[11128] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Evolution in a Technological Civilization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vigdor Schreibman - FINS)
Mon Mar 10 22:51:05 1997
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 21:36:29 -0600 (CST)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol V, Issue No. 5 (160 lines) March 10, 1997
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Evolution in a Technological Civilization
By Vigdor Schreibman
For the hunter gathering stage of human evolution, five
hundred thousand years were needed. The agricultural society
spanned ten thousand years. Industrial society moved through
in five hundred years. We are yet leaving tracks passing
through the industrial age machine, the age of oil and
electricity, and arriving at the atomic age, the space age of
cybernetics and high technology, the systems age, the age of
complexity, while spawning willy nilly in only fifty years,
the postindustrial, postmodern, information/knowledge age.
The eminent Bella H. Banathy reflects on the meaning of this
evolutionary phenomena in, "Designing Social Systems in a
Changing World" 91 (1996). He observes, "In earlier times,
when societal evolution was rather slow and gradual, there was
time for the various systems of the society to respond to the
overall changes in their environment. The mechanisms for such
change were adjustment and adaptation. But adjustment and
adaptation do not work for us anymore."
During the last fifty years humankind has experienced the
unleashing of unprecedented scientific and material
advancement and a technological revolution. This revolution
has "accelerated to the point where we have lost control over
it," Banathy concludes. "We have failed," he warns, "to match
the advancement of technological intelligence with the
advancement in sociocultural intelligence and wisdom. Only
such intelligence and wisdom can guide technological
advancement for the benefit of all mankind." Id at 92.
During just the past ten year period alone humankind has
witnessed the emergence of the, "information superhighways,"
now transforming global civilization. It was anticipated that
this technological innovation, "will revolutionize the way we
work, learn, shop, and live," with the promise to have, "an
even greater impact than the interstate freeways or the
telephone system," as John H. Gibbons, the White House Science
Advisor explained in testimony before Congress, Apr 27 1993.
This unprecedented revolution has occurred without any
dialogue with the people nor compass or guide or design for
the future, nor an expression of collective will to overcome
the self-imposed obstacles to rational choice about these.
At the same time globalization of the economic systems of
the world quickly followed the treaties of MAASTRICT, GATS,
and NAFTA. Under the General Agreement on Trade and Services,
(GATS), more than 60 nations adopted a one trillion dollar
telecoms deal Feb 15 [Fins-NC5-04]. These global economic
systems are now being locked into place by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), "Multilateral
Agreement on Investments" (MIA). The objectives are for
"investment protection, investment liberalization (to achieve
a high standard of liberalization), and dispute settlement."
They are aiming for conclusion of an accord by May 1997. The
OECD provided FINS with a copy of the main features of the
MAI, dated Dec 1996, now available by email: GET OECD MAI.
Educational, cultural, and social globalization are coming.
These are expected to drop dead surrender to emerging events
and patterns, dictated by the doctrine of economic supremacy
and raw power, which are also subverting the survival of the
biosphere of Planet Earth. As reported previously, a hard
line strategy was adopted to assure that, "Market forces must
drive progress of the Information Society" with removal of all
"non-commercial political burdens and budgetary constraints
imposed on telecommunications operators" [Fins-NC5-04].
All of the four evolutionary stages of human civilization
were accompanied with a fundamental shift in communications:
from speech, to writing, to print, and now to electronic
communications. Each of these four transformation have
occurred in progressively less time, with progressively
greater impact. President Lincoln observed in a lecture on
"Discoveries and Inventions" (1859), that when printing came,
It gave 10,000 copies of any written matter, quite as
cheaply as 10 were given before; and consequently a
thousand minds were brought into the field where there
was but one before. This was a great *gain*; and history
shows great *change* corresponding to it, in point of
time.... To immancipate [sic] the mind ... is the great
task which printing came into the world to perform.
The great task of emancipating the mind has remained in
doubt, however, in a political structure where, "core beliefs
are the product of a rigged, lopsided competition of ideas"
(Lindblom, 1977; Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Fallows, 1996). The
larger implications of this situation were described in an
email message to the Cultural Environmental Movement
discussion list, Feb 15, 1995, by George Gerbner, dean
emeritus of the Annenberg School of Communications. He wrote:
Scotch patriot Andrew Fletcher once said that whoever
tells the stories of a nation need not care who makes its
laws. That was at a time when stories were still
hand-crafted, home-made, community-inspired. Today, they
are the products of a complex mass-production and
marketing process.
Who tells most of the stories today? No longer home
and community. No longer parents, schools, or church. In
many parts of the world not even the native country. Our
children are born into homes in which the dominant story
tellers are not those who have something to tell but a
small group of global conglomerates that have something
to sell.
The next evolutionary stage that is likely to come about,
projected from present trends, is world corporate governance
emerging, perhaps, within the span of a single decade or
earlier. One can anticipate the inevitable response of the
people faced with such threatening complexities. There are
two basic alternative possibilities.
Advancement in sociocultural intelligence and wisdom to meet
this challenge for the benefit of all humankind, can occur
only by moving beyond arbitrary control by strategically
placed individuals, whether capitalist or socialist. This
power structure, which is now swiftly leading toward world
corporate domination, is predicated upon an understanding of
crowds, and how to dominate them by appeals to the emotions.
They rely on repetition, and invent catch phrases broadcast
through the mass media or the Internet by celebrities and
political front groups, and the crowd blindly follows.
The antidote to crowd politics is democratic group decision
making, facilitated by a soundly developed people science (PS)
[Fins-PS-01]. This movement must be sponsored and controlled
by the people, for the, "bringing into being, of common ideas,
a common purpose, and a collective will," as the prophet of
democracy, Mary Parker Follett described [Fins-PS-03d]. This
democratic structure of power is unvanquishable, fully capable
of overthrowing crowd politics and corporate domination. With
the next stage of civilization moving to the forefront of
consideration, it is crowd politics or people science, which
will decide the fate of humankind. Get ready to choose.
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