DIALECTIC, COSMOS AND SOCIETY
Issue Number Five
Introduction
P. S. Gurevich: Some Remarks on the Intuitive Perception of Reality
Boris Gubman: The Postmodern Epoch:The Contemporary World and Universal Values
Anthony and Maggie Mansueto: The Next Steps in the Human Civilizational Project
Introduction
In this issue of Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society we bring our readers two
articles from philosophers in the Russian Federation. The first, by Pavel
Gurevich, a department head at the Institute of Philosophy in the Russian
Academy of Sciences, makes a strong case for the role of intuition in the
human creative process generally, and in the production of knowledge in
particular. By intuition we mean the capacity to perceive complex, often
highly abstract patterns and relationships. Intuition played a vitally
important role in the theories of knowledge developed by Socratic and
later Scholastic philosophy, as well as by Spinoza and Hegel. For Plato,
and later for Spinoza rational intuition represented the pinnacle of human
rational activity, the direct knowledge of the "community and
interrelationship of all things" which was achieved only at the end of the
long journey of the dialectic. For Aristotle, and for most of the
dialectical tradition, on the other hand, it has been regarded as a first
step in the rational process, a source of insights which must then be
tested by experiment or critical analysis, in order to generate the
systematic knowledge of the whole which is the ultimate aim of human
knowledge. Dr. Gurevich seems to stand between these two extremes,
arguing that intuition represents an independent, though not necessarily
superior, route to understanding the complex synergistic integrity of the
universe as a whole. He stresses the role of intuition in the sciences, and
argues that we are witnessing the emergence of a new scientific paradigm
which restores intuition to its rightful place in the scientific process, and
which once again makes rational knowledge of the universe as a whole
the ultimate object of scientific research.
Our second article, by Prof. Boris Gubman, continues our coverage of
the "search for universal human values" currently underway in the
former Soviet bloc. While recognizing the challenges posed by
postmodernism, he stresses enduring value of "humanistic rationality,"
as the basis for an understanding of such transcendental values as the
Beautiful, the True, the Good, and the One, and as the only realistic
basis for "productive dialogue between the peoples of the world in the
solution of contemporary global problems."
Both articles reflect the extraordinary creativity of contemporary Russian
philosophy. We can only hope that the current crisis in the former Soviet
bloc does not completely dismantle the extraordinary cultural apparatus
which produces thought of this kind.
Our final article is a joint statement by the editors on the current crisis
of, and next steps in, the human civilizational process. We argue that
the current crisis is fundamentally a crisis of values. The penetration of
market relations into every sphere of human life, now unchecked by the
conservative influence of the socialist regimes, makes all activity into
simply a means of realizing individual consumer interests, and eroding
humanity's capacity to comprehend its critical role in as an active
participant in the self-organizing activity of the cosmos. At the same
time, the past quarter century has witnessed an revolution in our
understanding of the natural world. Unified field theories, complex
systems theory, postdarwinian evolutionary biology, and anthropic
cosmology together suggest that the universe is a relational, self-
organizing teleological system in which the human civilizational project
plays a critical, leading role. This new understanding of matter as
relational and self-organizing, furthermore, suggests fundamentally new
ways to approach the basic tasks of social life itself --including the task
of reorganizing human society and transcending the marketplace. If we
can grasp the philosophical and practical implications of the new science
of organization, then humanity's future, and its place in the larger
process of cosmic evolution, appear brilliant.
Some Remarks on the Intuitive Perception of Reality
P. S. Gurevich
Nobody seems to question the fact that intuition is a wonderful human
gift. Yet traditional theories of cognition view it as a wild man in a
restless mind. It is remembered when an fatigued mind pauses in its
advance toward the truth. This is when intuition is called for and the
latent work of the mind begins to bear fruit. A spark of revelation
crowns the analytical work of the intellect, displaying the inexhaustible
potential of reflection. This is the way the human mind draws on the
fine mechanisms of subconscious creativity and sudden insight.
As is well known, most scientific discoveries are made in an
unpredictable manner. Indeed, reflective thinking is closely associated
with creative impulse. Scientific effort is somewhat akin to artistic
effort. According to Bertrand Russell, Einstein began his discovery of
the theory of relativity by probing poetically into truth. The German
chemist Friedrich Kekule arrived at his concept of the benzene ring (the
cyclic formula of benzene), because it seemed to him that this formula
was reminiscent of a snake with its tail in its mouth.
What can we conclude from these examples? There can be no human
quest for truth without intuition, but what role does it actually play in a
keen perception of reality? It seems as though it would fit as a mere
prop. Were it not for intelligence, intuition would have been a blind
guide. In other words, intuition supplements the intellect, while at the
same time competing with its perception of the world. As an
independent tool of cognition, intuition lacks the most essential properties
characteristic of intelligence.
Thus it does not occur to anyone to downgrade the role of intuition. It
is given its due, but only within certain limits or as long as it is tested
by intelligence. Nobody seems to have expressed this idea more aptly
than the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev. Discussing the absolute
origin, he pointed to a central idea which, he believed, is perceptible
only through contemplation or intuition. Such intuition, he thought, is
an actual property of the human spirit. This is precisely why, Solov'ev
noted, "the meaning of the absolute can and should be rationalized by the
reflection of our mind and reduced to a logical system... (Solov'ev 1988:
256)."
In the philosopher's opinion, the existence of ideal intuition has been
proven beyond any doubt, though creativity in art. Ideal images
embodied by the artist in his works are not merely a reproduction of the
phenomena observed. Everyone knows that neither abstract rationality
nor slavish imitation of the reality are helpful in creative work.
Solov'ev gained interesting insight into intuition. The philosopher
opposed this insight which viewed something directly as true, proper,
good or beautiful, and preferred reflective thinking. While he believed
that intuition could not be denied as a fact, he deemed it incorrect to
view it as the supreme form of philosophic cognition putting reflective
thinking in the shade (USSR Philosophical Society 1991b: 561).
Can we agree with Solov'ev? Not really. In our opinion, intuition does
not serve mere as an exhaust valve for the mind. It is a fully
independent and self-sufficient instrument of world perception. It seems
limited only in relation to logical construction. In reality it is all-
embracing and all-pervasive. In this sense, intuitive perception is akin
to mystic experience, grasping reality in its integrity and indivisibility.
The ancient mystics knew this and so do the people. That is why a
naive, prephilosophical mentality always finds itself somewhat impaired
and dulled by the development of an anti-intuitive rationalism, which it
feels degrades our ability to grasp whole systems.
Today, we have become aware that mysticism is by no means a
collection of naive illusion and blind beliefs obscuring the glittering light
of intelligence. Rather, the ancient spiritual traditions have strong
prognostic potential and are a rich source of philosophical insights. They
point towards a new creative religious epoch.
The philosopher William James attempted to isolate some common
features of mystic experience in his book The Varieties of Religious
Experience. He called the first feature "nonverbalization." A person
confronted by a mystical experience cannot communicate this experience
verbally to others, any more than one could communicate verbally the
experience of a symphony or of profound love.
The second feature of mystic experience is intuition. Mystic states make
it possible to guess and anticipate some truths long before they are
established on a rational basis. It is with the aid of intuition that a
mystic is able to grasp the primal unity of all things. Intense
"communion with God" may wrest from Nature knowledge of some
mysteries which science will only later establish through analysis and
experimentation.
Spellbound by the achievements of science our contemporaries have
viewed with suspicion the intuitive ways of comprehending reality. But
the ancients knew more than we do. Physicists creating a picture of the
universe discovered some outlines of their cosmogonies in Indian and
Buddhist Tantras. Intensive care specialists read the Tibetan Book of the
Dead as if it were a medical text. Psychologists explaining the phantoms
of consciousness turn to shamanism.
There are, in fact, complex, multidimensional links between mystical
intuition and
scientific discovery. It was mysticism which gave rise to the idea of an
all-embracing, universal and integral world. There were epochs when
science built on mystical intuition. When intuition was purged from the
scientific process, science lost as a result. It began to atomize intuition.
The great mystics of the Middle Ages, J. Boehme, P. Paracelsus, and J.
Eckhart possessed an enormous gift of knowledge. As Berdayev put it
"truth may be revealed through the art of Dante and Dostoevsky, or the
mysticism of Jakob Boehme to a far greater extent than through a Cohen
or a Husserl."
The strongest point of may occult doctrines is the theory of a cosmic
nature of humans. It was the mystics alone who realized that everything
occurring within a human being is of global significance and leaves its
imprint on the cosmos. They also realized that spiritual, elemental forces
within a human being are cosmic and that all accretions of the world may
be found in a single person. For instance, K to mystics, anger is not
only an elemental manifestation of the human soul, but also an elemental
manifestation of the cosmos. Astrology, Berdayev noted, detect the
indissoluble links between human beings and the cosmos.
The 16th and 17th centuries saw the development of specific relations
between the mystical, spiritual tradition and scientific knowledge.
Theoretical discoveries were not infrequently made as a result of an
occult (secret, mysterious) perception of the world's laws. Sometimes
the "mystical" and "scientific" formed an made unity in the writings of
the same author. While developing astronomy, J. Kepler was strongly
influenced by the ideas of heavenly perfection. Likewise, the head of the
English Rosenkreuzers, R. Fladd, tried to disclose the divine harmony
with the aid of circles, triangles, and other geometric figures.
The French historian of science J. Galbronne believes that astrology is
the major component of Kepler's cosmology because it provides a link
between an individual and the cosmos. Kepler was enraptured by the
magic of numbers, and for a long time based his research on a seven
note scale. It should not be forgotten, however, that during the
Renaissance and the scientific revolution of the 16th-18th centuries the
supernatural was viewed as a legitimate domain of the natural sciences.
This view was shared by Kepler, Copernicus, Boyle, and Newton.
Accordingly, reliance on intuition and the imaginative resources of the
mind was considered a productive road to the truth.
During the Renaissance, mathematics not only continued to develop
geometry and algebra, but the occult science of numbers as well. As the
English physicist D. Bom correctly points out, in Newton's days
theologians and scientists formed an alliance in the home of solving
fundamental problems. There was nothing wrong with this polyphony
and indeed, mysticism, theology and science were closely interrelated
until the end of the 17th century. On the contrary, any interplay of
traditions enabled each discovery to be linked to a spiritual orientation
which frequently enriched the overall perception of the world.
But then there were serious changes in the dominant scientific paradigm.
Enamored with the achievements of mechanics and the theory of
evolution science abandoned the quest to comprehend the integrity and
universality of being. The spiritual roots of science were severed. It
lost its metaphysical and moral dimension. Contemplative and intuitive
components of cognition were relegated to a secondary status at best. As
M. Voloshin wrote:
The mind was so incisive ...
