GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View

Transcription

1 GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View

2 Contemporary Systems Thinking Series Editor: Robert L. Flood Monash University Australia DESIGNING SOCIAL SYSTEMS IN A CHANGING WORLD Bela H. Banathy GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View Bela H. Banathy LIBERATING SYSTEMS THEORY Robert L. Flood OPERATIONAL RESEARCH AND SYSTEMS The Systemic Nature of Operational Research Paul Keys POWER, IDEOLOGY, AND CONTROL John C. Oliga SELF-PRODUCING SYSTEMS Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis John Mingers SOCIOPOLITICAL ECOLOGY Human Systems and Ecological Fields Frederick L. Bates SYSTEMIC INTERVENTION Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice Gerald Midgley SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY FOR THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES Michael C. Jackson A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher.

3 GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View Bela H. Banathy Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center San Francisco, California and International Systems Institute Carmel, California Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Banathy, Bela H. Guided evolution of society: a systems view/bela H. Banathy. p. em. - (Contemporary systems thinking) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / I. Social evolution. 2. Human evolution. I. Title. II. Series. GN360.B dc ISBN Springer Science+ Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic I Plenum Publishers. New York in 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover Ist edition A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any IT)eans, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from th'e Publisher.

5 To Eva With Loving Remembrance of Our First Meeting Sixty Years Ago

6 Up-to-now, our societal way of life has been the result of random chain of changing events. And now we suddenly realize that unless we take things at hand, the process of change will continue under the sway of relentless change, entirely blind to human dreams and if there is a central task for humankind in the next millennium, it is to start on the right track in its efforts to control the direction of evolution. Csikszentmihalyi

7 Preface The Agoras of the city-states of the classical Greek period were "public spheres" where true democracy was lived by citizens, who made collective decisions about issues affecting their daily lives. Inspired by their story, in this book, I developed the idea of "New Agoras of the twentyfirst century." This idea is a metaphor of social context in which people can make collective decisions about their future. I see the social contexts of the New Agoras to be our families, our neighborhoods, and the many community groups and organizations in which we live and work. People in these settings would collectively envision their ideal future and re-create themselves as evolutionary designing communities in which they would steer themselves toward their aspired future. The many New Agoras would link up with each other to bring to life the Guided Evolution of the Society. This work sets forth a possible approach toward establishing New Agoras for the twenty-first century. The evolutionary inquiry idea developed here is grounded in my public philosophy, which holds that: The right of people to take part directly in making decisions that affect their lives and guide their own destiny is a fundamental human right. If the life of the society is so organized that people can learn how to exercise this right then they can develop competence that enables them to guide their own evolution toward a desired future. Today, however, "the right of people to take part in decisions affecting their life" -constantly quoted by political establishments-is just empty rhetoric. We never had that right. That right is exercised by those who "represent" us or possess authority over us. We never had the opportunity to learn how to exercise that right. So, to be true to my own philosophy, one of my core missions in life became to do something about this. With others, I have spent years to design and develop learning resources that enable people to become competent, to become the best they can, and fulfill their potential. In the course of the last decade, however, I have become increasingly convinced that even if people fully develop their individual potential, they cannot give direction to their lives, they cannot forge their individual and collective destiny unless they ix

8 X Preface understand how evolution works and develop evolutionary competence by evolutionary learning. Only then can they enter into the evolutionary design space and engage in the conscious, guided evolution of their lives and the systems in which they live and work. I offer this work as a resource that individuals, groups, communities, and organizations of all kind might use to learn to create a common ground, collectively define values and qualities they seek to realize, envision ideal images of a desired future, and bring those images to life by design. The ideas and propositions presented in this work have been influenced by many. What I have learned about systems, design, and evolutionary inquiries I have learned with-and from-many others. And I am grateful to them. I wish to acknowledge the special help of a few friends and colleagues who reviewed the manuscript and offered advice and guidance. The help of Robert Artigiani, Aleco Christakis, Allan Combs, Duane Elgin, Stanley Krippner, Ervin Laszlo, and Gordon Rowland is much treasured and appreciated. Furthermore, I am most grateful to Ken Derham, a Director and Managing Editor of Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers for embracing the idea of this work and for his guidance of the production of the book. I wish to extend my appreciation to Robert Maged and Robert Wheeler of the editorial staff.

