TRANSFORMATION:

A LITERATURE REVIEW WITH THE POSSIBLE HUMAN IN MIND

APRIL 2012

Prepared by: Michael Bopp, Ph.D. Four Worlds Centre for Development Learning Phone: 403-932-0882 Email: [email protected]

The Transformationalist View of Human Development

Every knowledge enterprise, every research project, every development strategy, every conceptualization of curriculum and pedagogy—all are rooted in fundamental assumptions about the nature of human beings. These assumptions are entered into as one assumes the standpoint of one’s culture, without critical consideration or intent. As A.N. Whitehead once remarked Our consciousness does not initiate our modes of functioning. We awake to find ourselves engaged in process, immersed in satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and actively modifying [the world]…(Whitehead 1967:46) That is, we awaken one day to discover ourselves already immersed in thinking and feeling and doing in that particular pattern of thinking and feeling and doing that we have inherited from our cultural history. Alvin Toffler (1980) coined the term “indust-reality” to describe the reality system that I, as a stepchild of industrial culture, am immersed in. Immersion is indeed the operative word. Man lives in the moist air of earth like a fish in an ocean. He walks not so much on the earth (separated from it) as in the earth, textured into its rhythms, its vitalities, its laws. (Novak 1978:26) But as Joseph Chilton Pearce underscores for us in his example of the Balinese children who walk on fire, the mind-brain “knows” that certain laws are operable in a shared universe of meaning. We would like to say that there are observable, measurable, objective and immutable principles that govern the physical world. Of these we mean to gain knowledge so that we can control that world to our ever-advancing advantage just as Francis Bacon had promised us. But we are beginning to realize that such hopes are somewhat misplaced. Pearce writes if the firewalkers: At this point, our western logic breaks down before an irresolvable paradox. To us, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot dance on the coals without even a blister while beneath those coals pigs and pineapples or whatever are roasting. (Pearce 1980:185) Fire, by definition, burns. That certainly is a principle that can be counted on, is it not? But add idea or abstraction and you add mind-brain. Add mind-brain to the world and you have, not reality as it is in the world, but reality as a construction, a created reality. Human reality experience and the world as it is are not synonymous phenomena, although they partake of the same substance. This is why they laws of one operation cannot possibly fit the other, why ordinary scientific testing, which is designed to discover the world’s principles, is not appropriate for a study of earth plus mind. (Ibid) The study of human cultures is necessarily a study of a phenomenon that is constituted in the relationship between earth and mind. In order for me to approach an adequate understanding of human development and how education can assist in that process, it is imperative at the very first that the assumptions lying at the root of the culture I myself dwell in concerning the nature and potential of human existence in the