That matter itself dried up
And melted when touched by hands.
The dubious eternity of substance
Remained the only object you could sense.
Voloshin clearly recognized the dangers inherent in imposing a taboo on
"revelation, mystery, ecstasy" and anything else which could not be
reduced to mechanics.
Now, however, things are changing once again. Science does not develop
in a cumulative fashion, and the philosophy of science is calling for a
reassessment. Consider, for example, the discoveries of physicist David
Bom. His studies reject the description of the being as mosaic of
disconnected elements. The world, for him, is an integral and indivisible
unity. Bom, furthermore, considers any theory of the cosmos incomplete
unless it takes mind into account. Bom, like many physicists, seems
increasingly inclined to the view that the Universe itself resembles some
kind of all-pervasive intelligence.
Of critical importance here is the so-called holographic model of the
mind. In the late 1960s the American psychologist and neuro-physicist
K. Pribram posed to himself the question: in what part of the brain is
memory localized? Successively eliminating various segments of the
brain, he reached the conclusion that the accumulated information may
be focused anywhere, and in any cell. According to the holographic
principle, any part of the brain may be used to reproduce the entire
initial image.
David Bom adopted Pribram's idea that the material structure of the
world resembled a gigantic hologram. This became the watchword of a
new scientific paradigm. if every part of the Universe reflects its entire
structure, it is possible to determine, on this basis, a universal archetype
of general relationships. But this, according to Bom, is not rigidly
linked to microstructure. The Universe is like the Heraclitean stream
whose majestic flow is called "holokinesis."
We are thus witnessing the transcendence of the mechanistic
understanding of the world. Intuition and logic interact in scientific
creativity. The intuitive insights of many contemporary scientists reveal
the underlying simplicity of the cosmos in a holistic, all-encompassing
view which has much in common with the mystic revelations of the
ancient shamans.
So far we have discussed mainly theories drawn from the natural
sciences. But the role of intuitive insights in history, philosophy,
sociology, psychology, and the other humanistic disciplines is even more
striking. For instance, there are trends in philosophy which attach
enormous significance to intuitive perception. Henri Bergson believed
that intuition and intellect represent two separate paths in the functioning
of the mind. Intuition moves towards life itself, and intellect in the
opposite direction, thus finding itself under the sway of matter rather
than spirit. Many difficulties will be alleviated or disappear for one who
dissolves intellect in intuition. Individuals will no longer feel lonely in
the midst of the crowd, or humanity in the fact of the natural world.
According to the Bergsonian "philosophy of life" all living beings cling
to one another and respond to the same mighty impulse. Animals depend
on plants, humans on animals, and all humanity marches shoulder to
shoulder through time and space.
Not only the philosophy of life, but also existentialism, personalism, and
psychoanalysis attach paramount importance to intuition. These trends
often formulate problems in the shape of insoluble riddles. Only by
intuition can the philosopher grow accustomed to the problem and
reproduce its spiritual and emotional configuration. A logical analysis
is impossible in this system.
There can be no doubt that the world is on the threshold of a new
scientific paradigm. This new paradigm will radically transform our
views of the world and of ourselves as human beings. It may well
bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, between
oriental mysticism and Western pragmatism, between intelligence and
intuition. A note of caution is, however, in order. The wounds inflicted
against science by militant materialists in their campaigns against
genetics, cybernetics, and cosmology are still sore. Surely we will want
to avoid retaliation against science from the opposite direction. We
cannot immediately tear down all of the barriers which science has
erected to protect itself.
What we can do, however, is to begin a dialogue and to lay the ground
work for a productive partnership. Mysticism and science, intuition and
intelligence are different ways of grasping the same thing: the underlying
unity of the Universe.
References
Berdayev, N.A.
1989 The Philosophy of Freedom. The Meaning of Creativity.
Moscow
Gurevich, P.S.
1984 Has Mysticism Been Revived. Moscow
James, W.
1910 Varieties of Religious Experience. Moscow
Solov'ev, V.
1988 Works. Moscow
USSR Philosophical Society
1991a New Ideals in Philosophy. Moscow:
1991b The World of Philosophy. Moscow
Voloshin, M.
1988 Works. Moscow
The Postmodern Epoch:
The Contemporary
World and
Universal Values
Boris Gubman
The twentieth century, which has given
mankind both the triumphs of scientific
reason and disillusionment with its
achievements, engendering apocalyptic
prophecies of the coming end of
history, is nearing its end. The
tragedy of two world wars, bloody
tyrannies of totalitarian regimes,
growing scientific-technological and
military alienation, and the danger of
nuclear and ecological catastrophes are
motivating thinkers of our century to
profound pessimism. There is a
tendency to reconsider the foundations
of classical Western European
philosophy, to question the
understanding of humanity, the values,
the destiny of cultural-historical
development that prevailed in the
Renaissance and early modern period.
At the same time, this very
complicated situation urgently demands
an understanding of history in its unity,
the global vision of the world
community, stimulating the search for
universal human values capable of
bringing together the people of our
planet to find solutions to our common
problems.
In his philosophy of history, Hegel
characterized modernity as a period,
"when the spirit understands itself as
free, because it aspires to reach the
true, the eternal, the universal in and
for itself."(Hegel:1935) In his words
one can see the essence of classical
Western European thought--the belief
in the power of free reason to
comprehend the absolute rational
foundations of the universe. J.
Habermas is right in labeling it the
philosophy of subjectivity. The ideas
of humanism, rationality and
historicism are very specific to the
classical philosophy of modernity. The
Post-Renaissance thought inherited the
humanistic belief in the self-value of
humanity, being an end in himself, not
simply a tool. The philosophers of this
time were convinced of the universal
opportunities of reason, its ability to
understand the structure of the universe
and to create harmony in the human
world. Global historicism with its
substantial vision of social development
and utopian ideals of the future that
accompany them also belong to the
foundations of European modernist
philosophy.
Already J.-J. Rousseau and the
representatives of romaniticism
questioned the optimism of the
philosophy of modernity, but a radical
critique of it had to wait until the
second part of the nineteenth century,
when F. Nietzsche tried to re-evaluate
all values in Christian culture. In the
last thirty years, Western thinkers have
been thoroughly discussing the problem
of postmodernism, revising the
foundations of classical European
philosophy. The names of F.
Nietzsche, M. Weber, T. Adorno, M.
Horkheimer, M. Heidegger, M.
Foucault, J. Derrida, and G. Bataille
are clearly among the founders of the
radical deconstruction of the European
cultural-historical tradition. Some
philosophers think that the postmodern
style of thinking means the total
rejection of the classical
legacy.(Lyotard: ) Others, following
J. Habermas, rightly believe that it is
impossible to break with it, but it is
necessary to reconsider it.
(Habermas:1985)
What are the main points of argument
between comtemporary Western
authors and the classical philosophy of
modernity? They are well summarized
by J.-M. Benoist as connected with the
reconsideration of the central ideas of
post-Renaissance thought, the
philosophy of subjectivity. He speaks
first of all about "the end of the
humanistic self-mystification and
theology of Man, this deviation of the
anthropological project into
anthropotheology." (Benoist: 1980)
The foundations of rationalistic
thinking, the belief in the self-
sufficiency of human subjectivity and
the universality of the categoriees of
Western reason for the understanding
of the world are also under his attack.
Benoist is also against any
interpretation of history "as a moving
totality, directed by a certain
meaning." (Benoist:1980, p.67) The
demarcation line drawn by the French
philosopher between classical thought
and the postmodernist understanding of
the world raises many important
questions. Why is this perspective of
disbelief in humanism appearing? In
what form is it possible as a guiding
principle for people in the
contemporary world? What are the
tasks of reason, its possibilities and
boundaries today? In what way can
humanity today understand its place in
the totality of history, taking into
account the complexity of the situation
of the world community?
Nietzsche was one of the first thinkers
in the West to notice the symptoms of
the crisis of Western European
humanistic culture and its connections
with the Judeo-Christian understanding
of the world, rationalizing and
moralizing the universe. M. Weber
saw its roots in the overexaggeration of
the aim-oriented action, formal
rationality that predetermined the
destiny of the West in the modern
world. In disaccord with Nietzschee,
who wanted to overthrow the
foundations of European culture and
stresses the necessity of the appearance
of a superman, Weber rightly believed
that scientific reason must be guided by
humanistic values in the final instance.
In reality, the destiny of European
culture was connected to a great extent
with the rationalization of the universe
of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the
Middle Ages, man was trying to
comprehend such definitions of God as
Truth, Beauty and Good. The culture
of this period was based on the legacy
of Antiquity which created an arsenal
of essence-categorical means for the
understanding of being. Following
these categories, Nietzschean views
find their continuation in Heideggerian
criticism of metaphysics, in the
interpretation of the Enlightenment
proposed by Adorno and Horkheimer,
in Derrida's grammatology. The
Renaissance combined in itself the
Christian ferment with
anthropocentrism, which was often
reproducing the reverence before the
body that was specific of Angiquity.
The New Age is marked by the spirit
of man's conquest of nature and social
reality. Since this time the spheres of
Truth, Beauty, and Good are divorced,
becoming autonomous, formal
rationality with its universal calculation
of all factors and manipulation of
nature and society prevails. Not only
economic life, but also social, political,
and spiritual spheres are rationalized.
A very interesting analysis of the
technology of power, developed by
Foucault concerning this period,
exhibits the mechanism of regulations
of the functioning of body and spirit,
starting from the early bourgeois
society (Foucault:1988, p. 158). At
the same time Foucault agrees that the
existence of the net of social institutes,
limiting the activity of man, does not
exclude the law guarantees of the
freedom of personality. It is abolished
only in the twentieth century by fascist
and communist regimes, under which
formal rationality devours all
opportunities for personal freedom. By
way of paradox this extreme realization
of the ideal fo formal rationality goies
to the absurdity and testifies in favor of
the humanistic values: totalitarian
societies, suppressing personality,
bringing its rights and liberties to the
zero level, are unable to guarantee the
development of the economy, social
and spiritual spheres. They are
doomed by history.
A very complicated situation of the
final of the twentieth century paves the
way for the acceptance of the
imperative of fundamental value of
human personality and mankind,
stimulates the understanding of the
importance of the unioty of Truth,
Beauty, and Good. Humanism is
defended today by lay and religious
thinkers getting into a productive
dialogue. At the end of the century the
Christian-humanistic ideas of J.
Maritain, G. Marcel, E. Mournier, K.
