Quality of Life and the
Conditions for Change, cont'd.
International Crisis
Turning our attention now to foreign relations, we find yet another crisis before us, one perceived to be a direct threat to the quality of American life today. Ever since World War II, the United States has sought global dominance. Truman's Truman Doctrine stated that the United States would militarily intervene anywhere in the world where communism threatened, using the American monopoly of the atomic bomb (1945-1950) to push others around and assert our unilateral will. The quality of American life was felt to be safe, secure, superior, reflecting a confidence that we were tops in the world.
But the world scene has shifted. The United States is still the most powerful nation, but it can no
longer run the world through either its economic power or its military might. The dollar is no longer
as good as gold. The power of the State Department, CIA, and Pentagon to make and break
governments is not quite what it was. America's 10-year agony in Vietnam demonstrated that the
economic and political costs of pacifying a third-rate military power were more than any nation
could afford. The Atomic Age version of the nineteenth-century empire is obsolete.
-- Barnet and Muller, p. 79
Today, the Soviet Union may be militarily more potent than we. The United States is consistently outvoted in the United Nations. Because our military powers and authority have eroded, our quality of life suffers. Humiliated and exasperated by Iran and other worldwide situations (Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the Cuban refugee situation), our previous confidence and optimism eroded, we find that international concerns are also felt to be impacting negatively on the perceived quality of American life today.
Barnet and Muller document a decline in the authority and power of American-based corporations as well:
More and more global executives living in poor countries, aware of the failure of the conventional
development model of the 1960's to solve problems of mass poverty, unemployment, or explosive
social inequalities, are convinced that the revolution of rising frustrations.... is going to force far-
reaching changed in the rules of the once-profitable game of making money in poor countries.
Complaints about the obstreperousness of once-docile governments are now standard in corporate
boardrooms [and f]ear of nationalization is a conventional element of corporate planning.
-- ibid, p. 188
In the 1940s and 1950s, we asserted that our dominance in foreign affairs was a reflection of a superior society. Now that we find ourselves slipping in this area, what are we to conclude?
Another basis for American foreign policy--besides military or economic strength--has also eroded within our times. Locked in a bitter debate, President Carter and the Senate could not come to agreement, and so a new arms negotiation with the Soviets, via SALT II, broke down. No new approach is apparent (President-elect Reagan represents a "new" approach which is in fact "old"--the reassertion of American military strength), and once again, there is floundering. Both "new" and old approaches to American foreign policy present visions of increased inflation, taxes, tension and anxiety--all commonly perceived to be detrimental to the quality of American life today.
Also apparent in American foreign relations is a threat to the sovereignty of the nation-state itself:
The rise in planetary [economic] enterprises is producing an organizational revolution as
profound in its implications for modern man as the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the
nation-state itself....
Indeed, the most revolutionary aspect of the planetary enterprise is not its size but its worldview.
The managers of the global corporations are seeking to put into practice a theory of human
organization that will profoundly alter the nation--state system around which society has been
organized for over 400 years. What they are demanding in essence is the right to transcend the
nation-state, and in the process, to transform it.
-- ibid, p. 15-16
In this book exploring this very possibility, Barnet and Muller note:
The global corporation is the most powerful human organization yet devised for colonizing the
future. By scanning the entire planet for opportunities, by shifting its resources from industry to
industry and country to country, and by keeping its overriding goal simple--worldwide profit
maximization--it has become an institution of unique power. The World Managers are the first to
have developed a plausible model of the future that is global....
-- ibid, p. 363
It is clear that all parties recognize this new reality:
... there is a growing realization [among the international economic community] that the govern-
ment in Washington may not perceive its interests to be the same as those of the global corporation.
It is in this context that the worldwide attack on nationalism now being mounted in the public
relations department of every global corporation takes on its real significance.
-- ibid, p. 57
To defend themselves against their enemies, foreign and domestic, the global corporations are
seeking to establish one overriding point: they can create an integrated world in which everybody
gains, but only if "obsolete" governments leave them alone.
-- ibid, p. 47
These authors then go to evaluate the:
... World Managers' global vision, based not on their motives but on their record of performance
in rich countries and poor [, noting that it] is on that emerging record that their quest for legitimacy
depends.