9 Contents 1. Introduction Why This Work: Rationale and Underlying Assumptions Underlying Assumptions What It Is About: The Content Part I: Understanding Evolution Part II: The Journey from Evolutionary Consciousness to Conscious Evolution Part III: Conscious Evolution by Evolutionary Guidance How Was the Book Developed? Who Will Benefit? The Learning Strategy PART I. THE EVOLUTIONARY JOURNEY OF HUMANKIND 2. The Evolution of the Evolutionary Idea Initial Definitions A Review of Early Evolutionary Ideas The Emergence of Evolutionary Science Jean Lamarck ( ): The Pioneer of Cultural Evolution Charles Darwin ( ): The Pioneer of General Evolution Alfred Russell Wallace ( ) Herbert Spencer ( ): The Pioneer of Social Evolution Bergson and Teilhard xi

10 xii Contents Henri Bergson ( ): The Pioneer of Creative Evolution Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( ): The Pioneer of Spiritual Evolution Evolutionary Scholarship of the Last Several Decades Vilmos Csanyi Stephen Jay Gould Eric Chaisson Richard Dawkins Daniel C. Dennett Sir Julian Huxley Allan Combs Ervin Laszlo The Story of Human and Societal Evolution: The Evolutionary Journey of Our Ancestors The Map of the Journey The Story of Our Ancestors The Model: Ladder or Tree? The Story of the Original Branching Meet Lucy and Her Clan: The Australopithecus afarensis Meet the "Handyman": Homo habilis Meet the Turkana Boy: Homo erectus Summary: From Ape to Homo The Crucial Transition Phase toward Homo sapiens Three Perspectives on Describing the Two Species Meet the "Dawn Man": The Story of Archaic sapiens Meet the Neanderthal: The Evolutionary Enigma Summary The Story of the Evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens Meet the First Generation of Homo sapiens: The Magician Artist When and Where The Cultural Evolutionary Model of the Cro-Magnons

11 Contents xiii The Cultural Evolutionary Model: Elaboration The Agricultural Revolution and the Emergence of Agriculture-Based Civilizations The Cultural Model of the Agricultural Village The Cultural Model of the Second Phase of the Second Generation HSS The Decline of Ancient Civilizations and the Emergence of New Civilizations The Sea Change of the Third Generation of Homo sapiens sapiens When and Where? The Evolutionary /Cultural Model of the Third Generation HSS An Overview of Part I PART II. THE JOURNEY FROM EVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS TO CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION 5. What Have We Learned from the Evolutionary Story? Perspectives and Propositions on Sociocultural Evolution Reflecting upon the Evolutionary Story Formulating Propositions about Sociocultural Evolution Images of Evolution Image 1: An Evolutionary Matrix The General Image of Cultural Models The Systems Image The Spiral Image of Human and Societal Evolution Another Systemic Discovery Organizing Principles of Evolutionary Consciousness The Principle of "Free Play" in the Evolutionary Design Space The Principle of Evolutionary Potential The Principle of Generative Order

12 xiv Contents The Principle of a Sudden Evolutionary Leap The Principle of Evolutionary Modeling The Wholeness Principle The Principle of Evolutionary Emergence The Principle of Ever Increasing Complexity The Principle of the Life Cycles of Evolution From Evolutionary Consciousness to Conscious Evolution Evolutionary Consciousness: The Springboard to Conscious Evolution The Emergence and Nature of Human Consciousness Consciousness as the Core-Marker of the Various Stages of our Evolution The Consciousness of Evolution Evolutionary Qualities The Epistemology of Evolution Our Epistemological Challenge The Current Evolutionary Landscape Our Current Evolutionary Predicament The New Realities Attitudes and Approaches toward Change Transition or Transformation? Making a Crucial Choice for Transformation Conscious Transformation: A First in Evolutionary History The When and How of Transformation Making It Happen Summary Calling for Conscious Evolution Ideas about Conscious Evolution Some Comprehensive Ideas about Conscious Evolution Csikszentmihalyi: Directing Evolution Hubbard: Conscious Evolution Salk: Conscious Evolution Eric Chaisson: Conscious Evolution; The Life Era