Rahner, P. Teilhard de Chardin, P.
Tillich, N. Berdyaev, D. Merezkovski
and others are becoming more and
more significant. The ecumenical
vision of history of the Post-Christian
type, proposed by A. J. Toynbee and
K. Jaspers, is also widespread. The
humanistic ideas are supported by
different non-Christian confessions.
The secular humanism of E. Frommm,
J. Habermas and B.-H. Levy is very
symptomatic of our epoch. Habermas
thinks that I. Kant's categorical
imperative has not lost its significance
in our century. Levy, arguing with the
"new right philosophy", is in complete
agreement with this point of view
(Levy:1979, p. 144). The humanistic
platform is a sound alternative to the
conservatism of the right and to the
left-wing nihilistic radicalism.
The reason is no longer aspiring to
comprehend nature and social life in an
absolute way in the postmodern period,
because of the hermeneutical situation
that accompanies it. Nevertheless, the
reason is to guarantee the primacy of
humanistic values over any kind of
aim-oriented action. The reason is not
humiliated by the fact of the historical
limits of its competence connected with
the type of rationality of this or that
epoch, forms of discouse, language
means. People, existing in different
cultures, can use various value
standards, types of rationality, but the
contemporary situation stimulates their
search for the universal values. The
postmodern epoch is not only orienting
reason towards the reflection
concerning its limits, but is also
lelading it to the new universalism:
without doing away with the mosaic of
existing cultures, the reason can
facilitate their unity in the dialogue.
The substantialist schemes of the
historical process and global utopias of
the future have lost their popularity.
The historicism is stested in the
atmosphere of anti-utopia. It is very
difficult to confirm the ability of reason
to see the meaning of history after so
many deconstructions, which followed
the Nietzsche genealogy of morality,
after so many accusations that
accompany any attempt to interpret the
totality of history. In spite of this
situation the hermeneutical reason is
not to forget the perspective of the
global vision of history: the
knowledge about the past can be made
more concrete in the light of the
cultural-historical tradition,
reconsidered from the contemporary
horizon, evaluated from the point of
view of eternal humanistic values. The
comprehension of history in its unity
reveals the ties between all countries
and nations of the world, enriches our
understanding of the present. Looking
at history through the horizon of the
universal values of life, human gender,
personality and its freedom, democracy
and justice, culture with its orientation
towards Truth, Beauty, and Good, we
have the opportunity of a more deep
understanding of contemporary events.
The postmodern criticism of the New
Age can have tragic results, if the
hermeneutical reason does not learn
how to interpret history in its totality,
including the variety of existing and
disappearing cultures, bringing their
gifts for mankind. Rejecting utopias,
it must find prospects for the future.
Renewed humanism, bassed on the
hermeneutical reason and
nonsubstantial historicism, is necessary
for the solution of the complexity of
social and cultural problems in the
contemporary world. Teh guarantees
of the primacy of the humanistic
rationality is the necessary basis of the
productivity of the dialogue between
different countries and peoples of the
world in solving contemporary global
problems.
References
Benoist, J.-M. La revolution structurale.
P., 1980.
Foucault, M. "The Political Technology of
Individuals," in Techologies of the Self:
A Seminar with Michel Foucault.
Amherst, 1988.
Habermas, J. Der philosophische Discurs
der Moderne. Fr.a.M., 1989.
"Questions and Counterquestions," in
Habermas and Modernity. Cambridge,
1985.
Hegel, G. V. F. Sochinenya. M.;L.,
1935. T.8.
Levy, B.-H. Le Testament de Dieu. P.,
1979.
Lyotard, J.-F. La conditione postmoderne.
P., 1979.
The Next Steps in the
Human Civilizational
Project
Anthony Mansueto
and Maggie Mansueto
Human civilization stands at a
crossroads. The emerging science of
organization has made it possible
for human beings to comprehend,
and to realize, their vocation in the
cosmos in a qualitatively more
complex fashion. We have, for the
first time, the scientific basis for
grasping matter itself as relationship,
holism, organization, and
development, and for comprehending
the social form of matter as a real
participation in the self-organizing
activity of the cosmos. This new
science has opened up the road to the
development of new energy sources,
new ways of approaching the
production process, new ways of
centralizing and allocating resources,
building and exercising power, and
organizing our experience of the
world.
At the same time, the marketplace
continues to hold back the full
realization of this potential. The
integrity of the ecosystem and the
social fabric continue to erode. We
face constantly increasing difficulties
in centralizing the resources
necessary for investment in
infrastructure, education, research,
and development. And, perhaps
most ominous, the people have
become ever more deeply mired in a
nihilistic consumerism. Socialism,
which for 150 years offered humanity
the hope of transcending the limits
imposed by the marketplace on the
development of human social
capacities, has effectively collapsed.
Many have concluded that
the ideas of "the common
good" and "social progress"
were ultimately just illusions.
In the face of this situation many
have concluded that the ideas of "the
common good" and "social progress"
were ultimately just illusions, a kind
of "religious residue" which
remained even in such secular
ideologies as socialism, and that a
mature humanity is obliged to live
with the knowledge that not only the
cosmos as a whole, but even human
history, aren't going anywhere in
particular. The only alternative to
this kind of postmodern nihilism
seems to be religious irrationalism,
which imports into nature and history
the meaning which reason can no
longer find there, or else promises
redemption in a "beyond" in which
the ultimate meaninglessness of
nature and history are transcended.
Both options drain energy away from
efforts to come to terms with the
current crisis.
I would like to suggest a different
perspective on the current crisis.
Specifically, I would like to suggest
that a correct appreciation of the real
causes of the crisis of socialism,
coupled with an appropriation of the
results of the current scientific
revolution, in fact points us towards
a radically new understanding of the
human vocation and its place in the
cosmos. There is growing evidence
not only that the cosmos is a
relational, self-organizing,
teleological system, but that the
social form of matter --human
civilization-- plays a necessary role in
cosmic evolution. This new
understanding of matter as a self-
organizing system also has profound
practical implications for the way in
which we approach the fundamental
tasks of human social life:
socialization, production, centralizing
and allocating resources, building and
exercising power, and organizing our
experience of the cosmos.
In order to demonstrate this thesis,
we need to situate the current crisis
in the context of the human
civilizational project generally.
I. The Crisis of the Human
Civilizational Project
Historically, humanity has understood
itself as part of an organized cosmic
totality. This sense of the cosmos as
an organized totality derived
immediately from the experience of
the village community, which
provided the matrix of social
relations which permitted the
development of such concepts as
order and organization, the
relationship of whole and part, force
and law, etc. (Durkheim 1911/1965).
Indeed, the Hellenic word kosmos,
like the Slavic mir, means "village
community," "universe," and "right
order for the community (Bogdanov
1928/1980, Mandel 1968: 30-36,
Wolf 1969: 58-63, Hayek 1973:
37)."
Later, as the village community came
under the sway of the warlord states
and emerging petty commodity
production (Amin 1980), human
society began to seem increasingly
out of harmony with the underlying
structures of the universe. Prophets
called the people back to fidelity to
the law (Tao or Dharma, Torah or
Dike). Philosophers began to seek
an objective, rational basis for
judgements of value (Mansueto
1992). They found this basis in the
ordered harmonies of mathematics --
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and
music. Plato taught that the study of
these subjects would bring the soul
back into harmony with the cosmos,
and prepare it to grasp the dialectical
"community and inter-relationship of
all things" which was the foundation
of the transcendental values. Indeed,
it would not be too much to say that
before the industrial, democratic, and
scientific revolutions, it was order (or
harmony) itself which was regarded
as the principal value (Plato 1968,
Aristotle 1973, Aquinas 1948).
From the standpoint of the great
world religions and the philosophical
tradition human civilization formed
an integral part of a universal cosmic
order. Human civilization had
meaning in so far as it was itself, and
helped to bring the individual soul,
into harmony with that order. At the
same time the low level of
development of human organizing
capacities meant that human beings
did not seem to be real participants in
the self-organizing activity of the
cosmos. The organizing principle
was regarded as radically distinct
from matter and thus incapable of
realization in the material world.
Human civilization itself added
nothing to the cosmos, and certainly
did not affect the basic structure of
being, or participate in the
formulation of the ultimate principles
of value. Thus the otherworldliness
of the great world religions, which,
even when they aspired to realizing
the Kingdom of God on earth,
thought that it was possible to do so
only on the basis of divine
intervention.
The emergence of capitalism had a
contradictory impact on the human
civilizational project. On the one
hand, the industrial, democratic, and
scientific revolutions vastly increased
the level of human organizing
capacities, making human beings real
participants in the creation of order
and organization. At the same time,
the emergence of a market economy
gradually destroyed the village
community and undermined the social
basis for humanity's grasp of the
universe as an organized totality.
The relational cosmology of the
religious and philosophical tradition
gave way to an atomistic paradigm
which regarded the universe as a
system of particles related to each
other only in an external manner --a
reflex of the way human beings
related to each other in the
marketplace.
These developments had a profound
impact on the way in which humanity
understood its vocation in the
cosmos. On the one hand, the pace
of social progress quickened. New
technologies emerged one after
another, production grew, networks
of trade and communication
expanded, integrated nation states
emerged, and art and science
flourished. It all had to be going
somewhere. At the same time, the
mediation of these developments
through the marketplace made it
increasingly difficult for humanity to
even think about the ultimate end for
which it labored. Market societies
appear as simply an aggregate of
billions of social atoms, each with its
own interests, and devoid of any
overarching teleology --at least any
teleology accessible to human reason.
For the great Reformed theologians
this was simply a function of the
radical transcendence of God and the
inscrutability of his cosmic plan.
Humanity was called on to submit to
the divine will just as it submitted to
the incomprehensible dictates of the
marketplace. English and Scottish
philosophers such as Mandeville and
Smith (Smith 1776/1976) began to
speak of vice as a catalyst for the
progress of civilization, and of the
"invisible hand" which insured that
even as individuals pursued their own
self interest, the common good was
served, and human civilization
progressed. But the truth was that,
productive as it had become,
humanity was lost in a frenzy of self-
seeking, and rarely stopped to
contemplate its vocation.
When people did stop to think, they
were confronted with some rather
unpleasant news. An atomistic
universe might be ordered, in the
sense of behaving in accord with
fixed natural laws, but it could hardly
be teleological in character. Human
society seemed increasingly like an
island of meaning in an otherwise
meaningless cosmos. It is little
wonder that, at the very moment of
its triumph, capitalism gave birth to
a whole ensemble of pessimistic,
even nihilistic philosophies, such as
those of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard,
and Nietchze.