-- ibid, p. 120
They conclude:
Despite their laudable vision of world peace through world trade, global corporations are more
likely to act as instruments of competitive economic and geopolitical rivalry. In sum, if global
corporations do not undergo profound changes in their goals and strategies, or or not effectively
controlled, they will continue to act as disturbers of the peace on a global scale.
-- ibid, p. 367
There has never been a time since the Great Depression when there has been more economic
uncertainty around the world. But the corporate prospect of a world without borders offers
something more distressing than uncertainty. It is a vision without ultimate hope for a majority of
mankind.... Present and projected strategies of global corporations offer little hope for the
problems of mass starvation, mass unemployment, and gross inequality. Indeed, the global
corporation aggravates all these problems, because the social system it is helping to create
violates three fundamental human needs: social balance, ecological balance, and psychological
balance. These imbalances have always been present in our modern social system... but the
process of globalization, interacting with and reinforcing the process of accelerating concentration,
has brought us to a new stage.
-- ibid, p. 364
THEORIES OF CHANGE
Kuhn's Model of Scientific Revolution
Through this laborious journey through politics, economics, art and social behavior (both domestic and international), I have attempted to document the historians' claim that America, and perhaps the industrialized world, is today undergoing a period of change that will be viewed in the future as epoch-making. As a framework for viewing this change, widely viewed as transformational, this writer will adapt the paradigm model of Thomas Kuhn, which he used in analyzing scientific revolutions, to societal change in general.
The historian L. S. Stavrianos in his 1976 book, The Promise of the Coming Dark Age, also used Kuhn's model when viewing societal conditions:
Thomas S. Kuhn's theory of the structure of scientific revolutions ... is also applicable to social
revolutions. Kuhn has shown that jumps in knowledge within one generation--from the Ptolemaic
system to the Copernican in astronomy, or from classical to quantum physics--were preceded by
an accumulation of anomalies that could not be fitted into the dominant theory despite complicated
rationalizations. Such "cognitive dissonance" is finally resolved only when it is simply explained
from an entirely different perspective, which resolves the anomalies by restructuring them at a
higher level of organization.
-- Stavrianos, 1976, p. 191
He then goes on to state:
Modern civilization today is in a state of "cognitive dissonance," with its growing inequities
within and among nations, its obliterative weapons, and its environmental deterioration. But these
divergences are becoming increasingly intolerable, contradicting the system's own goals and
images of itself and resulting in the unrest, alienation, and violence characteristic of our age.
Such a crisis can generate a quantum jump in society as well as in science. These jumps have
occurred with unforeseen abruptness in the past; the Protestant Reformation and the French
Revolution are two cases in point. Comparable jumps can be expected in the near future,
generated by the gaps between official creeds and social realities and by the resulting challenge
being offered throughout the world to traditional values and institutions.
-- ibid
Just as the scientific community has its paradigms or "dominant theories," which work for a time and then are incorporated into a larger framework, so too has the social community its "dominant theories," expressed through its institutions and social behavior, and perhaps subject to the same principle.
In an attempt to clarify further the application of Kuhn's model of scientific paradigm sifts to societal transformation, I have prepared the following chart. Likening the column labeled "Old/Current Practice" to the scientific jargon of "paradigm" or "dominant theory" (since these practices do indeed incorporate theories), I have attempted to illustrate how these "old practices" or "dominant" theories" are currently under attack, using as evidence material presented in this paper, and indicating the existence of what Kuhn would call a "paradigm shift."
OLD/CURRENT PRACTICE ANOMALIES/NEW PROBLEMS
POLITICAL New Deal Programs Burgeoning bureaucracy;
Social Legislation Intrusion into private lives of American citizens
Undirected legislation (formless in action and ad hoc in intent)
ECONOMIC Originally: Government economic intervention in wake of economic
(Capitalism) Little government intervention: sector's inability to self-regulate,
Laissez-faire economy and new health, safety and environmental concerns
Now:
Keynesian economics: New problems of inflation, not amenable to Keynesian
Government as economic economics
regulator, initially used to
fight depression and
unemployment
SOCIAL Government programs, aimed at Creation of segregated enclaves, psychologically, socially
(Demonstrated alleviating "important" problems and physically separated from the larger community
through city of the well-off as opposed to the
functioning) "serious" problems of inner-city
residents
INTERNATIONAL Philosophy embodied by Found to be too expensive and ineffective, both politically
Truman Doctrine (anti- and economically (Vietnam)
communist, backed by
military strength
Wielding of economic strength Evidence of OPEC economic price-fixing
Diplomatic effort at arms Failure of passage by Congress
containment (SALT II)
Sovereignty of nation-states Rise in planetary enterprises; global corporations
Chart #1: Anomalies/New Problems Threatening Current Social Practices/Institutions
As Chart #1 demonstrates, it is through focusing on social paradigms as embodied in social institutions and as threatened by contradictory evidence or disturbing anomalies, that we can see the full application of Kuhn's model of scientific revolution as applied to social conditions in general. Kuhn demonstrated that it was by such an accumulation of contradictory evidence or anomalies that institutions--in his case, scientific communities--were forced, as it were, to change, to alter their perception of the universe and thereby alter their procedures and practices. The evidence presented in this paper prophesizes that such a forced change will soon occur in the social community, giving way to an altered perception of our
universe and hence, an alteration in social practices and policies.