1 world be unearthed and examined. These assumptions will of course shape my interactions with people of other cultures. The problem inherent in such an examination is that it must be conducted from some standpoint. “Precisely because different conceptual paradigms provide differing standards for evaluation” (Markley and Harman 1982:163) it is not possible to prove that one standpoint is ultimately better than the other. A paradigm is an explanatory system or model that integrates thinking about a particular aspect of reality. It is the image of “reality” we use to guide our thinking and action in science or in life. When information comes to us that cannot be explained by our model, the model itself begins to stretch and eventually to crack up. As Thomas Kuhn (in “The Structure of Scientific Revolution”) suggested, when a paradigm of reality is no longer able to accommodate the frontiers of human knowing, a new paradigm eventually emerges which can incorporate both the known world, and the questions currently being raised about what lies beyond the frontiers of human theorizing. (Kuhn 1962) The most fundamental of paradigms, the paradigm of paradigms, is the image of human nature and purpose that is operative in the theories, policies and practices of any civilization. In 1974 the Stanford Research Institute conducted a study at the request of the U.S. Office of Education that examined alternative images of the nature of man in relationship with the universe, how past images have led to the current crisis in industrial culture, and “what types of images appear to be needed as we move into a post-industrial future”. That report was not generally published until 1983 (Markley and Harman 1983), yet its limited edition in 1974 became a classic in what may be called the literature of transformation, a growing body of writing dealing with the emerging global phenomenon of human transformation as a new image of the human condition. What is fascinating about the Stanford study is its eclectic incorporation of a vast field of contemporary scholars and researchers, as well as the insights of many non- academic sources of wisdom ranging from the Bible and Sri Aurobindo to the American . What the study suggests is not that we should somehow adopt and promote a different image of man because it is preferable to some other image. Indeed, the authors refer us to the image makers of the German government prior to and during World War II who deliberately attempted to create, through rational manipulation, a particular image on man, and a myth of the emergent destiny of the German nation that ended in catastrophe. What Kinser and Kleinman (1969), authors of the provocative “The Dream that was no more a Dream: A Search for Aesthetic Reality in Germany 1890-1945” make terribly clear is that the dream came true. The myth (albeit artificially fabricated) shaped , which in turn produced policies that set into motion a dizzying chain of events. And somehow through it all, the image grew and took on life of its own, fed by events to which it was symbiotically linked, until it became impossible to tell which caused which—the myth, the event or the event, the myth. The literature of transformation is suggesting quite apart from the rational manipulation of the human psyche that has been the fetish of totalitarian hopefuls throughout the ages. What is being observed, as opposed to promoted, is that collective human consciousness is evolving a new relationship with the universe.

2 As systems theorist Erich Jantsch (1980) suggests in his “The Self Organizing Universe”, the basic unit of survival is not an entity, but a relationship between organisms and their environment. The “evolutionary transformationalist” image of man (Markley and Harman 1983) is seen to be an emerging phenomenon of the collective human psyche. One way to understand what is being suggested here is to consider the development of the capacity to use language that is latent and hidden within the just-born human infant. Certainly no examination of the “wiring or the bellows or the plumbing” (Vonnegut 1974:12) or a baby will reveal the hidden potential that is unfolding in that child to enter into the abstraction of language usage. The Persian prophet of the last century, Baha’u’llah, poses another example, that of the fruit that is hidden (in the form of potential) within the fruit tree. The tree, He explains, can be cut into a thousand pieces, and no trace of the fruit will be found. But in the proper season and given the necessary environmental conditions (sunshine, rain, the nutrients of the soil, etc.) the capacity of the tree to bear fruit will manifest itself, and there will appear, gradually, the buds, the blossoms, and eventually the luscious fruit in the fullness of its beauty. (Baha’u’llah 1971:155) What is being suggested by the evolutionary transformationalists is really an image of human beings in relationship to the universe that may be summarized as follows: 1. The human species is engaged in a perpetual process of emergent becoming. 2. This evolution is fundamentally a cultural and spiritual process, but is expressed simultaneously in many dimensions of human activity including the personal and psychological, social, economic, geo-political, ethical, legal, technical, biological, ecological and philosophical-theoretical domains. Hence a wholistic approach to understanding human processes is indicated. 3. Human beings can be conscious participants in our own evolutionary process, and as such can help to direct the course of human development on this planet. 4. The emergent outcome of the human evolutionary development process is the transformation of the relationship between human beings and the universe (see Pearce 1980:185-86) which is, in effect, the transformation of the “world”. 5. The human evolutionary transformation process can only be understood in relation to the wholeness of the universal context of which humanity is a part. This context includes the ultimate unknowns underlying the ordering of the universe. Again, a wholistic perspective of human processes is indicated. 6. The ongoing of human transformation necessarily subsumes and incorporates all previous human development (just as Thomas Aquinas pointed out that the number 5 does not prelude the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, but subsumes them) into current stages of the process, but that entirely new dimensions of human possibility, not pre-figured in previous stages, are constantly emerging.