There was, to be sure, one great
attempt to show that human
purposefulness, as expressed in the
socialization process, in labor, in the
state, and in art, religion and
philosophy, is itself the "truth" or
realization of an underlying cosmic
dialectic which was implicit from the
beginning in the very simplest forms
of matter. This was, of course, the
philosophy of Hegel. For Hegel, the
whole cosmos was simply the
necessary self-objectification of the
Idea, which gradually became
conscious of itself through the long,
slow, and often contradictory
progress of natural evolution and
human history. From this
standpoint, the human civilizational
project was nothing other than
"God's march through history," the
process by which God became
conscious of himself.
But Hegel's philosophy was
undermined from two directions. On
the one hand, Hegel himself, while
intensely aware of the alienation
generated by the marketplace
(Avineri 1972), tended to muffle his
critique, and offered very little in the
way of a vision of a postmarket
society or a strategy for social
transformation. Indeed, he seemed
inclined to the view that the
alienation characteristic of the
marketplace could be transcended
practically only when the state
mobilized the masses for war, and
theoretically only in philosophy and
(for the masses) in religion. The
Hegelian right, and objective idealism
generally, tended to opt for
irrationalist and authoritarian
solutions to the social disintegration
engendered by the marketplace. This
was the road which led ultimately
towards national socialism (Lukacs
1953/1976).
At the same time, the natural science
of the day simply didn't support
Hegel's dialectical, holistic, and
teleological cosmology. Atomism
remained the dominant scientific
paradigm, and the behavior of both
inorganic and organic systems was
conceived on an atomistic model.
This was especially true after the
middle of the nineteenth century,
when Hermann von Helmholtz
announced the impending "heat
death" of the universe, and Darwin
theorized biological evolution using a
model drawn from bourgeois political
economy. The Hegelian left, and
especially the dialectical materialist
tradition, thus tended to make a sharp
distinction between Hegel's
dialectical method, and his logical
and cosmological system. With the
exception of a relatively few,
ultimately unsuccessful efforts,
(Engels 1880/1940) the dialectic was
increasingly restricted to the sphere
of human activity, and specifically to
the human labor process, which alone
gave meaning to an otherwise
meaningless universe (Lukacs 1976).
As Marx took up the challenge of
helping humanity to transcend the
marketplace, he did so with the
conviction that the values he was
promoting were a product of the
internal logic of human society --
specifically of the labor process-- and
not of some larger cosmic dialectic.
Herein lies the underlying cause of
the crisis of socialism. The internal
logic of human society is itself a
product of human action and thus
subject to transformation through
conscious, rational collective action.
Moral norms derived from the logic
of human social life thus began to
look increasingly like mere
expressions of the will of one or
another social group --like alibis for
individual or collective self-interest
rather than authentic moral norms.
This tended to undermine the
axiological authority of socialism,
which was increasingly regarded as
the meaning humanity gave to its
own history rather than as the
expression of an underlying drive
towards organized complexity written
into the fabric of being itself. Or,
when an attempt was made to recuse
the ontological foundations of
socialism, this was done by endowing
humanity or "the historical process"
with the full burden of authority
historically carried by God, with
results which were philosophically
absurd and historically tragic.
It is in this context that we must
understand the emergence of
"postmodern" skepticism regarding
"rationalist metanarratives" (Lyotard
1984) --i.e. regarding the effort to
grasp nature and/or history as a
unified totality. "Postmodernism," as
it has come to be called, is defined
by an "incredulity toward
metanarratives" (Lyotard 1984: xxiv)
which claim that science can grasp
the underlying structure of reality and
thereby contribute to the "dialectics
of Spirit, the hermeneutics of
meaning, the emancipation of the
rational or the working subject, or
the creation of wealth (xxiii)."
Indeed, most postmodernists argue
more or less strongly that it is
precisely this claim to grasp the
"standpoint of totality" which lies
behind the "terrorism" and
"totalitarianism" of the modern
period (1984:82). Postmodernism
proposes, through its
"deconstructive" activity to relativize
the grand narratives which legitimate
the totalitarian project, and thus to
free humanity from its "nostalgia for
the whole."
Some have opted for a more or less
thoroughgoing nihilism. This is
certainly true for the French
poststructuralists and their followers
around the world. But there is a
broader sense in which liberation
theology (Boff 1987),
communitarianism (Bellah 1985,
1991, MacIntyre 1981, 1988, Walzer
1983), neoconservative tendencies
such as the Communio-theology (von
Balthasar 1968), and religious
fundamentalism are all
"postmodern." Like the French
poststructuralists these trends all
reject the possibility of a unified,
rational theory of nature and history.
They differ from the
poststructuralists principally in that
they seek to import into history the
meaning which reason cannot find,
whether from a "political reading of
the scriptures," from various civic
and religious traditions understood as
sociological and institutional realities,
or from the text of the scriptures or
the pronouncements of the
magisterium.
But the postmodernists misunderstand
the underlying cause of the crisis of
socialism. The failure to situate the
socialist project in the context of a
larger cosmic dialectic not only
undercut the moral foundations of
socialism. It also undermined
socialism's ability to comprehend the
organizing process. If organization
is simply a product of the human
labor process, then it is something
imposed on matter --and ultimately
on the social form of matter-- from
the outside, rather than an immanent
tendency of matter which becomes
conscious at the social level, thanks
in part to the organizing activities of
the most advanced elements in human
society. This dynamic was reflected
in different ways at different points
in the history of the socialist
movements. Some strains within the
socialist tradition (those generally
called populist) (Venturi 1966) tapped
into, and partially rationalized
millenarian sentiments which were
not fundamentally different from
those which had driven peasant
revolts in tributary social formations.
they often confused the partial
restoration of the tributary mode
which resulted from these movements
with a postmarket socialism. Most
populist movements and populist
regimes soon succumbed to the
corrosive effects of the marketplace,
which they never understood and thus
could not resist. Other strains within
the socialist tradition (those generally
called social democratic) (Engels
1880/1978) accepted uncritically
bourgeois claims regarding the
spontaneity of social progress and
thus expected the working class to
develop spontaneously towards
socialism. The result was the
transformation of social democracy
into an instrument of working class
consumerism.
It was only the Communist tradition
(Lenin 1902/1929, 1905/1971,
1920/1971) which comprehended the
corrosive impact of market relations.
Lenin realized that the penetration of
market relations would ultimately
destroy the premarket solidarity of
the village community, on which the
populists depended, and block the
spontaneous emergence of socialist
consciousness among the industrial
proletariat. Thus the necessity of
conscious leadership. But it was also
within the Communist tradition that
the failure to fully comprehend the
dialectic had the most profoundly
tragic results. In so far as it failed to
understand the self-organizing
character of matter in general, and
regarded organization as a human
product, imposed on matter from
without, Communism could not help
but develop authoritarian tendencies.
Rather than attempting to catalyze the
emergence of a fully Communist
standpoint out of the immanent
organization of the proletariat, the
Communist movement either (in the
case of those destined to join the
party) attempted to break down the
existing organization of the workers
and impose a new, Communist
ideological organization, or, in the
case of the vast majority, simply
manipulated presocialist spontaneous
economic demands, national and
democratic traditions, religious
aspirations, etc., as strategic or
tactical reserves, without ever
attempting to catalyze the emergence
of an authentically socialist
consciousness.
The results were disastrous. In the
absence of an authentic socialist
consciousness, the socialist countries
were forced to rely on a mixture of
market incentives and bureaucratic
controls in order to regulate their
societies. Residual market forms
inexorably generated the same
consumerist disorders which
characterize the advanced capitalist
countries --disorders which could
only be contained by authoritarian
means. When these authoritarian
controls were relaxed, the
consumerism was unleashed, and the
socialist regimes were overthrown.
The crisis of socialism has led almost
ineluctably to a general crisis of the
human civilizational project as a
whole. The penetration of market
relations into every sphere of life,
now unchecked by the conservative
influence of the socialist regimes, is
rapidly destroying the ecosystem and
the social fabric on which human
development and social progress
depend, and undermining efforts to
centralize the surplus necessary for
technological, economic, political,
social, and cultural progress. The
vast majority of humanity is rapidly
losing hope in its future, and ever
broader sectors of the population are
resorting to random violence or self
destruction.
This crisis does, to be sure, take
slightly different forms in different
regions of the planet. Vast regions
of Latin America, Asia, and
especially Africa continue to
stagnate, their populations plunging
into the depths of a misery which
would have been inconceivable
during most periods in this planet's
history. In parts of the Third World,
to be sure, neoliberalism and export
oriented industrialization strategies
have mobilized vast armies of human
labor to produce cheap consumer
goods to satisfy the whims of affluent
Japanese, European, and North
American consumers. In some cases
this rapid industrialization has even
raised living standards. But it has
also completely unravelled the social
fabric, causing the disintegration of
families, the decay of national,
popular, and religious traditions, and
undermining the networks of
resistance which have historically
enabled the peasantry and the
working class to dream of, and
struggle effectively for, a new social
order. The corollary of this social
disintegration has been a resurgent
religious fundamentalism --Hindu,
Christian, but above all Islamic--
which seeks to impose order from the
outside on what it cannot help but see
as a hopelessly chaotic social world
(Mansueto unpublished).
In the socialist and "formerly
socialist" countries the story is much
the same. Only a handful of populist
regimes, such as Libya, Syria, Iraq,
and Myanmar, together with Cuba
and North Korea among the socialist
countries, have resisted the
temptations of economic liberalization
altogether, and none of these
countries has developed a credible
strategy for transcending the
limitations of bureaucratic
organization. The remainder of the
socialist countries have undergone a
more or less dramatic process of
marketization. Some, such as
Serbia, Romania, China, and
Vietnam, have held on to a broadly
socialist vision, but only by imposing
sharp restrictions on democratic
participation and political
liberalization. Most of the countries
of the former Soviet bloc, on the
other hand, have plunged into an
orgy of self-destruction, dismantling
the world's premiere educational,
artistic, scientific, and philosophical
establishment in order to build luxury
housing and luxury hotels, and
dissolving the world's largest (albeit
imperfect) complex of multinational
states in the name of ethnic
particularism (and this in a period
celebrated as an age of globalization
and world unity). Not surprisingly,
the former Soviet bloc has also given
birth to its own species of
fundamentalism, Orthodox Nationalist
and National Bolshevik, which
promises to make order out of the
chaos created by the marketplace
(Mansueto 1993).