Prigogine's Theory of Dissipative Structures
Leaving aside this analogy for a moment, I will now consider two different theories of evolutionary change, the first of which is the theory of dissipative structures, which won the 1977 Nobel prize in chemistry for a Belgian physical chemist, Ilya Prigogine, and "explains 'irreversible processes' in nature--the movement toward higher and higher orders of life..." (Ferguson, 1980, 9. 163), a very important concept within the confines of this paper.
This theory provides a model for a process through which the societal transformation postulated in this paper can occur, and is explained in Marilyn Fergunson's 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy.(1)
The theory of dissipative structures, applicable to open systems, i.e., those "involved in a continuous exchange of energy with the environment" (ibid) is explained by Ferguson as follows:
Prigogine's term for open systems is "dissipative structures." That is, their form or structure is
maintained by a continuous dissipation (consumption) of energy. Much as water moves through
a whirlpool and creates it at the same time, energy moves through and simultaneously forms the
dissipative structure. All living things and some nonliving systems (for instance, certain chemical
reactions) are dissipative structures. A dissipative structure might well be described as a
"flowing wholeness." It is highly organized but always in process.
Now think about the meaning of the word complex: braided together. A complex structure is
connected at many points and in many ways. The more complex a dissipative structure, the more
energy is needed to maintain all those connections. Therefore it is more vulnerable to internal
fluctuations....
Because these connections can only be sustained by a flow of energy, the system is always in
flux. Notice the paradox; the more "coherent" or intricately connected the structure, the more
unstable it is. Increased coherence means increased instability! This very instability is the key to
transformation. The dissipation of energy, as Prigogine demonstrated by his elegant mathematics,
creates the potential for sudden reordering.
The continuous movement of energy through the system results in fluctuations; if they are minor,
the system damps them and they do not alter its structural integrity. But if the fluctuations reach
a critical size, they "perturb" the system. They increase the number of novel interactions within
it. They shake it up. The elements of the old pattern come into contact with each other in new
ways and make new connections. The parts reorganize into a new whole. The system escapes
into a higher order.
-- ibid, pp. 164-165
Now, what exactly does Ferguson mean by the word fluctuations? It is important that we understand this term, for according to her presentation of the theory of dissipative structures, it is the increase in internal fluctuations which accounts for the chemical transformation. Webster's New World Dictionary (1974) defines fluctuate as:
... to move back and forth or up and down; rise and fall; undulate... to be continually changing or
varying in an irregular way.
We now must consider such questions as: What causes the fluctuations? By what process do they build? How can this biological/chemical model of transformation be comparable to societal transformation? If, according to this model, fluctuations arise through the "continuous movement of energy through [an open] system" (Ferguson, p. 164), and we recognize that social systems are very complex open systems, then we can see that
the fluctuations arise from the very life-process of the system itself and that the model is indeed appropriate for societal transformation. Complexity is also a very important factor, since "a complex structure is connected at many points and in many ways. The more complex a dissipative structure, the more energy is needed to maintain all those connections. Therefore it is more vulnerable to internal fluctuation." (ibid) It is in part through the complexity of the system itself, then that the fluctuations build.
Noting her next comment, "... if the fluctuations reach a critical size, they 'perturb' the system" (ibid), let us next consider the word perturb:
... to cause to be alarmed, agitated, or upset; disturb or trouble greatly... to cause disorder or
confusion... unsettle...
