explain and orient approaches to the problematique through the user's own comprehension of the metaphor's significance. But the metaphor is only new in that it has not been widely used before, despite the fact that everyone has access to it. In Boulding's words: "Our consciousness of the unity of the self in the middle of a vast complexity of images or material structures is at least a suitable metaphor for the unity of a group, organization, department, discipline, or science. If personification is only a metaphor, let us not despise metaphors - we might be one ourselves." (152, p. 345) The charm of it, as Bateson stated in concluding a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation, is that: <strong>"We are our own </strong>metaphor." (112, p. 304). Unfortunately we have over-identified with the metaphor and have been unable to see ourselves in perspective. The lack of such self-reflexiveness could well prove to be an important contributory factor to the current uncontrolled attitude to procreation which is at the root of many current problems.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:57:28 +0000 rachele 3109 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-7#comments 9.6. Implications for the developmental responsibility of answer domains https://uia.org/archive/da/9-6 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>The natural tendency of any answer domain to act as a focal point for all significance clearly introduces a distortion in the general field of significance. This necessary distortion can be set in a more fruitful context if it is seen as one extreme in an alternation process (as with an extreme position in the swing of a pendulum). But the question is then how is the limit of the swing to be sensed in relation to the answer domain. What are the limits to answer domain expression which suggest the need for some other mode to correct for its excesses and compensate for its failures?</p> <p>This problem has effectively been evoked in the whole debate on the social responsibility of science, especially in relation to nuclear physics, weapons research, and genetic engineering. But the weakness of this debate is precisely that it has tended to focus on isolated "scapegoats". Other answer domains have thereby been rendered "innocent".</p> <p>A more healthy approach, in the light of the arguments of this paper, could well be to consider all answer domains <strong>"guilty" to some degree</strong> at this time. The question is how to identify the nature of this guilt in the face of protestations of innocence by eminent authorities on the part of each domain.</p> <p>Some more obvious examples are:</p> <ul> <li> Economics: as pointed out in the previous section, this answer domain seems to have systematically discredited and devalued non-monetary and symbolic economies, especially those associated with a richer "quality of life". </li> <li> Medical sciences and health: aside from the well-known criticisms of those such as Ivan Illich, there is the interesting possibility that the blind adherence to the Hippocratic Oath ("life at any cost") has been a major contributing factor to the population explosion (for which this domain declines any responsibility). </li> <li> Legal sciences: under the banner of rendering justice, this domain has seemingly facilitated the emergence of a system in which the possibility of acquittal tends to be a function of how much the accused is able to pay in legal fees. It has also reinforced governmental non-recognition of any social phenomena which have not been legally defined as existing. Many such phenomena are associated with the quality of life. </li> <li> Agriculture: the present ecological crisis can be said to have arisen partly as a result of the irresponsible attempts of this domain to increase yields (fertilizers, pesticides) and to increase the amount of cultivable land (deforestation, destruction of species). </li> <li> Anthropology: under the banner of discovering the world's cultural heritage, this domain has seemingly been responsible for depriving local cultures of their symbolic artifacts with consequent cultural impoverishment. </li> <li> Education: under the banner of offering access to the riches of civilization, this domain has seemingly exposed local cultures to uncontrollable external influences of questionable advantage for the integrity of the quality of their life. </li> <li> Sociology: this domain has seemingly been content to use the resources at its disposal solely to describe social structures and processes and has proved almost totally impotent when faced with the current need for social innovation. </li> </ul> <p>There are many such domains whether scholarly, ideological or practical. In each such case, often acting systematically through their respective intergovernmental institutions, they proceed as though their contributions to society constituted an unmitigated good. Individual abuse aside, the value of their contributions can only be questioned at the risk of ridicule, and thus constitutes a perfect disguise for every possible systematic abuse. Furthermore it would appear to be the interferences between the processes sanctioned by such domains which has engendered many features of the current social crisis. As Nalimov remarks: "The ecological crisis is, perhaps, a conflict of two languages which suddenly came into too close contact." (160, p. 14)</p> <p>This suggests the need for a far more systematic awareness of the impact of answer