The situation in the advanced
capitalist countries also continues to
deteriorate. If absolute economic
deprivation is not nearly as bad as in
most parts of the Third World, the
disintegration of the social fabric is
probably worse. In the United
States, at least, people who are not
able to sell their labor power for a
decent wage quite simply have
nowhere to turn. The minimal
"social safety net" left in place after
the neoliberal counterrevolution of
the 1980s simply does not compare
with the support which was offered
to previous generations of immigrant
workers (and which many urban
workers in the Third World still
enjoy) by extended family,
neighborhood, and ethnic
communities.
Many, to be sure, continue to live in
unparalleled affluence. But they also
live in constant insecurity, never
knowing if they will continue to have
insurance to pay for a major medical
expense, or money to send their sons
and daughters to a university --or for
that matter if they will be able to get
home safely after a night out. And
they work interminably long hours
(men and women, mothers and
fathers both) simply for the privilege
of spending a few hours each week
using some new electronic device or
eating at some chic restaurant
catering to the latest culinary fad.
Their children grow up never
knowing what it is like to spend time
together in a family, or to relate
informally to other people in a
community. In Japan and Europe
there is more security, and in
Europe, at least, more leisure, but
the influence of nihilistic
consumerism is probably even
greater. And Japanese "organized
capitalism" and the European "social
market" are themselves both under
attack from the neoliberal right.
The greatest failure of these societies,
however, is their inability, indeed,
their apparent lack of interest, in
investing in the development of
human social capacities. No matter
how outrageous the level of luxury
consumption, the money just can't be
found to support the development of
new infrastructure, the expansion and
improvement of educational
institutions, or research and
development --especially basic
research in the natural and social
sciences and in the philosophical
disciplines. The vision of the future
with which much of the postwar
generation grew up --a future in
which poverty had been eliminated,
universal mass transit had displaced
the automobile, and space flight was
common place-- seems further away
now than it did in 1960.
In all regions of the globe, however,
the underlying problem remains the
same. The social disintegration
engendered by the marketplace is
causing people to lose sight of their
fundamental vocation as human
beings --the call to participate
actively in the self-organizing activity
of the cosmos. And the marketplace,
through its short-sighted allocation of
resources, is holding back the
implementation of the new
technologies, organizing methods,
etc. made possible by the scientific-
technical revolution. With socialism
discredited, many millions have
slipped into nihilistic postmodernism
which denies the meaningfulness of
the universe altogether, and many
millions more have embraced various
fundamentalisms which seek to
impose order from the outside.
There is, to be sure, a large and
vitally important center, which more
or less rejects both postmodern
nihilism and fundamentalist
extremism. This centrist bloc
reflects a broad range of interests,
including investment bankers,
especially those with investments in
government securities and technology
stocks, nonmilitary high technology
capital, the religious institutions, state
and "non-profit" bureaucracies, and
diverse sectors of the intelligentsia,
working class, and peasantry. It
includes people from diverse political
tendencies. In the advanced capitalist
countries it is composed primarily of
moderate liberals such as Clinton and
Gore, "communitarians" and
Christian Democrats, and social
democrats, together with (in Europe
at least) "reform" communists who
continue to uphold the vision of
perestroika. In the former Soviet
bloc, this center includes a broad
spectrum of forces which grew out of
the disintegration of the movement
towards perestroika, and which now
embrace a wide range of positions
from moderate nationalist liberalism
and Orthodox Social Christianity,
through social democracy, to a
moderate socialist restorationism. In
the Third World, the center includes
primarily socialists (populists, social
democrats, and communists),
especially those committed to
rethinking the socialist project.
The various elements within the
center, however, whether taken
individually or as a bloc, face serious
obstacles. First and foremost, their
political perspectives are defined
largely by a recognition of the
limitations of both market and
bureaucratic structures and of the
dangers of both unbridled nihilism
and national or religious
fundamentalism. But they lack a
really coherent analysis of the current
crisis of the human civilizational
project, they lack a clear sense of the
next steps in this project, and they
certainly lack a clearly defined
strategic perspective. Indeed, many
elements within the center have
themselves lost faith in the human
civilizational project and have opted
instead for a kind of moderate
postmodernism. This is especially
true of "liberation theologians,"
"communitarians," and
"neoconservatives" who seek a basis
for human values in communal or
religious traditions, but reject both
the need to subject these values to
rational scrutiny, and the possibility
of establishing universal human
values on rational grounds.
The forces of the center are carrying
out an important holding action
against the process of social
disintegration which is engulfing the
planet. And they include many
creative individuals and organizations
which need to be part of the dialogue
about our planet's future. But they
do not have solutions. And they will
not lead.
II. Towards Synergism
The picture is a somber one indeed,
and there would be good cause for
despair were it not for the fact that
the very same decades which have
witnessed the crisis of socialism have
also witnessed a remarkable
revolution in our understanding of the
cosmos and humanity's place therein
--a revolution which not only points
towards solutions to the current crisis
of values, but which also has
profound practical implications for
the whole way in which we approach
the fundamental tasks and challenges
of human social life.
A. The New Science of
Organization
We need, to begin with, to
summarize at least briefly the main
characteristics of the current
scientific revolution. We will then
explore the implications of this new
view of the cosmos for our
understanding of the nature and
purpose of the human civilizational
project, and conclude by exploring its
implications for the way in which we
approach such concrete tasks as
socialization, production, centralizing
and allocating resources, building and
exercising power, etc.
It is possible here only to outline
briefly the ways in which the current
scientific revolution has altered our
understanding of the nature of
matter, and of the material universe.
For a more complete treatment the
reader should consult the excellent
studies by Barrow and Tipler (1986),
Pines (1988), Zurek (1989),
Waddington (1957), Lenat (1980),
Denton (1985), Sheldrake (1981,
1989), Margulis (1991), and Wesson
(1991), among others.
1. The most fundamental change in
our picture of the universe is the shift
from particle theory to field theory.
Classical mechanics regarded the
universe as constituted by irreducible
particles which interact with each
other, in a purely external manner,
through the medium of various
forces, such as gravity,
electromagnetism, etc. As physicists
have carried on the search for
increasingly more fundamental
particles, as they have discovered
new physical forces (the strong and
weak nuclear forces) and as they
have tried to develop a unified theory
which explains the relationship
among the various forces, they have
been forced to abandon the atomism
which characterized their original
paradigm. Contemporary physics
regards matter (including observed
and theoretically postulated
"particles") as actually constituted
by gravitational, electromagnetic, and
strong and weak nuclear fields.
These four fundamental forces,
furthermore, seem originally (during
the earliest stages in the development
of the universe) to have been
identical with each other. It is only
as the universe develops that they
become distinct (Davies 1988: 12).
Indeed, there is growing evidence
that "elementary" particles cannot
even be treated as separate entities.
If two particles interact and are then
separated by a great distance, their
behavior nonetheless remains closely
linked --even if the distance between
them is too great to permit the
exchange of information in time
sufficient to explain the relationship
(the rate at which information is
exchanged being constrained by the
speed of light). This kind of deeply
rooted interaction can be
comprehended only if we think of the
two particles as part of a single
quantum system, linked at the most
fundamental levels of their being. It
is not simply that the two particles
are affected by each other, as they
are by everything else in the
environment. Rather, the existence
of each depends on the existence of
the other, because they are, in
reality, part of one system (Davies
1988: 177).
The new physics thus points to the
irreducibly relational character of
matter. The cosmos is not composed
of interacting things, but is rather,
itself, a complex network of
relationships.
2. The second dimension of the
current scientific revolution is the
growing recognition of the existence,
alongside the second law of
thermodynamics, of a second process
at work in the universe --the
tendency of matter to develop
towards increasingly complex levels
of organization.
For over a century now discussions
about the ultimate fate of the universe
have been dominated by gloomy
predictions of "heat-death," the
inevitable result of the tendency of
"all systems" to evolve towards
increasingly random or "entropic"
states. This generalization of the
second law of thermodynamics into a
theory of cosmic catastrophe has
never made much sense. The
tendency towards entropy is a
tendency which characterizes closed
systems of particles which interact
with each other in a purely external
manner. If the universe is an open
system --or even a closed system-- of
radically interdependent relationships,
rather than of particles, then there is
no basis on which to generalize the
law to cover the cosmos as a whole.
In recent years, moreover, there has
been growing evidence that matter in
fact tends to evolve in the direction
of organized complexity. Nowhere is
this process more apparent than in
the non-linear dynamic systems
which have become the focus of the
new science of complex systems
theory. (For a general overview of
complex systems theory cf. Gleick
1987; for fuller treatments cf.
Campbell 1989, Zurek 1990).
Complex systems theory has made
three important discoveries. First, it
is becoming increasingly clear that
even the most complex systems,
which are characterized by behavior
which is "chaotic" and entirely
unpredictable, are in fact governed
by relatively simple mathematical
algorithms. In this sense, it appears,
even chaos is deterministic. The
"unpredictability" of chaotic systems
results from the fact that in nonlinear
equations very small differences in
initial parameters can lead to very
large differences in final results
(Campbell 1989: 13).
Second, while the behavior of
complex systems is unpredictable, it
is, nonetheless, characterized by the
emergence of complex, intricate
patterns. Graphs plotting the
behavior of chaotic systems are
characterized by "self-similarity."
Patterns which develop at a larger
scale repeat themselves, with minute
variations, at successively smaller
scales, creating objects of
extraordinary beauty. Complex
systems theory has provided us with
tools for examining the process by
which coherent structures emerge in
the midst of apparently chaotic
behavior. (Campbell 1989: 15).
Finally, complex systems theory has
suggested that not only do natural
systems evolve in a way which is
deterministic even when it is chaotic,
and spontaneously form coherent
structures, they also have the
capacity to adapt to environmental
conditions in such a way as to better
maintain and reproduce their
structures. This adaptive process in
not confined to living systems, but
includes patterns of electromagnetic
waves, crystalline patterns, etc.
(Campbell 1989: 18).
On the fringes of chaos theory,
scientists are beginning to explore
some of the extraordinary pattern
generating capacities of living matter.
While complex biological processes
can, in all probability, be reduced
analytically to simpler chemical and
mechanical processes, this does very
little to explain how, for example the
genetic information encoded in a
strand of DNA can organize and
direct the collective activity of
billions of cells across space and time
(Davies 1988: 105).
Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has
suggested that emerging structures
create "morphogenetic fields" which
encourage the appearance of the same
form in new places. Indeed, it
appears that some substances, which
were not previously known to
crystallize, have actually "learned" to
do so --and then been found to start
crystallizing commonly all around the
world at roughly the same time
(Davies 1988: 164).