-- Webster's New World Dictionary, 1974
These fluctuations, then, arising from the life-processes of the system itself, can, if they reach a critical size, create "perturbations" within the system, thereby causing disorder and confusion. According to this model, this disorder or confusion is created by the movement within the system itself, since the fluctuations "increase the number of novel [or unexpected] interactions within it." (Ferguson, p. 164) Continuing in Ferguson's words:
They shake it up. The elements of the old pattern come into contact with each other in new ways
and make new connections. The parts reorganize into a new whole [and] the system escapes into
a higher order.
-- ibid, pp. 164-165
Here, then, we have a model for the process of change--whether is be biological or social. Ferguson calls a system subject to such a process a "flowing wholeness... highly organized but always in process." (ibid, p. 163)
The illustrations that follow will graphically demonstrate this evolutionary process. Figure #2 shows a view from the top representation of a complex organism, illustrating both the boundary separating it from its external environment and the complexity of its internal structure.
Since we are attempting to apply this theory to a social model, let us say
that this complex organism is a social system (perhaps a community),
that each dot within that system represents an "institution" of some
sort (whether social, economic, religious, etc.) and that each line
represents one "thread" or road in the lives of the members of that community (again, social, religious, economic, etc.). The threads both
"create" the institutions and provide for the transmission of energy
between the various institutions.
For example, we have need of economic survival, hence may interact
with or create a social institution (a school) or an economic institution
Figure #2. Top View Representation (a workplace). We feel religious or spiritual strivings, and therefore
of Complex Organism may create or interact with a religious institution (a church) or perhaps
a social institution (a charity). We feel adventurous or in need or angry
and so may rob an economic institution (a bank) and then perhaps interact with a social institution (a court and/or a penal institution). The listings could be infinite, only limited by the needs and imagination of a society's members and greatly complicated by the fact that one institution may represent many "threads" to many people, or even to the same person.
For example, a workplace may represent both an economic and a social institution to its members. Moving from one institution to another, each person transmits a certain amount of energy, discharging duties, receiving services, interacting with others. Returning to Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures, it is this transmission of energy--arising from the life-process itself--which results in fluctuations, or movement back and forth or up and down, continually hanging or varying in an irregular way the structure of the larger organism or social community itself.
Figure #3 is a side view representation of this process, with the fluctuations of energy within the system itself now shown.
Within a social model, it can be seen that institutions "build" upon one
another, with not only more institutions but also more overlap of services
and responsibilities as the organism grows in complexity. This growth
and complexity is easy to see around us: Not only is there public
charity (welfare), there is private charity (the Salvation Army). We can
choose among dozens of retail stores (Sears, Montgomery Wards,
Broadway) or gas stations (Chevron, Union 76, Shell). There are public
hospitals (UCLA Medical Center), private hospitals (Cedar-Sanai), even
"socialized medicine" hospitals (Kaiser-Permanente).
As the community grows, so too grows its complexity and number of
Figure #3: Side View Representation of Complex "connector" points through which its members may pass. Through the
Organism, illustrating Internal Fluctuations media and developments in computer science and communications
technology, it is no longer even necessary for separate members to
actually experience involvement with these varied institutions. We can do so "vicariously" as well, and thus the complexity of the system is increased exponentially. To return to Prigogine's model:
The continuous movement of energy through the system results in fluctuations; if they are minor,
the system damps them and they do not alter its structural integrity. But if the fluctuations reach
a critical size, they "perturb" the system.
-- ibid, pp. pp. 164-165
These perturbations, causing disorder or confusion within the system, return us to Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions, since perturbations are also central to his thesis. These perturbations, or in Kuhn's model, the "accumulation of anomalies that [can] not be fitted into the dominant theory" (Stavrianos, p. 191) result in Kuhn's model--just as they do in Prigogine's--in the transformation of the structure itself, whether that structure be scientific understanding (Kuhn) or a chemical/biological system (Prigogine).
Figure #4 illustrates graphically what might happen when an open system "erupts," when the fluctuations, made most visible by the system's anomalies, become too much for the system to bear. Returning once again to a top view representation of such a "fallen" (and hence transformed or reordered) structure, in Figure #5 we see a new system, with even more connector points, even "more integrated and connected than ... before, requiring a greater flow of energy for maintenance and ... therefore [becoming] still less stable. (Ferguson, p. 165). Hence, we have a model of continuous evolutionary development, created by the life-process of the system itself (Prigogine), and eventually shown in the system's anomalies or disturbances (Kuhn).