Convergent Thinking There are numerous discoveries in a wide variety if fields of endeavor that are simultaneously confirming and expanding the insights of the evolutionary transformationalists. A thorough survey of them would be redundant in view of the exhaustive work of other authors to document the “new consciousness” as it manifests itself through various disciplines.

3 For example, traces a chain of writers and thinkers from the turn of the century to the frontiers of science who are all pointing, in one way or another, to an emerging transformation in human consciousness. (Ferguson 1980) Before her, the Stanford group assembled a vast and insightful review of literature touching on human transformation (Markley and Harman 1974, 1983) that dates back to Vedas (early Hindu scriptures) and the oral traditions of Indigenous peoples around the world. In addition to these comprehensive analytical reviews, surveys of major influences in the development of the evolutionary transformationalist paradigm are found in the works of P.W. Martin (1955). J. Salk (1972, 1973), Fred Polak (1973), Jose Arguelles (1975), (1978), Erich Jantsch (1980), Alvin Toffler (1980), and (1983) as well as in a growing list of current periodicals, which focus on human transformation. Some of these include “The Mind/Brain Bulletin” (Los Angeles, California), “East-West Journal” (Brookline, Massachusetts), “Journal of the ” (Stanford, California), “Leading Edge: A Bulletin of Social Transformation” (Los Angeles, California), “” (Brookline, Massachusetts), “The New Humanity Journal” (London, U.K.), “New Realities” (San Francisco, California), “Re-Vision: A Journal of Knowledge and Consciousness” (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and “Whole Earth Papers” (East Orange, New Jersey). The Stanford group introduced the concept of a gradient to show the relationship between the evolutionary transformation of human consciousness, and the development and historical linkages between various scientific disciplines. “It is widely recognized that each succeeding level of biological and social evolution forms a hierarchical gradient of interacting levels of increasing complexity and order. The various scientific disciplines reflect this ordered series-from phylogenesis to ontogensis to sociogenesis; from such disciplines as physics, chemistry, genetics, and physiology to ethology, psychology, sociology and anthropology and to such newly emerging disciplines as systems theory and the policy sciences.” (Markley and Harman 1974, 1983:127) Capra speaks of “bootstrapping” to refer to an emerging network of interlocking concepts, theories and models, none of which are more “fundamental” than the others, but which are all mutually consistent (Capra 1983:265). What is occurring in scientific research and in theorizing about the human conditions is, I believe, a fomalization through the medium of various disciplines of an emerging general insight—a vision—of a newly forming relationship between the human mind-brain-spirit-body organism and the universe. I think it is wrong, however, to posit a linear chain of discoveries and scholars who have built upon one another’s work in a progressive and orderly fashion to arrive at current insights into the nature of human beings, the universe, and our relationship with it. What the chain represents is, rather, benchmarks of the evolution of human knowing, which is not really one process, but rather millions of processes that flow in and out of each other to weave a “pattern that connects” on the level of meta-process—a grand process of processes. Evolutionary theory has itself developed from Darwin’s time into a multi-dimensional interactive set of theories. Contributive to this have been the seminal works of Pierre

4 Teilhard de Chardin (1939) who saw connections between paleontological evidence and mystical insight, and posited that mind itself was evolving in the matrix of the world towards the discovery of its own evolution. He foresaw that this new self-consciousness would eventually crystallize into a species-wide self-directed development process. This evolving consciousness is, I believe, the root phenomenon of any successive chain of insightful scholars and researchers. Michael Polanyi warned us that interacting levels (or stages) of increasing complexity and order in a developmental sequence could not be understood by examining the laws and ordering principles of lower levels of organization to gain an understanding of higher levels: “…laws governing the particulars in themselves would never account for the organizational principles of a higher entity.” (Polanyi 1966:34) Although higher dimensions rest on lower ones, incorporating and subsuming their organizational principles, the lower dimension, in fact receives its current meaning or significance from the higher dimension “which integrates the particulars of the lower dimension into a new emerging gestait”, (Wiesskopf 1971:186). Bearing in mind that great discoveries and insights may well be the reflective benchmarks of an evolving human awareness, as much as stepping stones to understanding, it is useful to recognize the theoretical points of objectification in that fundamentally subjective process. It would of course be impossible to cite all of these contributions and wrong to present them in a hierarchical fashion. What follows is a listing of individuals and traditions arranged according to areas of general insight, which have been contributing (for me, at least) to the general articulation and understanding of the evolutionary transformationalist paradigm.