While the theory of morphogenetic
fields has not yet been adequately
developed, the fact remains that,
even as entropy has increased, matter
has managed to assume increasingly
complex forms, organizing itself in
such a way that it can reproduce
these forms, and, as we shall see, in
the case of humanity, in such a way
that it can begin to consciously
reorganize physical, chemical, and
biological matter in order to serve
human purposes, and consciously
increase the complexity of the
ecosystem.
3. It is possible, of course, that the
emergence of complex systems is
simply a counterpoint to a larger
process of cosmic disintegration, a
local process governing a larger area,
perhaps, than human society, but
ultimately no match for the laws
which govern the large scale behavior
of the universe, which will lead
inevitably either to the recollapse of
the universe into a final singularity,
or to an endless expansion which
ultimately makes communication, and
thus intelligence, painfully slow and
ultimately impossible. There is an
emerging body of science, however,
which suggests that this is not the
case, that complex systems, including
not only life but also intelligence, are
in fact a constitutive dimension of the
cosmos, and fully necessary for its
existence. This is the so-called
"anthropic cosmological principle."
It increasingly appears that there are
a whole series of fundamental
physical constants --the masses of the
elementary particles, and the
strengths of the fundamental forces
(gravity, electromagnetism, and the
strong and weak nuclear forces) that
are fixed at just the values necessary
for the emergence of intelligent life
(Barrow and Tipler 1986). Some
scientists have interpreted this
phenomenon in rather modest terms.
According to the Weak Anthropic
Principle, the values of physical and
cosmological quantities are restricted
by the requirement that "there exist
sites where carbon-based life can
evolve and by the requirement that
the Universe be old enough for it to
have already done so (Barrow and
Tipler 1986: 16)." This form of the
Anthropic Principle is simply "a
restatement ... of one of the most
important and well-established
principles of science: that it is
essential to take into account the
limitations of one's measuring
apparatus when interpreting one's
observations (Barrow and Tipler
1986: 23)." Weak interpretations of
the anthropic principle are supported
by the subjectivist "Copenhagen"
interpretation of quantum mechanics,
which argues than any individual can
collapse the wave function describing
the universe, and by most, though
not all, versions of the "Many
Worlds" interpretation, which argues
that the cosmic wave function never
collapses, but rather branches out
into an infinite number of "other
universes," making it highly probable
that at least some of these cosmic
evolutionary trajectories would make
life and intelligence possible.
The first, or subjectivist, rationale
for a weak interpretation of the
anthropic principle shares the
problem of all solipsistic and
subjectivist theories. It cannot
account for the broad similarities in
the way different observers interpret
reality. The second, "Many Worlds"
approach is internally contradictory.
Even if we allow that the cosmic
totality is infinitely more complex
than we might have imagined, and
includes not only an enormous,
perhaps infinite, spatial expanse, but
also infinitely many world trajectories
defined by the constant splitting of
the universal quantum wave function,
it nonetheless remains a unified
cosmic whole, and the question of
why (some regions of it, at least) are
"finely tuned" so as to permit the
emergence of life and intelligence is
thus reinstated (Harris 1991:9-15).
Others, however, support a stronger
interpretation. According to the
"Strong Anthropic Principle"
advocated by cosmologists John
Barrow and Frank Tipler "the
Universe must have those properties
which allow life to develop within it
at some stage in history (Barrow and
Tipler 1986: 21)." If intelligent life is
necessary for the existence of the
universe, but dies out before it has
developed sufficiently to affect the
universe on a cosmological scale,
then it is difficult to see why it would
have been necessary in the first
place. Barrow and Tipler thus
conclude that "intelligent information
processing must come into existence
in the Universe, and, once it comes
into existence, it will never die out
(Barrow and Tipler 1986: 23)." This
conclusion is referred to as the "Final
Anthropic Principle." According to
this view, intelligent life will
continue to develop towards the
"Omega Point," at which it will be
coextensive with the cosmos as
whole, capable of observing all
cosmic events.
The question, of course, is how the
social form of matter affects the
evolution of the cosmos as a whole.
One answer is that given by
scholastic and Reformed "natural
theology": that humanity plays a
fixed role in a cosmic plan which
pre-exits perfectly in the mind of
God. But there is nothing in the
current scientific revolution which
would support such a notion of "pre-
existing" divine intelligence. Indeed,
the trend is very much towards
understanding intelligence as an
emergent property of matter which
appears only relatively "late" in the
process of cosmic evolution.
A second possibility, advocated by
Barrow and Tipler is centered on an
unusual interpretation of the "Many
Worlds" theory. Barrow and Tipler
share with other Many Worlds
theorists the conviction that the
"quantum wave function" describing
the state of the cosmos never
collapses, so that all possible cosmic
states are in fact realized. But they
argue further that it is possible to
identify certain experimentally
verifiable "boundary conditions"
which require all of the infinite
branches of the cosmic evolutionary
process to permit the emergence of
intelligent life. Intelligent life will
in fact emerge in all branches where
it is possible, through the operation
of essentially mechanistic competitive
processes which select for carbon
based, and later "machine based"
intelligence. Once carbon based
living organisms have reached a
certain stage of development, they
will realize that if intelligence is to
continue to exist in the far future of
the cosmos, it must overcome its
dependence on carbon based
biochemistry. This is possible, they
argue, because intelligence is nothing
more than complex information
processing, and we are already close
to developing intelligent machines.
Eventually someone will develop,
build, and launch into space such a
"race" of self-replicating, intelligent
machines, which are called "von
Neumann probes," after cold war
theoretician John von Neumann who
developed the theory of self-
replicating automata. These probes
will spread throughout the universe,
devouring matter, reproducing
themselves, gradually evolving ever
higher levels of intelligence.
Eventually they will organize all of
the matter in the universe, and
control its evolution as the universe
collapses back towards a final
singularity, using the powerful
energies available at this point in
cosmic evolution to construct a
universal supercomputer which,
among other things, would run
simulations of all previously existing
systems, "resurrecting" them and
consigning them to eternal bliss or
eternal damnation in accord with its
own sovereign decrees. Tipler
provides sophisticated (if for all that
not very convincing) arguments that
this "final observer" would
experience the last few micro seconds
of the universe as an eternity, and
that its "resurrected" simulations of
earlier life forms would in fact be
ultimately identical to the originals.
This positivistic, information-
theoretical approach is highly
problematic. It reduces complex
organization to "negative entropy"
or, what is the same thing, to
information content, and intelligence
to information processing capacity.
This approach ignores the fact that,
as IBM scientist Charles Bennet has
pointed out (Bennet 1988) the most
complex systems of which we are
aware --human beings and the social
systems which they create-- are in
fact intermediate in negative entropy
or information content between a
crystal and a gas. Far from
conserving and developing the
complex organization which we
value, Tipler's plan, like most of the
products cold war social engineering,
represents a real threat the future of
the human civilizational project and
of the cosmos generally.
Cosmologist John Wheeler has
suggested a third way of interpreting
the anthropic principle: that
conscious beings collectively collapse
the quantum wave function describing
the universe, and thus, in a very real
sense collectively bring the universe
into being. This interpretation is
known as the Participatory Anthropic
Principle (Barrow and Tipler 1986:
470). While most versions of
participatory cosmology concentrate
on the effect of "observation" on the
quantum wave function, the thesis in
fact becomes rather more plausible if
we focus more broadly on
"organizing activity." The "quantum
wave function" describing the state of
the cosmos collapses gradually as the
system of relations which constitutes
the universe evolves towards
progressively more complex forms of
organization. From this point of view
human beings, and human society
generally, would be participants in a
creative process which nonetheless
radically transcended the merely
social form of matter, and which
reached its consummation only at
Omega, when the universe as a
whole has been fully organized and
thus brought fully into being.
The "participatory anthropic
principle" has the advantage of
explaining just precisely why and
how intelligence, or the social form
of matter --and indeed the eventual
transcendence of the social form of
matter in supersocial forms of
organization, leading ultimately to the
Omega point-- is necessary to the
cosmos as a whole. If being is
organization, then the universe comes
fully into being only when it is fully
organized. The social form of matter
represents a necessary step in this
organizing process, of which Omega
is simply the limit case, or better
still, the ultimate realization and
fulfillment.
Taken together these developments
paint a radically new picture of the
universe. Matter is, first of all,
fundamentally relational in character.
Order, or organization, is neither
something imposed on an
undifferentiated prime matter from
the outside, nor is it something that
emerges, spontaneously or otherwise,
out of the interaction of fundamental
particles which are related to each
other only in a purely external
manner. On the contrary, all of
reality is intimately related at the
deepest levels of its being. Being
itself is relationship. Furthermore,
what something is, its essence, is
determined by its level and form of
organization: mathematic, physical,
chemical, biological, social, etc.
And matter seems to be
fundamentally self-organizing, driven
to develop increasingly complex and
highly organized forms. Physical
matter is merely ordered, while
chemical matter exhibits a certain
incipient holism, in so far as
chemical compounds have properties
which cannot be regarded as being
merely the sum of the properties of
their parts. Biological matter is
actually organized, i.e. it manifests
structures which have a purpose,
while social matter actually
organizes, i.e. it is constantly
involved in creating new forms of
organization which did not previously
exist, through socializing children,
through productive labor, the
building and exercising of power,
artistic creativity, scientific research,
philosophical synthesis, and the
exercise of spiritual leadership.
Finally, the cosmos seems
increasingly to be fundamentally
teleological in character. This
teleology is not something fixed for
all eternity by the action of a prime
mover outside the cosmos. On the
contrary, the teleological character of
the cosmos seems to consist, in part,
at least, in a need for beings such as
ourselves to actually participate in the
design and development, as well as
the construction, of radically new and
ever more complex forms of
organization. But neither is this
teleology simply the product of
human labor. Human labor is a
conscious social expression of a self-
organizing dynamic which is as old
as the cosmos itself, which is present
in less developed forms in all matter,
and which will realize itself fully
only when organized complexity has
embraced the cosmos as a whole in
creativity, power, knowledge, and
love.
B. Rethinking the Human
Civilizational Project
This new scientific perspective has
profound implications for our
understanding of the human vocation
and of the cosmic significance of the
human civilizational project. It
appears that the social form of matter
plays a critically important, even
decisive role, in the whole process of
cosmic evolution. The cosmos needs
us, or at least beings like us, in order
to grow and develop. Human
civilization is a laboratory for the
development and implementation of
new, ever more complex forms of
organization which contribute to the
progress of the universe along its
trajectory towards Omega.