Figure #4. Complex Organism in Crisis/
Transformation, when internal fluctuations are
too numerous for the system to contain
[This image was generated with AI, and it simply
would not make the dots overflow, volcano-style,
so you will have to imagine more dots and lines, Figure #5. Top View Representation of New,
reaching higher, with some of them erupting and Evolved, Even More Complex and Integrated
cascading down, until the whole structure collapses Organism
down upon itself] [Again, this image was created by AI, which made
it much too complicated for our purposes and
refused to make it simpler... It shouldn't be that
big a leap!!]
Mead's Model of Social Evolution
To come full circle and directly apply these models of what is only apparently "sudden" transformation to a societal framework through which we can examine today's American society and hence, its perception of the quality of life, I turn now to the writings in social psychology of George Herbert Mead. Writing in the 1920s from the University of Chicago's Department of Philosophy, Mead was strongly influenced by Darwin's Origin of the Species (which term species he continually stated was but the Latin word for form). Speaking in theoretical terms, he writes:
One must be able to distinguish the process from the structure of the particular form, to regard
the latter as being simply the organ within which a certain function takes place. If the conditions
call for a certain type of organ, that organ must arise if the form is to survive. If conditions call
for another sort, that other sort of organ must arise.... The heart of the problem of evolution is the
recognition that the process will determine the form according to the conditions.
-- ibid, pp. 164-165
Mead spoke of evolutionary selection, "the struggle for existence [which] would pick out the organ which is necessary for survival" (ibid, p. 16). He also spoke to the issue of an underlying life-process and defined it in biological/chemical terms not dissimilar to Prigogine's, since they both deal with the concept of energy dissemination. Mead writes:
... we find the same fundamental life-process in plants and in animals--in the amoeba, in man,
and in every form between. It is a process that starts in the separation of carbon and oxygen...
-- ibid, p. 12
If we, however, expand this concept to include evolutionary growth and transformation as demonstrated by Prigogine, then Mead's statement, "the process will determine the form according to the conditions" really comes alive in terms of its social applicability. The logic of the argument is thus,
IF, per Kuhn's model, we can see the presence of anomalies in present social practices/forms, AND
IF, per Prigogine's model, we can see a theory of evolutionary transformation incorporating such anomalies, AND
IF, per Darwin's model, we can see the process of natural selection,
THEN: We can see Mead's model of social evolution, distinguishing process (Prigogine) from form (Kuhn) and determined by conditions (Darwin).
Mead defines form as "the organ within which a certain function takes place" (ibid, p. 15) and institutions as "social habits" (ibid, p. 20), established to preserve order. If we combine these concepts, defining form as the organ within which a certain function, established to preserve order and dictated by social habits, takes place, then it is possible to see a form as a social institution. We can now expand Mead's statement, "the process will determine the form according to the conditions," to read: "the process L(the transmission of energy per Prigogine's model) determines the form (or, society's institutions) according to the conditions. Now, what exactly are these conditions? This question returns us to Darwin and his concept of natural selection as expressed by Mead:
There is a constant pressure which would lead to the selection of those variants which are better
adapted to the conditions under which they must live. This process of the culling-out of these
better adapted forms would, in time, lead to the appearance of new forms.
-- ibid, pp. 11
He continues:
The form is dependent upon the conditions under which the life-process goes on. It is the same
process, but it meets all sorts of difficulties. It has to have a particular apparatus in order that it
may meet each of these difficulties.
-- ibid, pp. 15
Mead thus provides us with a model of a life-process which encounters "difficulties" to which it must accommodate itself. This word difficulties returns us not only to Prigogine and his concept of perturbations, to Kuhn and his concept of anomalies, but also to our original concern--the "quality of life." It was with a discussion of the anomalies and difficulties inherent in the perception of the quality of life today that we began this paper, and it is to these anomalies and concerns that we will now return.
QUALITY OF LIFE AND THE CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE
If we consider our perceptions of the quality of life to be but reflections upon the conditions of life, then Mead's model becomes even more clear in terms of its social applicability. Many conditions of life today warn of imminent danger. Atomic technology creates the potential for widespread obliteration of the human species. Environmental desecration raises fears of irreversible ecological deterioration. The conditions of our inner cities, inasmuch as they contain enclaves of disenfranchised citizens, threaten the lives and property of the larger social community.
