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Changing Images of Man

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Changing Images of Man Changing Images of Man By the following staff of and consultants to THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL POLICY/SRI INTERNATIONAL: Joseph Cambell, Duane Elgin, Willis Harman, Arthur Hastings, o. W. Markley, Floyd Matson, Brendan O'Regan and Leslie Schneider Edited by O. W. MARKLEY Project Director and WILLIS W. HARMAN Project SuPervisor PERGAMON PRESS OXFORD • NEW YORK . TORONTO . SYDNEY . PARIS • FRANKFURT U.K. Pergamon Press Ltd., Headington Hill Hall, Oxford OX3 OBW, England U.S.A. Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523, U.S.A. CANADA Pergamon Press Canada Ltd., Suite 104, 150 Consumers Road, Willowdale, Ontario M21 lpg, Canada AUSTRALIA Pergamon Press (Aust.) Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 544, Potts Point, N.S.W. 2011, Australia FRANCE Pergamon Press SARL, 24 rue des Ecoles, 75240 Paris, Cedex 05, France FEDERAL REPUBLIC Pergamon Press GmbH, 6242 Kronberg-Taunus, OF GERMANY Hammerweg 6, Federal Republic of Germany Copyright © 1982 O. W. Markley All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publishers. First edition 1982 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Changing images of man. - (Systems science and world order library). - (Pergamon international library). 1. Civilization, Modern-195{}- 2. Civilization, Occidental I. Markley, 0 W II. Series 309.}'}81'2 CB245 80-49943 ISBN 0-08-024314-2 Hard cover ISBN 0-08-024313-4 Flexicover Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter I <10 not wish to seem overdramatic but I can only conclude from the information that is available to me as Secretary-General that the Members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion, and to supply the required momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade, then I very much fear that the problems I have mentioned will have reached such staggering proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to control. V Thant (1969) Awareness of ideal values is the first step in the conscious creation of images of the future and therefore the creation of culture, for a value is by definition that which guides toward a "valued" future ..... Any student of the rise and fall of cultures cannot fail to be impressed by the role in this historical succession by the image of the future. The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures .... In the end, the future may well be decided by the image which carries the greatest spiritual power. Fred Polak (1973) Much advance, both in biological evolution and in psychosocial evolution, including advance in science, is of course obtained by adding minute particulars, but at intervals something like crys­ talization from a supersaturated solution occurs, as when science arrives at an entirely new concept, which then unifies an enor­ mous amount of factual data and ideas, as with Newton or Darwin. Major advances occur in a series of large steps, from one form of organization to another. In our psychosocial evolution I believe we are now in a position to make a new major advance. Sir Julian Huxley (1968) v Acknowledgements This study was administered by the Urban and Social Systems Division of Stanford Research Institute, Harvey L. Dixon, Executive Director. Willis W. Harman, Director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, provided overall guidance and o. W. Markley was Project Director. An Advisory Panel to the project, which contributed especially help­ ful formative suggestions and constructive critiques, consisted of Rene Dubos, Henry Margenau, Margaret Mead, and Geoffrey Vickers. Similarly helpful advice was given by Kent Collins and Winston Frank­ lin of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. The core research staff for the study were Duane Elgin, Willis Harman, Arthur Hastings, O. W. Markley, Dorothy McKinney, and Brendan O'Regan. Major contributions were made by Joseph Camp­ bell and Floyd Matson, and less extensive ones by Magoroh Maruyama, Donald Michael, Leslie Schneider, Barbara Pillsbury, and John Platt. The report was edited by Susan Taylor and Shirley Manning. Numerous key insights, acknowledged in the text, came from in­ vestigators at other centers. Although the project was essentially a team effort with various individuals contributing to all chapters of the report, specific chapters were principally written as follows: Chapter 2-0. W. Markley, based on contributions from Joseph Campbell, Arthur Hastings and Floyd Matson; Chapter 3-Duane Elgin; Chapter 4-Brendan O'Regan; Chapter 5-0. W. Markley and Willis Harman; Chapter 6-0. W. Markley; Chapter 7-Duane Elgin; Chapter 8-Willis Harman. Acknowledgment is gratefully given to the late John McHale (1970) for calling attention early on to the im portance of the "image of man" as an area requiring study. His insights, combined with those our staff developed during an