Humankind Advancing, Vol.9, No.1 January 1998

Theme: Defining My Position

CONTENT

Editorial: 

The first paper, "Struggling Toward a Viable World View," had originally been written for the IRAS (Institute on Religion in an Age of Science) Newsletter upon invitation of its editor, Dr. Loyal Rue, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the Luther College at Deborah, U.S.A. When he saw the manuscript, Dr. Rue commented that it reads like the outline of an important book.

My life will probably not leave me any more time to write that book, and to find a publisher for it. But the paper contains a list of widespread assumptions which appear, in my view, to impede the progress of humankind. These assumptions could be treated as topics for individual issues of my Quarterly with the option of combining them later in a book, where they would be used as chapter headings. -- I will keep this thought in mind during future editorial work on Humankind Advancing.

Anonymous
(Probably Johannes Eckhardt
1260-1327)

* * * * *

Allan Combs

Our greatest error could be to take seriously the pessimistic temper of our times, and to give in to the fear and cynicism that pervade the media. For then we will come to believe something really catastrophic: "Things are bad and getting worse, and nothing can be done about it."

As sociologist Fred Polak¹ showed in his study of 1,500 years of European history, The Image of the Future, if a whole culture holds a very pessimistic image of the future, that image will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The actual predictions about decline don't have to be right or to come true: The pathological behaviors released may be quite sufficient to bring about decline. It's a disease of belief. And the contrary is also true. When a culture holds positive images of the future, they may not be right, but investment in new opportunities, and willingness to build a good society, are sufficient to make a decent way of life, if not the best of all worlds.

Paul Ray

¹ New York: Oceana Publications. 1961.

RELIEF EFFORTS -- IN THE CONCRETE WORLD 

Thought in Action

One of life's most precious assets is optional solitude.

Robert Hughes

REFLECTIONS

Acknowledging the existence of ruthless competition in nature, and the role it played in evolution, will be considered blasphemy by 99% of all enthusiasts for a new way of thinking, whose basic credo is that "Darwin was wrong." He was not wrong, but he saw only one side of evolution, the one most conspicuously outstanding among the background of cooperation that is the rule, and that is demonstrated by interactions within cells, and between cells of multicellular organisms. The role of cooperation in evolution was discovered later, only because it is such a self-evident part of nature. "The last thing the fish would discover is water," as the saying goes.

The basic error is not Darwin's discovery of the role of competition in nature, but the belief that nature's methods are sacred, eternal, and unchangeable. That is not the case. With the evolution of oxygen (which was poisonous to then existing life) all living organisms on earth would have vanished, would not formerly successful evolutionary strategies have been fundamentally changed. Human intelligence today plays the same role that oxygen played two billion years ago. It has the capacity to exterminate life unless previously successful methods of evolution (taking advantage of immediate gains without thought and foresight) are being thoroughly revised. It is not necessary to deny that these methods existed and that they were successful; in fact, their acknowledgment increases our chances to proceed with new wisdom.

Similarly, a new way of thinking does not depend upon the rejection of "mainstream science" in favour of a new and more expanded science that includes unprovable phenomena. Such an expansion would make science impotent. The fallacy is not that science can't explain all aspects of reality, but that science and reality are perceived as equivalent. -- Rather, we need the humble recognition that what has so far been scientifically proven is but a tiny part of reality. Yet, as long as the main tenet of present science, a critical, error correcting attitude, is maintained, that part will be constantly enlarged, even if it will never cover all that is important to human existence.

Message from Theobald: Before I completed the last issue of Humankind Advancing with my review of his book Reworking Success, I had asked Robert Theobald whether his views had further evolved in the meantime. He answered "I think I've only become clearer on the main themes: a) human beings are committed to success, current success criteria continued into the future will be fatal, we need new success criteria, b) in order to find them we have to listen to the very broad range of choices which exist today: diversity is now a survival characteristic. The encouraging thing I've found in the last year is how much convergence there is between people who are aiming to think and work [toward the reduction of human and ecological stress]." -- This message should have been part of the review."