General Insight: Enduring Reality may only be Found in Process In 1929 Alfred North Whitehead wrote: “That all things flow is the first vague generalization which the unsystematized, barely analyzed, of man has produced…in all stages of civilization its recollection lends its pathos to poetry. Without doubt, if we to go back to that ultimate integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philosophy, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system.” (Whitehead 1979:208) The quest for permanence amidst inescapable flux is a fundamental theme in human pre-theoretical consciousness and the resolution of this paradox is one of the goals of all mystical traditions. Expressions of this dialectic are found in: • the Hebrew Psalms • renaissance love poetry • Vedic tradition • Buddhist Koanic tradition

5 • North American Indian views of the nature of man, which describes the child, the youth, the adult and the elder in a life cycle in order to explain the process nature of human existence • Plato, who found permanence in a static world of ideality, and flux in the shadow reality of the physical world • A.N. Whitehead (1979) wrote his magnum opus (in 1929) called “Process and eality” to express that the fundamental experience of human knowing could only be understood in terms of the dialectic of reality in process • E.S. Dunn (1971) writing about social and economic development as “process teleology” wherein “both the process and the goal are understood to be open to further transformation” (Dunn 1971:244)

General Insight: The Human Species is Evolving Contributors: • Charles Darwin (1859): his “Origin of the Species” launched the evolution revolution in life sciences and had an effect similar to that which Newton’s “Principia” had on physics and astronomy two centuries earlier (see Capra 1980:72). • Karl Marx (1844): human social-economic evolution, stage theory of social development, relationship of social-economic development and personal wellbeing. • Alfred North Whitehead (1929, 1978): becoming is the perpetual state of all being. Reality is process. • William James (1902): man is the architect of his own development. • Teilhard de Chardin (1939): evolution of mind, self-directed evolution. • Margaret Mead (1964): culture evolving. • Arnold Toynbee (1972): civilizations evolve. • Anthony Wallace (1975): culture evolving in stages. • Sri Aurobindo (1973): human development is moving toward integration with universal reality. • Baha’u’llah (1817-1892): human evolution is spiritually propelled, that the human family has now entered the culminating stages of that development, and that it will be through the forging of our unity that we will be able to create the circumstances needed for the unfolding of our ultimate potentialities.

General Insight: Wholeness – All Things are a Part of an Interconnected Whole Contributors: • Jan Christian Smuts (1961): his “Holism and Evolution” spoke of an inherent drive in nature and in mind toward integrating greater wholes, and part of the necessity of seeing reality in terms of wholes instead of parts.

6 • Alfred North Whitehead (1929, 1978): his “Process and Reality” is one of the major philosophical works of the modern era. It sets out the relationship between human knowing and universal reality, a reality, he argues, which is at once form and process inextricable interconnected. These two dimensions must be simultaneously conceptualized to grasp the true relation between any organism and its environment. • The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Experiment and (John) Bell’s Theorem (see Capra 1983:82-83): all show the indivisible wholeness and connectedness of the universe. • General Systems Theory: conjoins form and process, interrelation and interaction, dialectically related opposites, reductionism and wholism, analysis and synthesis, self-assertive and integrative tendencies, self-organization and self-renewal, pattern maintenance and self-transcendence into a single conceptual construct, where, as Wiese (1971:276) has said, any level under consideration is really the level of the observer’s attention and not of an objective importance over other levels. Individuals who have made important contributions to systems thinking include L. von Bertanlanffy (1967, 1972), Paul Weiss (1969, 1972) and Ervin Laszlo (1972a, 1972b).