13 Contents XV Elgin: Reflective Consciousness in the Era of Communication and Reconciliation Jared Diamond: The Global Issue Fukuyama: The Great Disruption PART III. SELF-GUIDED EVOLUTION 8. Organizing Perspectives and Conditions of Engaging in Self-Guided Evolution Perspectives that Help Us to Organize Our Thinking About the Process of Evolutionary Design Complexity Nonlinear, Discontinuous Transformation by Transcendence Life Cycles of Evolutionary Generations The Evolutionary Design Space Evolutionary Potential Limits and Constraints Evolutionary Epistemology Organizing Perspectives of Conscious Evolution The Dawning of the Fourth Generation Signs of a Sea Change The Social Potential Movement The Cultural Creatives Conditions of Engaging in Conscious Evolution Developing Evolutionary Competence by Evolutionary Learning Acquiring the Will to Engage in Conscious Evolution Summary Self-Guided Societal Evolution Evolutionary Inquiry The Four Domains of Evolutionary Inquiry The Interaction of the Four Domains The Two Modes of Evolutionary Inquiry The Philosophical and Theoretical Bases of Evolutionary Inquiry

14 xvi Contents The Potential Contributions of Systems and Design Theory Ideas of Scholars of the "New Science" Conscious, Self-Guided Evolution: Definition and Exploration Who Should Be the Designers? Four Generations of Design Approaches Key Markers of the User-Designer Approach Special Benefits of the User-Designer Approach Summary An Epistemology of Conscious, Self-Guided Evolution Transcending the Existing State Strategies of Avoiding Big Change Approaches to Transcending the Existing State Envisioning a Guiding Image of Our Evolutionary Future Envisioning the Future Creating the Image of Our Evolutionary Future Evolutionary Guidance Systems From Evolution to Evolutionary Guidance to Evolutionary Guidance Systems Key Functions of Evolutionary Guidance Systems A Generic Evolutionary Guidance System Pitfalls to Avoid to Designing EGSs What If? An Example of an Evolutionary Guidance System Summary The Design of Evolutionary Guidance Systems A Generic Architecture for the Design of Evolutionary Systems The Definition Space The Knowledge Space The Design Solution Space The Evaluation and Experimentation Space The Modeling Space

15 Contents xvii Designing the Design Inquiry System Components of the Design Activity Architecture for Designing the Design Inquiry System The Dynamics of the Inquiry Designing the Evolutionary Guidance System A Description of the Design Spaces Design Dynamics The Workings of Design within the Architecture Modeling the Design Solution Designing the Evolutionary System Making a Distinction between the EGS and the ES The Design of the Evolutionary System Building a Design Culture Design Culture: What Is It and What It Means The Concept of the Design Culture Rationale for Building a Design Culture Building a Design Culture Summary The Agoras of the Twenty-First Century The New Agoras The Agora Experience of the Athenians The "Agora Concept" for the Twenty-First Century The Agora Experiences of Our Evolutionary Designing Communities The Qualities We Seek to Realize in Our Evolutionary Systems Qualities of the Designing System Essential Characteristics of the Agoras of the Twenty- First Century Evolutionary Ethics and Morality In Search of the Ideal: Nothing Less than the Ideal Creativity and Evolutionary Design Evolutionary Conversation The Evolutionary Designing Community

16 xviii Contents The Democratic Agenda for the New Agoras Summary and Conclusion A Closing Thought References Index

17 GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View