domains on society as a whole. Just as industry has been called to order in some countries and required to produce "environmental impact statements", it would seern appropriate that some "societal impact statement" should be developed for each answer domain. This should clarify dimensions to which the domain is insensitive, despite its mobilization of relevant resources and encouragement of a favourable media image. It is not a question of seeking scapegoats, but rather of developing recognition of the inherent limitations of each domain. There is even a case for creating an international tribunal before which the degree of innocence or guilt of a domain can be clarified by interested parties. Thid would also provide an environment within which to clarify, for example, the necessary limitations on the perspectives of employers and of organized labour and the manner in which both neglect the perspective of consumers. Such a forum could also help to clarify how alternation with the perspective of some other answer domain(s) might remedy any imbalance. </p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:56:11 +0000 rachele 3108 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-6#comments 9.5. Implications for unemployment https://uia.org/archive/da/9-5 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>The world community has had to recognize a succession of problems (e.g. environment, energy) which have each cut dramatically across discipline and institutional boundaries and across prevailing systems of values. Each may be considered as a learning crisis arising from a collective blind spot. It would appear that the next of these is to be "unemployment". This problem tends to be conceived in the traditional terms of the absence of job "slots" and the necessity for their creation. As the crisis increases in proportion, this tendency will be reinforced, despite the economic impossibility of creating sufficient jobs under present conditions. Severe social unrest has been predicted, especially when social security schemes cease to provide an adequate cushion. And, even when jobs and social security are not a problem, a "leisure" problem is increasingly recognized, particularly for the younger generations.</p> <p>The arguments of this paper suggest the possibility of a more creative approach. The root of the conceptual problem lies in the mutually exclusive specialized concepts associated with the activities "employment", "leisure" and "learning" of which the first two provide primarily "money" and "distraction/relaxation" respectively. A more general concept which incorporates these aspects, could be denoted by a term such as "employment of time".</p> <p>The difficulty is that this concept is at present too vague to engender social structures and processes through which society could be organized. The present system is founded on the tangibility of the structures and exchange processes required to produce and distribute goods and services, especially those associated with the most basic material human needs. The question takes on a different light, which is less uncompromisingly negative in its connotations, if everybody is considered as being already fully employed. Then it becomes a matter of how they are employing their time and in what ways these activities (could) interweave in an exchange of values which is fulfilling - be it in a physical, affective, intellectual or spiritual sense.</p> <p>In this light it is less a question of creating job slots into which people can be inserted as economic units, and more a question of <strong>how to give form and economic viability to activities which are already accessible to people</strong> - activating or enhancing latent production and exchange processes, many of which are considered characteristic of a better "quality of life". As illustrated by Attali's review of the potlach system (5), people are necessarily engaged in processing psycho-social "energy", whether this is considered in monetary, symbolic or other terms. The present difficulty could be said to arise from the ruthless reinforcement by economists of a conception of economic organization based on material goods, totally precluding the existence or credibility of any more general system in which material needs would merely be one important component.</p> <p>Rather than a notion of "job slots", it would be preferable to consider every individual as already participating in a variety of "learning phases". Some of these involve production and/or consumption of material goods, whereas others might only involve production and/or consumption of symbolic goods. Clearly the greater the involvement in the symbolic components of the system, the lower the probable strain on the material components.</p> <p>This does not avoid the problem of the need for material goods but it reduces its importance considerably - as the Roman's recognized with their cynicai circus policy (matched by its modern media counterpart). Perhaps the problem can better be conceived as the psycho-social organization of attention and the "energy" flows with which this is associated, particularly in relation to "value" and "the significant". It is then less a question of state-controlled manipulation of the media and public opinion, and more a question of catalyzing the self-organization of <strong>grass-roots learning phases and discovering how they can be interwoven to sustain exchanges of greater value.