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I
was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding,
and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth
Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He
described this "great transition" thusly:
The Great Transition
(1964)
The twentieth century might be described as the crucial
central period in the third great transition in the state of
mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic
to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was
characterized by the invention of agriculture, the
domestication of animals, and the development of a settled
life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes
called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago,
was characterized by the development of political power and
the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in
cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to
civilizations. What is underway now is a third great
transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new
order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called
post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the
Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth
century is the crucial midstage of this transition which
will determine very largely whether it will be made
successful or not.
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER.
I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS:
The fact of the great transition is
not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has
simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to
the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living
in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If
anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust
back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would
feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his
vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He
would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the
restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel
indeed in an alien society.
....................................................
I, therefore, have no hesitation in
recommending the attitude toward the great transition which
I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times
when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for
then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in
this part of the universe would be terminated would be more
remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there
is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous
potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn
to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are
inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a
sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because
of the development of certain methods of reality testing
applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the
transition successfully we must apply these or similar
methods for reality testing to our images of man and his
society.
There is in the world today an
"invisible college" of people in many different countries
and many different cultures, who have this vision of the
nature of the transition through which we are passing and
who are determined to devote their lives to contributing
toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this
college is consistent with many different philosophical,
religious, and political positions. It is a college without
a founder and without a president, without buildings and
without organization. Its founding members might have
included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a
humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction
like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary
degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even
Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives
are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however,
that it is they who hold the future of the world in their
hands or at least in their minds.
For this invisible college I am an
unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that
this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue
green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the
most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a
position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There
are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in
different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be
my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am
desperately anxious that this particular experiment should
be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be
ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be
a success unless something is done. There is danger both of
the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of
exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of
the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely
capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the
thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought
of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it
is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1
and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself
he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the
planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and
variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential.
This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable,
and demands a desperate effort to remove them.
Jim
Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is
that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham
Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona
85353-2401
+1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel
jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/
Upcoming
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Sept 11-12, 2012
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2012
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See short
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--- On Fri,
7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote:
From:
R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re:
[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE
DAYS?
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>,
"Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date:
Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM
Jim,
By "peace" I meant something more than the
absence of war. I suppose I meant something like
"with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging
the dignity and worth of all." This may be
idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can
continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is
sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit
redundant.
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I
believe there is really one moral issue at a
time, but there must be many ways to describe it
and thus to articulate the question. With the
way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk
about one without eventually
getting into most of the others, and probably
even more difficult to finally boil it down to
"the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I
would have to say that the way we articulated it in
the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today
maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as
well.
One thing I do feel fairly certain about.
Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What
do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the
question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but
rather a "we" question.
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the
course of being in the world; not to be supported by it,
but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin
Buber (adapted)
WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION
THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i
recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow
down to just the questions that were posed. I
think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to
in his message. A couple of reflections:
Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the
phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church"
or "religious" what that might point to that would seem
true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne,
your response that there may not be "a" question, but many
and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got
me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things
in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto
mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health
care system in the US, and your comment came up for me,
and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking
too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs
are actually much more complicated. And that made
sense to both of us and moved the conversation on.
Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels .
"How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think
is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill
Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't
we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal
or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is
the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least,
seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to
be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are
getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's
garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT
Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to
miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff,
folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am
I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current
action of my soul? what was the question again?
Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues
of our moment? I think there are likely to be
several. Of course there are many, many but there are
probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single
one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious
complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of
our time.' There's not likely to be one for
everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill
Parker: What are the warning signs of the
destruction and endangerment of the entire human
community? Then ask, what is the underlying question
to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are
people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of
our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or
employ to radically reveal this all encompassing
truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not
have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth
community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right
question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee
Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his
mission? Can we re-answer the second question?
Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson
line and movement? The answer to the question of
mission will carry the first of who. (At least here
in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission
changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on
purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy
Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what
is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two
questions. How may "we" (all species) live
together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures
life for future generations? What is the new face,
form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the
invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what
stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan
Sanders: What are the key images of the future of
evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to
say it, eh? What does it look like to be the
Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where?
Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and
reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the
people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our
working together to make that survival possible?" I
like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be
one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone
suggested. David Walters: in the midst of
a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling
economic and political elite, what can we do to support
and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both
the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both
effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles:
Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the
religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the
'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what
are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share
(and how) with them so that they are empowered and
connected?". The "we" in the question should refer
to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take
seriously the answers. Janice
Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the
questions to live with: Considering what we
were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we
called to know/do/be? What are some of the important
partnerships the future needs? Missed the
name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell
his name?) Something about the sensitive and
something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is "
MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH
EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched
to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan
and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be,
what is our calling? What are we called to
know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the
important partnerships the future needs? Jim
Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and
do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno:
"How are we to live together and preserve this planet for
the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot
live in the afternoon of life according to the program of
life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be
of little importance in the evening, and what in the
morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” –
Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming
public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation
Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct
9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st
Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our
Mastering the Technology of Participation program is
available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov
14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55
and website for further details.
_______________________________________________ OE
mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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