And this trajectory itself provides us
with a sound basis for elaborating a
theory of value. The new science of
organization largely reinstates the
teleological worldview which formed
the scientific basis for natural law
ethics, with the important difference
that human beings (and the social
form of matter generally) now play a
critical role in the progress of the
universe towards its telos, and, in the
process, participate in a very
significant way in determining the
character of that telos. Value
consists in organized complexity, or
the capacity to create organized
complexity, in all of its myriad
forms. Relationship, holism, and
organization are the principal forms
this organized complexity takes at the
physical, chemical, and biological
levels. The social form of matter,
however, is capable of love, which
creates the nurturing and challenging
context in which complex social
capacities can emerge, of production,
power, etc. The social form of
matter is also capable of creating
beauty, of grasping the truth, of
doing good, etc., and of developing
ever new and more complex ways to
contribute to the complex synergistic
integrity of the cosmos as a whole.
But the new science of organization
not only suggests a way out of the
current crisis of values. It also lays
the groundwork for fundamentally
new ways of approaching the basic
tasks of social life itself. If matter
itself is self-organizing, then we must
take an entirely different attitude
towards human organizing activity, at
every level, from the socialization of
children and the design of production
processes through the building and
exercising of power, to the arts,
science, philosophy, and religion.
We are developing a new mode of
organization which we will call
"synergistic." Where earlier modes
treated organization as something
external to matter, imposed from the
outside by an organizer, or emerging
spontaneously out of the interaction
of only-externally-related atoms,
synergism recognizes that matter
itself is organization. The task of the
organizer is to grasp the principle of
organization already implicit in
matter, draw out the implications and
contradictions implicit in the present
structure, and drive towards a higher
synthesis.
We are only beginning to explore the
implications of this new paradigm.
But it is possible to identify some
important developments. The first,
and perhaps the most important of
these, has to do we the way we
produce the social form of matter
itself --i.e. the way in which we
socialize our children.
Historically, strategies for
socialization have centered on
repression, and especially sexual
repression and repression of the
child's bond with the mother. Such
strategies are based on the notion that
humanity's underlying biological
drives are fundamentally antisocial --
a perception, which, as Erich Fromm
(1941) points out, derives from the
way people experience each other in
a market society, or, more generally,
in societies in which the spontaneous
social bonds of family, village
community, etc., have been disrupted
by market or state. In so far as the
child's capacity to be social derives
in part from its biological
constitution, and in part from its
early bond with the mother, such
childbearing strategies in fact lead to
the repression of the child's
capacity to be social. The resulting
antisocial personality then requires
the constraints imposed by the range
of authoritarian movements which
have emerged in market societies.
Synergist childbearing strategies point
at least incipiently towards greater
reliance on cultivation of the child's
latent social capacities, rather than on
repression, as the basis for
development of a complex,
autonomous, relational personality
structure.
There are also important changes at
work in the way in which we
approach the production process --the
task of reorganizing physical,
chemical, and biological matter.
Industrial production is based
fundamentally on breaking down the
pre-existing organization of matter in
order to release energy and then use
that energy to reorganize matter in
new, presumably more complex
forms. This is true at all levels.
Industrial production burns fossil
fuels (or smashes atomic nuclei) in
order to generate energy, which is
then used to break raw materials
down into their constituent elements,
transforming ores into metal, wood
into pulp, etc., and then to
reorganize these elements as
machines, paper, etc. Similarly,
industrial production requires that
communitarian forms such as the
family and the village community be
broken down, and that workers be
reorganized under the discipline of
the factory system.
The new synergistic forms of
production are very different.
Synergistic technology is based on an
understanding of production as a
conscious participation in the self-
organizing activity of the cosmos.
From the ecological side this means
that production must not simply
displace organization from one part
of the ecosystem (say certain carbon
based organisms) to another (metal
and silicon based machines), but
actually increase the overall
complexity of the system. This
means using sources of energy and
raw materials which are renewable,
the "capture" of which does not
reduce the energy or raw material
available for other uses. Production
must also be clean enough that
valuable species of plants and
animals, which make up an
irreplaceable part of the genetic
endowment of this planet, are not
lost.
Because of this it is particularly
important to identify critical
ecosystem capacities which will
permit us to access the large
quantities of energy necessary to
produce complex forms of social
organization without exporting ever
greater entropy into the ecosystem
and eventually undermining the
conditions of our existence. Clearly
the most important of these
ecosystem capacities is the sun,
which is the original source of all of
the energy utilized by human
societies. Solar energy is a resource
both directly, as we learn to develop
a variety of active and passive solar
energy technologies, and indirectly,
as it is embodied in plant and animal
life used for food, the production of
alcohol fuel, wind, hydraulic and
geothermal energy, nuclear and fossil
fuels, etc.
Synergistic production processes take
as their starting point the energy
producing, self-organizing activities
of the natural world itself.
Synergistic production taps into
these processes, and catalyzes their
development to every higher levels of
complexity and organization. This is
an area which we are only beginning
to explore, in large part because we
are only beginning to understand the
creative self-organizing character of
matter itself. There are, however,
some hopeful signs.
* The "synergetic" engineering
principles of R. Buckminster
Fuller (1981, 1992) tap into
"nature's own coordinate
system," and thus into the
immanent structural principles of
matter itself, rather than
imposing on matter an
orthogonal grid which is
constantly forced to work against
natural forces.
* Complex systems theory is
identifying an ever growing
number of self-organizing
dynamics, which engineers can
tap into and utilize for
productive purposes.
* Growing attention has been
focused in recent years on the
pharmaceutical applications of
various plants, especially those
growing in endangered rain
forest ecosystems.
Biotechnological processes
generally are synergistic in that
they tap into the self-organizing
properties of matter rather than
breaking down raw materials and
reassembling them in accord
with a definite plan.
* Artificial living systems
research has succeeded in
creating self-reproducing
electronic organisms which
evolve and adapt in creative
ways to various electronic,
computational environments, and
which have actually succeeded in
evolving solutions to complex
computational problems which
had eluded human software
engineers (Langton 1989,
Rothschild 1991).
In a sense, synergistic production
processes represent a return, albeit at
a much more advanced scientific
level, to the careful, intensive,
cultivation of the productive
capacities of matter, and especially
living matter, which characterized
horticultural societies.
This new, synergistic perspective is
also, increasingly, affecting the way
in which we go about building and
exercising power. All power is
fundamentally relational in character,
and is based on the intersection of the
complex interests of diverse
individuals, which creates the basis
for collaborative activity centered on
a common plan which promises to
realize as many of these interests as
possible. This means that power is
to be sharply distinguished from
control, which merely prevents things
(including bad things) from
happening. Power is not something
imposed from the outside on a
disorganized, atomized mass of
human individuals, but, rather,
expresses a potential for organization
which is already latent in the network
of interests which binds human
beings to each other and to the
natural world.
It should also be increasingly
apparent, however, that power does
not emerge spontaneously. It
involves, by its very nature, a
bringing to consciousness of the
previously unconscious and implicit
shared interests of a social network.
It is also apparent that the wider the
self-interest of an individual or
group, the greater its potential to
build and exercise power. This
means that "organizers" such as the
marketplace which simply link people
up on the basis of their existing
understanding of their self-interest
cannot build as much power as
organizers which actually expand the
sphere of human self-interest. The
synergistic organizer utilizes a kind
of Socratic dialogue, which begins
with existing networks, interests, and
aspirations, draws out implications
and contradictions, and drives
towards a higher synthesis which
realizes ever more fully the potential
latent in the group and its members.
This model differs sharply from both
liberal and historic socialist
approaches.
The implications of the new science
are most striking, however, when we
begin to look at the way in which
human beings organize their
experience and define their
relationship to the cosmos as a
whole. Unified field theory, complex
systems theory, postdarwinian
evolutionary biology, and anthropic
cosmology, we have seen, contain an
implicit ontology which grasps the
cosmos as a relational, self-
organizing, and teleological totality.
These new scientific developments
also contain an implicit cosmology
and philosophy of history which
renders our experience of the world
meaningful. And, as we have seen,
they provide a sound basis for the
elaboration of a rational theory of
value. The human civilizational
project makes a real contribution to
the process of cosmic evolution. But
our aim, our telos, which is the same
as that of the cosmos as a whole, lies
beyond any one single form of social
organization --indeed beyond the
merely social form of matter-- in a
self-organizing Omega the character
of which we cannot yet even begin to
comprehend.
The fact remains, of course, that both
the marketplace and bureaucratic
structures impose real constraints on
our ability to realize the full potential
of the new synergistic mode of
organization. Like earlier social
movements we are faced with the
difficult task of reorganizing human
society in order to unleash once again
humanity's tremendous creative
potential. The way in which we
approach this task is, however, very
different.
The great world religions were
unable to grasp the critical role of
human civilization in the larger
process of cosmic evolution, and
aspired at the most to bring human
society back into harmony with
divine law. Many, in fact, taught
that even this was impossible.
Capitalism and socialism, on the
other hand, held in mind a specific,
more or less static image of a
rational social order --society
organized by the marketplace, or by
bureaucratic redistributional
institutions-- and struggled to remake
human society in accord with this
image. Synergism, on the other
hand, recognizes that human society,
as a complex, self-organizing system,
is always in tension with itself, and is
thus constantly reorganizing itself,
transcending ever more complex and
subtle structural obstacles to social
progress. Our strategic aim must
never be the construction of some
one, fixed, social order, but rather,
quite simply, the development of
human social capacities, and the
construction of ever more complex --
loving, productive, powerful,
creative-- institutional arrangements.
This process has, to be sure a telos,
but that telos lies beyond history, at
the Omega point. From this point of
view, synergism is not some new
phase in the human civilizational
project, such as the sacral societies
which emerged from the great world
religions, or capitalism, or socialism,
but is, rather, the human
civilizational project itself, become
conscious of itself, taking
responsibility for its own progress
and its own contributions to the
larger process of cosmic evolution of
which it is a part.
Furthermore, we understand the task
of social transformation very
differently. Synergistic organizing
aims not at controlling, but rather at
reorganizing institutions. It is in
fact possible to reorganize an
institution which one does not
entirely control, and to control an
institution without being able to
actually reorganize it. When we
control an institution we can keep it
from doing certain things. We
cannot, however, force it to organize
synergistically, unless the
technological, economic, political,
artistic, scientific, philosophical, and
spiritual conditions for such activity
exist.
Concretely, this reorganizing activity
involves a number of distinct but
interrelated tasks.