</strong></p> <p>The tragedy of the "unemployment crisis" is that economic theory, and the institutions it has engendered, has systematically discredited the participation of individuals in any local symbolic economy in which they are naturally "employed". (As an extreme example, an old lady seated on a bench in an Italian village square "doing nothing" probably considers herself "fully employed", and is perceived as such by the community.) The functions of the symbolic economy have been partially replaced by the leisure system and the social security system but neither of these encourage individuals in any desire they may still have to initiate new employments of their time which can be organized with those of others into more productive learning experiences. Gang vandalism is a frustrated response to this condition.</p> <p>The key to the "unemployment crisis" may well be that of making local symbol economics self-sustaining so that from them self-sustaining material economics may once again emerge where appropriate. The problem is how time may be better employed by an individual, in association with others, to sustain a more fulfilling involvement in the community. It is unfortunate that this is narrowly conceived in terms of the production of material goods and services in return for monetary tokens.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:55:11 +0000 rachele 3107 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-5#comments 9.4 Implications for organization https://uia.org/archive/da/9-4 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>Organizations tend to assume that the world would be a far better place if the bodies that oppose them did not exist. This is a necessary consequence of their specificity. The arguments of this paper suggest that not only do <strong>organizations need opposition</strong> to fulfil their functions in relation to healthy human and social development, but in a healthy organization opposition to policies must necessarily <strong>be internalized.</strong> The question is then how to bring this about without tearing such a system apart or simply paralyzing it. The response would seem to be a more conscious <strong>use of time to enable alternative policies to hold sway in different phases of a policy cycle.</strong></p> <p>The danger with any particular policy, as this paper has argued, is that it must necessarily have inherent limitations in order to be practical and comprehensible to those who must implement it. When "discovered" these limitations must necessarily be ignored by its advocates, who must necessarily stress the limitations of the policy it is intended to supplant. In conventional organization major switches in policy are usually accompanied by the rejection of those responsible for the old policy as "incompetent" or "out-of-date" and the triumphant entry of the "young tigers" to implement the new one for which they have successfully campaigned. The newcomers tend to ignore the fact that the limitations of their policy will subsequently become apparent and that they in turn will be rejected. (If they are conscious of this they may well devote much of their efforts to profiting personally from their temporary advantage.)</p> <p>Such policy swings are evident in relation to most polarized issues: centralization/decentralization, ecology/industry, labour/employers, right/left, science/culture, grass-roots/global, freedom/constraint, etc. In each case a policy stressing one extreme must eventually prove self-defeating. The swing <strong>towards</strong> a policy extreme is however essential to the healthy dynamics of an organization, provided that such swings occur within a cycle. The respiratory cycle of inspiration/expiration provides a useful analogy - especially in the light of attempts to terminate it by "holding one's breath". Each portion of the cycle counteracts the excesses or absorbs the "negative" by-products of other portions of the cycle, just as in the case of crop rotation (discussed earlier). A cycle of this kind is self-stabilizing as opposed to monopolar policies which are essentially uncontrolled. The violent dynamics of issue polarization can only be effectively contained by policy cycles involving alternatives over time. (In mechanics the two-body problem can only be contained by rotation.)</p> <p>From a developmental point of view, the advantage of policy cycles is that they enable individuals who identify with one portion of the cycle to move with it whilst they are "winning" and then to renew their approach whilst they are "losing" - having been made aware of their limitations (cf. the Democrats following the 19S1 USA elections). Lasting development results from the cycle as a whole (cf the Cannot work cycle) and not simply from some particular part of it. A policy cycle also has the built in variability to enable it to respond to a changing environment.</p> <p>The question is then <strong>how to enable such policy cycles to emerge within an organization.</strong> In fact they are implicit in the policy struggles of any organization. The problem is how to enable the cycle to operate through a succession of phases which need to be rendered more explicit. This needs to be explored in a separate study but simple thought experiments can be envisaged for the initial explorations of this possibility. For example an organization could decide to further decentralization policies for a fixed period, then switch to centralization policies for a corresponding period, then repeat the cycle. Many organizations do this anyway but only as a somewhat spastic succession of responses to external conditions or perceived incompetence. In organizations such switches are often the only way that staff can maintain the impression that "something is happening" and that they can further their careers by riding with (or opposing) the policy shift.