General Insight: Whole Systems Evolve Contributors: • Ilya Prigogine’s (1977, 1980, 1984) theory of dissipative structures which explains how a system may “escape” into a “higher” or more complex form. • Erich Jantsch (1980): his “The Self-Organizing Universe” reveals two dynamic principles of systemic self-organization: 1) renewal and recycling of components and their relationship to maintain overall structure, and 2) self-transcendence, the capacity to reconstitute the component relationship of a system in a new pattern at a higher level.

General Insight: The Structure of the “Objective World” and that of Human Consciousness are Inseparably Intertwined Contributors: • Quantum Theory: posits (among other things) that the observer “is not only necessary to observe the properties of an atomic phenomenon, but is necessary even to bring about those properties” (Capra 1983:86). • Phenomenonology: a method of investigating reality that seeks to disclose the foundations of the subjective experience of the world. Contributors in this field include Edmund Husserl (1962, 1970a, 1970b, 1970c, 1977), Maurice Merleau- Ponty (1968, 1973), Martin Heidegger (1977), Hans Georg Gadamer (1975) and Alfred Shutz with Thomas Luckmann (1973). • Joseph Chilton Pearce: suggests a two-way flow of , information and influence between the developing mind-brain of human beings and the rest of the universe (Pearce 1971, 1980). • Gregory Bateson (1979) wrote “Mind and Nature” and showed them to be a necessary unity.

7 General Insight: There are stages or a natural gradient in the development of human capacities and of human interaction with the world Contributors: • (1968): proposed a hierarchy of human needs, from basic survival and security to self-transcendence. • L. Kohlberg (1969): observed stages of moral development that roughly correspond to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. • Joseph Chilton Pearce (1980): proposed that the biological plan for the development of intelligence and human capacity consist of cycles of competence which develop in the context of a series of relationships based on matrix formations and shifts from moving the known to the unknown. Pearce posits four stages in human development: 1. The mind-brain structures knowledge of its present matrix (e.g., the mother) 2. The mind-brain develops bonds (communication and rapport) with both its present matrix and a new matrix into which the organism must eventually shift as development unfolds. 3. Shift from dependence on the old matrix to dependence on the new (hence independence). 4. Only after a matrix shift can we interact with the old matrix creatively and flexibly. The cycle of development continues as we: a) structure knowledge of the new matrix, and b) develop bonds with it, as well as with still another matrix yet beyond us.

General Insight: Human beings have the capacity to transform themselves, to re-create themselves in a new image Contributors: • All major religious systems, including , , Islam, Christianity, as well as the religions of the Indigenous people of North America, have taught their followers that self-transformation was not only possible, but fundamental to the purpose of human existence. Interestingly, it is universally agreed that external intervention and assistance in this process is essential. • Marxist Humanism: Man re-constitutes himself through creative work in and upon the world; work itself is a process of changing the world. Human beings are basically good, but can be corrupted and can become greedy, cruel and oppressive as a result of imbalances in socio-economic structures. As these imbalances are corrected, human potential is released and can unfold. • Existentialism: “Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be…” (Jean Paul Sartre 1967:607). • Freirian conscientization: Brazilian-born educator Paul Freire advocates a pedagogy of liberation (Freire 1968) that is: 1) co-international (i.e., the teacher/students are co-intent on transforming the world); 2) participatory (i.e., learners participate in guiding the learning process and evaluating its outcomes); 3) dialogical (i.e., based on authentic dialogue); 4) dialectical (i.e., praxiological or based on the interactive dynamic of action in and upon the world and reflection

8 upon that action); and 5) transformational (in that its aim is to transform the “world” and hence the subjects of the learning process).