These are real problems--not just anomalies or inconveniences--and must be recognized as such. Just as anomalies such as contradictory governmental policies or unforeseen consequences of social actions can be seen as resulting from the fluctuating life-processes of the social organism itself (per Prigogine), so too can threats such as these be seen as the conditions to which that organism must respond, or else perish, per Darwinian evolutionary logic.
Psychology as a discipline has as its goal insight, or self-understanding. Whether through the study of physiological phenomena, analysis of environmental or hereditary conditions, behavioral observations, or psychoanalytic-type reflections, the discipline strives for an understanding of the human animal primarily as an individual organism. By extension, social psychology has as its goal the understanding of man as a social organism. Recognizing the truth of John Donne's comment, "No man is an Iland (sic), these scientists strive for an understanding of the social process, seeking to gain insight into the symbiotic relationship between an individual human being and his or her larger social community.
Mead's model provides such an insight, and is embodied in his statement, "The process will determine the form according to the conditions." (Mead, p. 16) When these words were first published in 1936, only one factor in this equation (the term "conditions") was fully understood in terms of its implications for evolutionary social development. Darwin had demonstrated these "conditions" as threats to continued existence to which an organism either must adapt itself or perish. While Mead recognized that "forms" could indeed be seen as social institutions, it remained until 1962 when Kuhn wrote his influential treatise on revolutions within scientific "institutions" that we could fully see the manner in which contradictory evidence or disturbing anomalies could be seen as foretelling of revolutionary transformations within that institution, or "form."
With Prigogine's Nobel Prize-winning "Theory of Dissipative Structures" in 1977, the equation becomes fully understandable in human or social terms. Explaining as it does the growth and transformational process of a living organism, it enhances Mead's notion of a life-process, and demonstrates his thesis that is is this life-process itself which determines the "forms" of a living organism, or, in the jargon of social psychology, the institutions of the larger social community.
This model answers very well the criticism, "Sure, there are problems or anomalies in our present world, but that doesn't mean any great change is in store. There have always been such disturbances." It answers this criticism because it fully acknowledges its truth. According to Prigogine's theory, there have always been and will always be fluctuations or disturbances within the social community. The issue is one of quantity:
If they are minor, the system damps them and they do not alter its structural integrity. But if the
fluctuations reach a critical size, they "perturb" the system.... The parts reorganize into a new
whole [and] the system escapes into a higher order
--Ferguson, pp. 164-165
Historians tell us that these fluctuations are now reaching a critical size, and compare our times to those which preceded the Protestant Reformation or the French Revolution. If such is the case, then what may we expect in the future and how will it take place?
QUALITY OF LIFE AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF CHANGE
Speaking of social development, Mead wrote:
The control over community life in the past has been a control of situations. The control, as such,
has been almost inevitably conservative. It is preserved orders which have established themselves
as social habits we call "institutions." A conscious social control has taken on this form: the law
must be obeyed; the order which has come down to us is an order which is to be preserved. And,
whenever the community is disturbed, we always find this return to the fixed order which is there
and which we do not want to have shaken. It is entirely natural, and, in a certain sense, entirely
justifiable. We have to have an order of society; and, when what is taking place shakes that order,
we have no evidence that we will get another order to take the place of the present one. We cannot
afford to let that order go to pieces. We must have it as a basis for our conduct.
-- Mead, p. 20
Two phrases in this statement are particularly significant when considering social evolutionary development. The first, "whenever the community is disturbed, we always find this return to the fixed order," is but a restatement of Prigogine's notion, "if [the fluctuations] are minor, the system damps them and they do not alter its structural integrity" (Ferguson, p. 164). However, his contention, "when what is taking place shakes that order, we have no evidence that we will get another order to take the place of the present one," is perhaps no longer true. The mathematics and logic of Prigogine's theory now provide the necessary evidence that there will indeed emerge a new order, even more complex and integrated and fully capable of taking the place of that which has gone before.
If we leave aside for the moment our hopes and aspirations for the fate of mankind, and instead speak only of theory, then we can indeed see possibilities for change. The life-process of the social organism, involving as it does the movement of people within and between social institutions, contains within itself the potential for adaptive change.
People move within one institution or from one institution to another, exchanging experiences, creating policies, formulating opinions. This movement, involving as it does the coming together of new elements and new combinations, contains within itself not only the apparent contingencies reflected upon earlier, but also the potential for adaptive reorganization.