</p> <p>The creative challenge in organizations of the future should be to find better cycles, not to maintain one's grasp on a particular phase of a cycle as at present. The question becomes more interesting when such cycles are perceived as having <strong>more than two phases,</strong> and even more so when a number of such cycles are "co-operating". In fact it is the interlocking of such cycles, through their <strong>mutual "entrainment",</strong> which should lead to more powerful forms of <strong>multi-phase cyclic </strong>organization. A metaphor illustrating the increasing stabilization resulting from such interlocking is that of the series monocycle, bicycle, tricycle....(possibly starting with the pogostick). In the first there are severe problems of balance making it difficult for non-experts to ride. The second can be ridden after a limited learning experience, whilst the third requires only minimal experience. With each new member of the series the question of direction acquires more importance than that of balance. (The metaphor also suggests the question as to how many "cycles" are involved in the design of an automobile, a helicopter, etc.)</p> <p>It is in this respect that Buckminster Fuller's work is very suggestive because a good way to model such interlocking is by perceiving the cycles as sharing a common centre around a sphere. In organizational terms the points of interlock between different cycles then emerge as functions and strategies which are "violently" opposed from some other interlock points, strongly supported from others, and of little importance to others.</p> <p>The lines of mutual support can then be modelled by the continuous network around a spherical tensegrity as discussed elsewhere (99). Such a network is of a different quality to that of many contemporary "networks" engaged in "networking", for these are too often characterized by "flabbiness" (100). A network of the kind envisaged might be better described as a <strong>"resonance network"</strong> having an inherent development dynamic.</p> <p><strong>Organizations of this type may well exist already.</strong> One could even argue that the powers behind any political scene cynically accept or encourage policy alternation as a way of controlling and "culling" the ambitious "hot heads" who emerge in connection with any particular policy. Such a model may indeed be an appropriate way to describe a healthy community which has emerged organically without having been deliberately designed. The problem is that our perceptual/conceptual habits impede our recognition of more integrated patterns of this kind.</p> <p>It is for this reason that there is great need for a new <strong>use of computers to stablize the conceptual "scaffolding"</strong> whilst such cylically based organization is brought into operation - or until our comprehension can adapt to understanding existing organizations in this light. Computer assistance is required to order the detailed communication pathways and protect the conceptual or organizational "ley lines" until new habits have been developed. Computers need to be used to continually re-encode the organization structure so that it remains comprehensible. The classical organization hierarchy chart (used by most intergovernmental bodies and ministries) is a severe handicap which reinforces dangerous misconceptions of organizational reality and possibilities for development.</p> <p>Boulding suggests that the urban revolution and the rise of civilization may have been produced more by social invention in the field of organization than by any associated material inventions. The first of these innovations was the specification of roles linked by a structure of communication and the second was the development of multi-layered organizational hierarchies (152, pp. 212-5). Given the present institutional "allometric" crisis, the question is how any further innovation might be conceived in the light of the above comments. The response may well lie in rendering dynamic the static concept of role (and the associated notion of job "slot"). Any role could then be redefined as the intersect of one or more learning phases which can be conceived as potentially organizable into nested levels of learning cycles by which uncertainty is more or less successfully contained.</p> <p>Finally, as argued elsewhere with regard to the possibility of tensegrity conferences, a cyclic approach of this kind could be of great significance in the design of <strong>more effective meetings</strong> - as temporary organizations. There is much to be said for enabling the assembled human resources to interweave in a more integrated manner designed to facilitate transformations in the conceptual or organizational response to any set of problems. Here too computers could be of assistance, especially given the short time available. There is even a case for envisaging meetings in which the art of "casting" is computer assisted to ensure that the conflicting tendencies stressed by the powerful personalities assembled can interweave "dramatically" to engender a correlated set of transformative cycles - counteracting the excesses of each and providing space for the emergence of their individual and collective wisdom. Presumably the art of personnel selection, testing and management is moving in this direction.