General Insight: is an integral part of human nature Contributors: • The “” is a term used by Aldous Huxley to refer to a view of man and ultimate reality that continually re-appears in some form in every age and culture known to us. This “philosophy” consists of the recognition of a “divine reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with divine reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent ground of all being…” (Huxley 1945:iv) Virtually all manifestations of human religiousness, including Indigenous religions of all continents and the world faiths of today are based on some version of the assumption that human beings are spiritual beings. With the advent of Cartesian thinking western man exchanged faith as a mode of relationship with the universe for doubt. (Later doubt was to come full circle and turn upon itself in the twentieth century phenomenon of a futuristic nihilism.) The boundaries between religion and science are increasingly obscured. Considerable research has been undertaken, inspired in some way by the perennial philosophy and its off-shoots. Research interests have included mediation, biofeedback, hypnosis, extra-sensory , psychedelic drugs, suggestion, para-normal experiences (such as visions, prophetic dreams and contact with spirits), and . Contemporary efforts to scientifically systemize altered states of consciousness (i.e., knowing) include the work of Lilly (1972), Tart (1972), Krippner (in White 1972), and Aurobindo (1972).

General Insight: There are levels of human consciousness. These can be categorized in a gradient, in which each “higher” level incorporates and supercedes “lower” levels Contributors: • Plato: proposed two levels, the changing world of sight (which includes conjecture and belief) and the world of mind or knowledge containing the ideals of mathematical and ultimately dialectical thought. • Sigmund Freud: proposed the id-ego-superego continuum and theories of psychoanalysis to disclose roots of repression now affecting higher level functioning. • Carl Jung: proposed four functions: sensation, feeling, thinking, and intuition, in layered concentric circles of consciousness. He also proposed three levels of consciousness: the personal unconscious, the personal conscious, and the collective unconscious. The latter is a source of racial memory (the entire human race) that contains archetypal images, which are gateways to universal truth and oneness.

9 • Eastern mystical thought: generally proposes a continuum of self-transcendence, the pivotal concept of which is freedom from ego domination. The stages are described differently by various systems, but involve: 1) levels of addiction or submission to ego drives, thrills, obsessions, diversions, satisfactions and games; 2) creative work; 3) love and service to others; 4) virtuous motives, thoughts and deeds; 5) selfless devotion to others; 6) powerful self-transcending experiences (through , visions, dreams, etc.); 7) union with all consciousness. This experience is called “objective consciousness” in Ouspensky, “nirvana” in Buddhism, “satori” in Zen, “samadi” or “union with Brahman” in Hinduism, “the mystical union” in Christianity.

General Insight: Human beings must acquire an ecological perspective; i.e., we must learn to live in harmony with nature, if we are to survive Contributors: • The literature of the science of ecology and human environment: Ecology moved from an obscure position as a little-known branch of the science of biology to a major international issue during the 1960s and early 1970s. As one popular text in the field put it: “Probably more books and articles were written on ecology and human affairs from 1968 to 1971 than in all the preceding one hundred years of ecology’s formal existence.” (Southwick 1972:xi) It is difficult to trace precise chain of events that led to this catapulting into prominence of ecological issues, but certain events and discoveries were prominent: 1. The discovery of dangerous levels of DDT in the human food chain and even in mother’s milk, and the realization that massive use of the highly toxic insecticide would have to be stopped. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” (1962) marshaled the appalling evidence in a way that could not be ignored by the American public. Due to the agro-business and petro-chemical consortium, however, large scale use of the deadly substance continued into the 1970s in third world countries. 2. The subsequent discovery that a great number of deadly pollutants were also present in dangerous quantities in the atmosphere, the lakes, rivers, oceans, and ice of the planet, and that many species of wildlife had been rendered extinct or near extinction. These substances include CO2, radionuclides, pesticide compounds, and lead. 3. The population boom: As economists began to calculate current levels of world food production against the fact that some 175 million people are added to the earth’s population each year (approximately six every minute), it became increasingly obvious that unless human consumption patterns changed, and unless current levels of pollution and human interference in ecological systems was not checked, the earth as a life-supporting biosystem is doomed. These and a host of horrifying insights of a more particular nature, are well documented in the literature of ecological concern appearing since 1960. See for