For example, using as an example of a social institution a workplace or business, we can see how anomalies might arise in a growing organization. The Sales Department is originally in charge of generating business. Then a Marketing Department is established, containing individuals with another orientation also charged with generating business. The Marketing Department creates a strategy, perhaps without seriously consulting with the people in Sales. The strategy backfires--the Sales people say because of Marketing's ignorance of true "field" conditions--and the anomalies occur: A marketing plan that should have worked didn't, and individuals within an organization supposedly unified in purpose are at odds with one another. Or, as another example, imagine a situation which many departments are mandated to keep records on members of that organization. Personnel maintains certain records, as does Payroll, Insurance, and the heads of the various departments. It is easy to see how confusion or even difficulties might arise in such a situation. Errors in record-keeping or lack of communication about changes can create confusion as to the correct facts. Knowledge of the salaries of members of one department can create dissatisfaction among the members of another. While according to Prigogine's model, some amount of disturbance is inevitable, a resolution of such difficulties can only begin with the development of a more complex organizational system. Sales and Marketing much coordinate their efforts, and the various record-keeping systems must become procedurally synchronized. Thus, the growing life-process of the organization, in effect, "creates" both difficulties and the means by which the organism can adapt itself in response to such difficulties.
Life-threatening conditions which jeopardize the continued existence of the organism itself, however, are an entirely different matter. In the case of a business, such a circumstance might be the development by others of new technology which renders theirs obsolete, a changed fad which leaves their product undesirable, a dwindling of the raw products on which their production is based. In strictly Darwinian terms, organisms in these circumstances must either adapt themselves to the changed conditions or else perish.
Evidence presented within this paper speaks both of the presence of widespread anomalies to which the American social community must adapt itself, and also of life-threatening conditions which threaten the very existence of this community. In a sense, perhaps a race is now in progress, between a life-process which contains potential for adaptive change, and environmental and social forces which threaten to destroy the human species as we now know it:
This is an apocalypical age, and prophecies of doom are commonplace. Yet when the prophets
and counter-prophets are still, there remain[s an] inescapable imperative for human survival: ...
because we now know that the resources of the earth are finite and the biosphere is not infinitely
forgiving, each generation must act as trustee for the next, or at some unpredictable but certain
point there will be no next generation. Thus we are the first generation to have the awareness
to have the awareness that man has the power to end history and the first that may have the
destructive technology to end it ourselves.
-- Barnet and Muller, pp. 384-384
They continue:
The search for a systemic alternative is intimately bound up with a change in the global value system....
The values needed for survival if one reflects on it, turn out to be the familiar democratic values
preached by prophets and sages since the beginning of history--respect for human dignity, justice,
frugality, moderation, and equality. (emphasis mine)
These values will not come to replace the contemporary outmoded values--competitive individualism,
comfort, waste, infinite growth, and security through accumulation--because human beings
suddenly learn altruism. (emphasis mine) They will come to be the dominant values of the coming
century, if at all, only if enough people are awakened to the necessity for the survival of the species....
With this growing awareness comes the possibility of a new shared political consciousness for
reconstruction. But the battle for survival is always a race against time. The crucial question is whether
we can adapt our institutions and ourselves to a rapidly changing environment--in time.
For this reason, the development of new knowledge becomes absolutely crucial. We have talked much
in this book about knowledge as a principal dynamic of social change. The prospects for human
survival depend upon what we can learn about our condition and how fast. Knowledge and values are
inextricably bound up with each other, despite the current convention that they are not. No knowledge
or institution for the development of knowledge is value-free. The contemporary emphasis on
specialization reflects a self-defeating judgment that holistic analysis is neither possible nor desirable....
To free ourselves from the straitjacket of orthodoxy, usually a brilliant theoretical model of how the
system functioned in the last generation, we need to encourage a variety of analyses that attempt to
deal with social, ecological, and psychological reality together.
-- ibid, pp. 386-387
This paper has been such an effort, conceived initially with the purpose of understanding social realities and their impact upon the quality of life, and ending with a model by which we can see the process of social evolutionary development. Perhaps by providing greater insight into ourselves as a social organism, through a fuller understanding of the human life-process and the conditions to which we are subject, the field of social psychology can influence the race, aiding in the successful adaption of the human species to the conditions of life--for now, and for the future.