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:54:06 +0000 rachele 3106 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-4#comments 9.3. Implications for values and norms https://uia.org/archive/da/9-3 <span class="field-label"> Author: </span> <div class="field-author inline"> Anthony Judge </div> <span class="field-label"> Year: </span> <div class="field-archive-year inline"> 1 983 </div> <div class="field-body"> <p>There is a widespread belief that a universal set of values can be formulated for the global community, possibly elaborated in the form of a hierarchy. A great deal of hope is placed in the possibility that everyone naturally accepts that "peace", "love", and "justice", for example, are unquestionable "goods", or that people can be educated into this understanding. The arguments of this paper suggest that, whilst efforts in this direction are necessary, they are of local rather than global significance.</p> <p>The problem is partly one of comprehension. Such terms are understood very differently in different cultures and languages. They also lend themselves to every variety of (mis)interpretation. Most of the world's problems can be said to result from actions guided by differing interpretations of "peace", "love" and "justice" - the other person's interpretation always being perceived as at fault. As noted by the Director-General of UNESCO, Rene Mahen:</p> <blockquote> "Behind the misty wall of words, the diverse, even contradictory, interpretations, motivations and utilisations are an indication of fundamental divisions concerning values. In particular, the most basic human rights are more frequently invoked as a weapon of attack or defence against some party, rather than recognized and practised as the royal road to a positive relationship between individuals and groups in an objective form of fraternity." (15th General Conference, Paris, UNESCO, 1968) </blockquote> <p>The arguments of this paper suggest that it is somewhat simplistic to expect the word "justice", for example, to carry the full set of connotations necessary for it to fulfil all the functions expected of it. As noted in the previous section, <strong>global </strong>consensus on any of these terms, or any set of them, can best be conceived as being characterized by an inherent uncertainty. This uncertainty is not to be regretted, however, for it is that which is a guarantee of the dynamics through which a more profound understanding of values emerges. A neat definition of any value can only be of significance to a necessarily limited <strong>local</strong> group prepared to be bound in that way for some period of time, until its members are once again transformed by the global dynamics.</p> <p>This said it is not simply a question of accepting value relatevism. As Boulding points out:</p> <blockquote> "There is not, of course, a single set of human values and each human being has his or her own set. There are however processes in the ecological interaction of society by which these differing values, though not reduced to a single set, are at least coordinated in an ongoing evolutionary process." (152, p. 22) </blockquote> <p>The question is then how the holding of any particular value fits into some such dynamic framework through which it is transformed by learning processes. Particular understandings are then better conceived as local way stations on learning cycles composed of complementary value sets. What is as yet far from clear is how such cycles are interlinked and how the transition to cycles encoding greater uncertainty can be accomplished. Aspects of this question have been explored in relation to sets of human needs in an earlier paper (24).</p> <p>The key question then remains by what norms should action be guided. Clearly people can only be adequately motivated by the values they fully understand. Local values necessarily avoid the uncertainty inherent in global values to which local communities may have an equivalent of the body's immune response reaction. Until such local values are acknowledged, respected and given a place within any global value framework, it is not to be expected that local communities will respond, other than in token form, to global values. This response is effectively a built-in safeguard. Local "shoulds" are a response to local conditions. Global "shoulds", as we are currently able to define them, are insensitive to the variety of local demands and are therefore effectively disempowered. They would engender a highly vulnerable society if expressed locally in their present form, aside from the possibilities of abuse.</p> <p>At present the need is therefore for different local groups to act in terms of the different local values they perceive as meaningful. "Local" includes the "peace" movement(s), the "human rights" movement(s), the "green" movement(s), the "development" movement(s), etc. whose fundamental differences are an indication of the non-global nature of their specialized preoccupations. The spastic or paralyzing global consequences of such differences may be overcome when values can be embodied as phases in learning cycles, with a lobal/global dimension, rather than perceived as static categories invoking territorial dynamics.</p> </div> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:52:53 +0000 rachele 3105 at https://uia.org https://uia.org/archive/da/9-3#comments