10 example Lynn White Jr.’s (1967) “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis”, Edmund Leach’s (1968) “A Runaway World?”, Paul R. Erlich’s (1968) “The Population Bomb”, R.F. Dasmann’s (1972) “Planet in Peril”, Paul K. Anderson’s (1972) “Omega”, and related to the issue of development, Dasmann et al’s (1974) “Ecological Principles for Economic Development”. • The Club of Rome: conducted a series of studies on the “world problematique” or the relationship between human beings and their various environments. These studies share one common perspective—that unless human patterns of consumption and disregard for environmental conditions change, the earth is heading for what may be an irreversible disaster from which humanity as a species may not survive. (see Meadows et al 1972) • The ecological movement: a world-wide network of organizations including the Sierra Club, the Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace Association which have responded to a perceived man-made ecological crisis on the planet earth by attempting to raise public consciousness about environmental issues, and to force governments and industry to adopt a more sane and responsible attitude toward the ecology of the planet.

“Idust-reality” and Human Development An interesting conceptual dilemma presents itself when one considers that the evolutionary transformationalist world view emerged from the bosom of “indust-reality” (Toffler, 1983). How is it possible that successive waves of evolutionary transformationalist thinkers, researchers and scholars could be produced by a culture the dominant themes of which have been correctly classified as imperialistic, oppressive, technocratic, excessively rationalistic, individualistic, materialistic, hedonistic, anti- ecological, anti-developmental, ethically amoralistic, spiritless, and in a general state of collapse? Pitrim Sorokin explains: “Although the dominant pattern of modern culture in all of its components has been separate for the last four centuries, side by side with it there have existed, as minor currents, ideational and other forms of the fine arts, religion, philosophy, law, ethics and modes of living and thinking. Hardly any culture in the history of mankind has been totally and completely integrated.” (Sorokin 1957:26) The Hudson Institute group (Khan and Wiener 1967) provided a useful summary table of Sorokin’s classifications of systems of truth, which underlie distinct cycles in the evolution of civilizations. To their synthesis of Sorokin’s “ideational, sensate and lat sensate” categories I have added the category which they removed (apparently for ideological reasons) from Sorokin’s taxonomy, and have adapted it to conform with the emerging paradigm of human development discussed above the “evolutionary transformationalist” paradigm.

11 Table One: Systems of Truth from age to age Ideational Sensate Late Sensate Integrated Period Period Period (idealistic) The emerging future 1. revealed empirical cynical empirical/intuitive 2. charisma tic pragmatic disillusioned visionary/pragmatic 3. certain operational nihilistic relativistic certitude 4. dogmatic practical chaotic systematically open- minded 5. mystic worldly blasé mystico-practical 6. intuitive scientific transient rational/intuitive 7. infallible skeptical superficial ever-unfolding 8. religious tentative weary transformational/religious 9. supersensory fallible sophistic supersensory/empirical 10. unworldly sensory formalistic praxiological 11. salvational materialistic atheistic evolutionary/ tranformtionalistic 12. spiritual mechanistic trivial spiritual/material dialecticism 13. absolute relativistic changeable immanent and in process 14. supra -natural agnostic meaningless infinitely inviting/ ultimately unknown 15. moral instrumental alienated morally grounded, mutualistic interventionistic 16. emotional empirically expedient open-hearted verifiable reasonableness 17. mythic logically absolutely relativistic mythico-empirical verifiable (Modified and adapted from Sorokin 1957, 1962, 1964; Khan and Wiender 1967; and Markley and Harman 1982)

A Final Note This is by no means an exhaustive review of the literature of transformation. It is offered rather as one perspective from the standpoint of the practical task of promoting human learning, of what I believe is an emerging paradigm in the human sciences. I will be as interested as anyone to see where it all will lead.

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