If it's not too inappropriate, I'd like to close with a parable from Aesop's Fables:
There was a time in the youth of the world when Goods and Ills entered equally into the concerns of
men, so that the Goods did not prevail to make them altogether blessed, nor the Ills to make them
wholly miserable. But owing to the foolishness of mankind the Ills multiplied greatly in number and
increased in strength, until it seemed as though they would deprive the Goods of all share in human
affairs, and banish them from the earth. The latter, therefore, betook themselves to heaven and
complained to Jupiter of the treatment they had received, at the same time praying him to grant them
protection from the Ills, and to advise them concerning the manner of their intercourse with them.
Jupiter granted their request for protection, and decreed that for the future they should not go among
men openly in a body, and so be liable to attack from the hostile Ills, but singly and unobserved, and
at infrequent and unexpected intervals. Hence it is that the earth is full of Ills, for they come and go
as they please and are never far away; while Goods, alas! come one by one only, and have to travel
all the way from heaven, so that they are very seldom seen.
_______________
(1) Prigogine's somewhat technical book on the theory of dissipative structures, From Being to Becoming, published by W. H. Freeman & Co., in 1980 is not yet available; his popular book, tentatively titled A Dialogue with Nature, will be published by Doubleday and is not yet available. Therefore, I have presented his theory as presented by Ferguson, who states, "Ilya Prigogine's statements were taken from interviews, lectures, a special December 1977 edition of the Texas Times [published by the University of Texas system, Austin], an article on social dynamics in Chemical and Engineering News, April 16, 1979, and Thermodynamic Theory of Structure, Stability, and Fluctuations by P. Glandsdorff and Prigogine." (Ferguson, 1980, p. 432)
Recognizing that there might be some Prigogine-Ferguson translation problems built into this secondary source, I will attempt to avoid further confusion (i.e., Ferguson-Holter translation problems) by stating as much of this material as possible in Ferguson's own words.
References
Banfield, E. C., The Unheavenly City Revisited. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1970.
Barnet, R. J., Muller, R. E., Global Reach: The Power of Multinational Corporations. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.
Barraclough, G., An Introduction to Contemporary History. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1967.
Burns, E. M., Lerner, R. E., and Meacham, S., Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1980.
Ferguson, M., The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, Inc., 1980.
Friedman, M. and R., Free to Choose. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.
Harrington, M. The Other America. Referred to in Skagen, K., ed., The Age of Uncertainty: Points of Departure. Boston: Houghton Miffin
Company, 1977.
Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Lowi, T. J., The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy and the Crisis of Public Authority. New York: Norton & Company, Inc. 1969.
Mead, G., On Social Psychology. (Selected papers, edited and with an introduction by Anselm Strauss.) Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press (Phoenix Books), 1964.
Skagen, K., ed., The Age of Uncertainty: Points of Departure. Boston: Houghton Miffin Company, 1977.
Stavrianos, L. S., The Promise of the Coming Dark Age. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1976.
Wallbank, T. W., Taylor, A. M., Bailkey, N. M. and Jewsbury, G. F., Civilization Past and Present: 1650 to the Present. Glenview, Illinois: Scott,
Foresman and Company, 1978.
Preamble
If You Had the Power to Influence our Democracy
Fifty-one years ago, a bunch of influential men got together to decide how to manage American democracy in the aftermath of the 1960s protest movements.(1)
Their policy conclusions—the Project 2025 of its day—draw a straight line to the real politics that we have in America right now
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A woefully undereducated populace
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A citizenry that truly believes its government doesn’t care about them
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A citizenry that knows its government doesn’t believe in equality
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A citizenry that knows its government doesn’t even believe in democracy!
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A citizenry, much of whom feel lost and unfulfilled
for these are the policy choices they made for us.
And who are these people who decided THIS would be the foundational base for WE THE PEOPLE’s relationship with their government?, you might ask…
THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION
Read for yourself what they decided for us. And why.
We need to know.
We need to know how
“It’s not Democrat vs. Republican, but
Regular People vs. the Top 3%”
plays out—because THAT’S our real politics.
Pay special attention to how they THINK.
And then…
We must recalibrate OUR thinking in response.
(1)This was part of a larger report, THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION REPORT, that covered not only the U.S., but also Western European nations and Japan, with the same stated goal in mind: how to make democracy more viable in the future.