earlier study ("Contemporary Societal Problems," also funded by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation), led to the present study being undertaken. A draft of this report was reviewed by selected experts to whom we are very grateful. They are listed on page xv. Final editorial respon­ sibility, however, rests with the SRI staff; therefore no approval of the report by either the Advisory Panel or the other reviewers is implied beyond their statements which are contained herein. Vll Contents LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Xlll LIST OF TABLES XIV REVIEWERS xv INTRODUCTION TO THE PERGAMON EDITION XVll INTRODUCTION TO THE SRI REPORT XXI 1. IMAGES OF MAN IN A CHANGING SOCIETY 1 Images and social policy 1 A working definition of "image of man" 2 The relevance of images to modern society 3 2. SOME FORMATIVE IMAGES OF MAN-IN-THE- UNIVERSE ............ 17 Selected historical and modern images of man 17 Early images of man .... 17 The human as separate from God and Nature-early Near-Eastern views 22 The Knower-Gnostic view . 23 The individual-Greek views 24 Empire and Christianity-the Roman catalyst 26 The age of faith-and contention 26 Man over things-the New Empire . 27 The human as beast-the Darwinian, Freudian, and ethological views . 28 The human as mechanism-the view of modern behaviorism. 29 The human as person-the view of humanism and humanistic psychology . 30 The human as evolving holon-the view of modern systems theory. .... 32 The human as spirit-the VIew of the perennial philosophy .. 33 IX x Contents "The American Creed" 35 Underlying issues and dimensions 37 3. ECONOMIC MAN: SERVANT TO INDUSTRIAL METAPHORS 45 Sources of the economic image of man 45 The image of economic man in the contern porary setting 49 The poverty of our abundance 50 The present mismatch between premises and societal realities 52 Going beyond: in search of image/society resolution 56 The power of the industrial state 57 The control of the industrial state 58 The growing impotence of the economic image 62 Conclusion-prospects for the future . 63 4. INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON THE "IMAGE OF MAN" 67 Characteristics and limitations of classical science 68 Paradigms in transmutation 68 Limitations of the scientific process itself 72 Crucial frontiers in scientific inquiry 75 Modern physics and cosmology 75 Other physical sciences 78 Consciousness research 88 Parapsychology and psychic research 95 General systems theory and cybernetics 100 Sources and characteristics of a possible new paradigm 103 Interactions between science and society 103 Characteristics of a possibly emergent paradigm 108 5. CHARACTERISTICS OF AN ADEQUATE IMAGE OF HUMANKIND 113 A holistic sense of perspective 114 Ecological ethic 114 Self-realization ethic 115 Multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, and integrative 117 Balancing and coordinating satisfactions along many dimensions . 119 Experimental and open-ended 120 Contents xi 6. THE FEASIBILITY OF AN INTEGRATIVE, EVOLU- TIONARY IMAGE OF MAN 125 Conceptual feasibility of a new image of man 125 Elements of a new image 125 The gradient 126 The self 133 Examining the new image for conceptual feasibility 138 Operational feasibility of a new image of man 141 Evolutionary transformation in response to crisis 142 Cultural transformations 142 Conceptual revolutions in science . 144 Similarities between scientific and cultural revitalization 145 Mythic transformations 146 Personal transformations 147 Synthesis and inference 148 Institutional and personal change 152 Imagining makes it so 152 New paradigms from old 156 Considerations of operational feasibility 157 7. SOCIETAL CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGING IMAGES 163 Contrasting future trends and images 164 Societal consequences of a technological extrapolationist Image 166 Societal consequences of an evolutionary trans- formationalist image 171 Individual and social goals 173 Institutions 175 Summary 177 8. GUIDELINES AND STRATEGIES FOR TRANSFOR- MATION 183 Some premises for the present discussion 183 Comparison of basic strategies 186 Salient characteristics of the transformation 190 Nature of the fundamental anomaly 190 Essential conditions for resolution of the fundamental anomaly . '. 191 Difficulty of achieving a non-disruptive transition 194 Elements of a strategy for a non-catastrophic transition 195 xu Contents SUMMARY 201 GLOSSARY 205 REFERENCES 207 APPENDICES A. An alternative view of history, the spiritual dimension of the human person, and a third alternative image of humanness (Elise Boulding) 219 B. Information systems and social ethics (Geoffrey Vickers) 223 c. A view of modified reductionism (Henry Margenau) 229 D. Scientific images of man and the man in the street (Rene Dubos and David Cahoon) . 233 E. Some projects suited to government or foundation support 235 F. The basic paradigm of a future socio-cultural system (Virginia H.
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