The first and most important activity
is theoretical. The current scientific
revolution has laid the groundwork
for the emergence of a new
synergistic theory. But it has only
laid the groundwork. Many of the
results of the science have themselves
been framed in a way which reflects
the residual influence of the old
atomistic paradigm. This is because
our whole scientific language,
grounded as it is in a set-theoretical
mathematics and formal logic, is
itself atomistic. This not only makes
it difficult to draw out properly the
philosophical and practical
implications of the new science, but
holds back the progress of scientific
research itself. We must continue to
break down the barriers of the old
atomistic paradigm and elaborate a
new theory which is fully synergistic
in character.
There are a number of dimensions to
this task. First, we need to develop
new methods of research which can
grasp "whole systems" rather than
merely isolating and analyzing the
relationships between a limited
number of variables. Second, we
must apply this new paradigm to
every type of system: physical,
chemical, biological, social,
supersocial. We must constantly
observe and analyze reality in order
to identify and understand organizing
processes at every level on the
dialectical scale --physical, chemical,
biological, social-- and then attempt
to comprehend how these organizing
processes contribute to the self-
organizing activity of the cosmos as
a whole. Third, we must synthesize
the results of our research into a
single, unified, philosophical system.
We need to grasp the logic of being
itself, so that we can understand how
it is that complex organization
develops. We must grasp the cosmos
as a unified system, so that we can
understand where we are going and
how to get there. And we must
elaborate a comprehensive theory of
value.
This new theory will play a vitally
important role in the synergistic
mode of organization. First, even
more so than earlier modes of
organization, synergism recognizes
that it is only by grasping the
immanent, self-organizing dynamic of
matter itself (including the social
form of matter) that we can learn
how to create still more complex
organizational forms. Second,
synergistic theory makes it possible
to situate our organizing activity
within the larger context of human
social progress and cosmic evolution,
and to insure that our activity
remains at once rooted in and
ordered to these larger processes.
An organizing process which is
regulated only by the immanent
dynamic of its own will to power,
and which is open only to the
possibilities presented to it by the
resources it controls and understands,
and by its present constituency, will
tend ultimately to become cut off
from the self-organizing activity of
the cosmos. While the struggle of
any particular organization to build
its own power, is, in and of itself, a
good, the full potential of this power
can be realized only if the
organization's power is rooted in and
ordered to the self-organizing
dynamic of the cosmos as a whole.
Otherwise, the organization will
begin working against the trend of
cosmic history, and no matter how
much power the organization is able
to build, its efforts will ultimately be
doomed. Finally, synergistic theory
will play a leading role in our applied
"research and development" and
"strategic planning" activities. As it
observes and analyzes the myriad
organizing processes which constitute
the cosmos, theory is constantly
searching for new ways of bringing
resources and people together,
tapping into latent organizing
potential, and setting into motion new
and more complex activities.
Our second task is organizational in
the narrower sense. It involves
identifying, training, positioning, and
mentoring leaders who are capable of
organizing at a fully synergistic level.
Our aim here is not to "infiltrate"
institutions with the aim of gaining
control, but rather to identify and
train people who can set in motion
organizing activities at every level
which begin to tap into the potential
of the synergistic mode. From this
point of view it is just as important to
identify, train, and position parents,
engineers, managers, artists,
scientists, philosophers, and religious
leaders, as it is to identify, train, and
position political leaders in the more
traditional sense.
Nor is our aim to "remake" people,
or "form" them in a synergistic
model. Rather, we need to look for
creative people at the cutting edges of
their fields, who are either already
beginning to work at a synergistic
level, or who are wrestling with
problems which make them open to a
synergistic perspective. Our task is
to
a) help them break with the old
atomistic paradigm, and grasp
synergism --i.e. comprehend the
relational, self-organizing, and
teleological character of matter
itself,
b) help them develop basic
organizational skills (relational
individual and small group
meetings, etc.,) and help them
position themselves in
strategically significant
institutional sites, and
c) continue to mentor them as
they set in motion new and more
complex activities.
By identifying the most creative
people in our society, in every field
of endeavor, helping them to break
through to a fully synergistic level of
development, positioning them in
strategic institutional locations, and
mentoring them as they develop new,
more complex activities, we will set
in motion the creation of a new,
synergistic mode of organization in
the womb of the old capitalist and
bureaucratic structures.
As we identify, train, and position
organizers in the full range of social
institutions, and as they begin to set
in motion new and more complex
activities, they will find themselves in
an increasingly paradoxical and
contradictory situation. On the one
hand, they will find that they are
increasingly powerful, simply
because synergistic theory makes it
possible to organize at a far more
complex level than any previous
theoretical system. The owners of
capital, and those who occupy
positions of bureaucratic authority,
will find themselves increasingly
dependent on our synergistic
engineers, organizers, artists,
scientists, philosophers, and spiritual
leaders to tackle their most complex
problems, and to set in motion the
new activities which makes their own
prosperity and power possible. At
the same time, the leaders we
position will increasingly come up
against the limits imposed by the
marketplace. They will find
themselves unable to centralize the
resources which their activities
require, even as vast quantities of
wealth are squandered on luxury
consumption.
The resolution to this contradiction
lies in the synergistic network itself.
We need to bring the network of
organizers which we train into
increasingly intense relationships with
each other. First they may simply
exchange information and ideas.
They will begin to collaborate in
their strategic planning. Gradually
they will begin to exchange more
than information. They will begin to
pool resources for joint projects,
develop nonmarket supply and
distribution networks, and eventually
organize their own consumption and
that of the people they lead in a way
which restricts the flow of resources
to luxury consumption, and increases
the total surplus available for
investment. The result will be a new
mode of centralizing and allocating
resources --a mode which centralizes
the largest surplus possible for
investment, and allocates resources in
such a way as to make the largest
contribution possible to the
development of human social
capacities and the self-organizing
activity of the cosmos. The
marketplace and bureaucratic
structures will become increasingly
irrelevant, vestigial organs which are
largely ignored, and eventually
dismantled, almost as an
afterthought.
It may appear that this emphasis on
reorganizing institutions represents an
abandonment of the commitment to
revolutionary structural
transformation which characterized
historic socialism. This is not true.
It does, however, represent a
fundamentally different understanding
of the nature of fundamental social
change, as well as the way in which
such change comes about, and the
end towards which it is directed. If
we examine the transition from the
tributary to the capitalist modes of
production, it becomes apparent that
the most important factor in this
transition was the gradual creation of
a nontributary, i.e. market, mode of
organizing and deploying social
resources. The abolition of feudal
and mercantilist restrictions played a
secondary role. Similarly, the
marketplace will be transcended only
when humanity has succeeded in
developing new, synergistic,
postmarket modes of centralizing and
allocating resources. Restriction of
market forces, while often necessary,
and even powerfully progressive, is
not by itself adequate for a transition
to postmarket modes. Synergism,
furthermore, regards this process of
developing and implementing new
modes of organization as an ongoing
task. There is no one regulating
structure the restriction of which will
unleash once and for all human
creative potential. There is no one
mode of social organization which by
itself constitutes the solution to the
riddle of history. That solution,
rather, consists in embracing the
riddle itself, as a unique powerful
catalyst for organization, growth, and
development.
There can be little doubt that we live
in dark times. The achievements of
literally millennia of human
civilization seem to be jeopardy. The
marketplace undermines the integrity
of the ecosystem and the social
fabric, tearing apart families,
depriving millions of the resources
they need to make a productive
contribution to society. In this
environment of social disintegration it
becomes ever more difficult to
organize the resources necessary for
investment in infrastructure,
education, research, and
development. The planet seems
almost inadvertently to have escaped
the threat of nuclear annihilation (at
least for a while). But the arms race
has given way to an even more
ominous contest between the United
States and the former Soviet bloc to
see who can dismantle their artistic,
scientific, educational and cultural
apparatus more quickly. Sometimes
it seems as if everything has been
lost.
But we know that the darkness can
never triumph. Matter itself is
relationship, holism, organization,
development. Engels said that
whenever the self-organizing dynamic
of the cosmos is defeated in one
place, it begins anew in another.
Life, love, creativity, power, and
knowledge are what bring the cosmos
into being in the first place, and they
will not, can not, yield to the forces
of chaos and destruction.
But there is more. The biological
infrastructure on which the social
form of matter currently depends
cannot survive into the far future of
the universe. This is true in both
"open" cosmologies, in which the
universe continues to expand,
becoming increasingly colder, with
motion proceeding ever more slowly,
and communication taking place over
ever greater distances, and in
"closed" cosmologies in which the
universe recollapses towards a final
singularity. This does not, however,
mean that complex organization is
ultimately doomed, that it is merely
a tendency, and not the tendency, of
the universe. If, as the anthropic
cosmological principle suggests, the
social form of matter is actually
necessary to the constitution of the
universe, then it will persist even as
it transforms itself and is sublated in
an even more complex, supersocial
form of organization. Concretely,
this means that life and intelligence --
or something which includes and
transcends them both-- must
encompass the cosmos as a whole,
and reorganize it in such a way as to
permit the eternity and infinite self-
development of complex
organization.
We will be part of that organization.
Cosmos is not made up of atoms
which are only related to each other
in a merely external manner. It is,
rather, a web of relationships,
interconnected at the most profound
levels of its being. The faintest smile
of a mother who cradles her child in
some barrio of Juarez or some shanty
town of Bangkok is felt by the most
distant star. And it is felt as a smile.
Nothing which we do which
contributes in some way to the
sociality, the productivity, the power,
the beauty, the truth, the goodness,
or the complex, synergistic integrity
of the cosmos will be lost. In this
sense, at least, we persist into Omega
--even if the Earth itself should
vanish ...
This is, to be sure, a rather different
kind of hope than that offered by
either the great world religions, or
"modern" social movements such as
socialism. On the one hand
synergism teaches us that a great deal
is possible, and that our work makes
a real difference to the cosmos. We
are not merely the children of a
benevolent God who orders all and
cares for all and to whom we owe
only obedience, but rather active
partners in the design and creation of
the cosmos. On the other hand, our
activity is not directed towards some
proximate social goal --even a very
difficult one like communism-- but
rather towards an end which lies
beyond history, in the distant future
of the Omega point. In this sense our
vision will always transcend our
reach. We will always be able to
intuit possibilities which we cannot
prove, and prove that things are
possible which we cannot realize in
our life time --or even within the
scope of human history. This is the
unique grandeur, and also the terribly
frustrating limitation of humanity,
which is "just a little lower than the
angels." Capitalism and socialism, in
this sense, asked humanity to be
satisfied with far too little. The
result was either a spiritual
debasement of humanity, or else an
idolatrous investment of partial
totalities --human history, or worse
still the party, or even its leader--
with the attributes of the Beautiful,
the True, the Good, and the One.
And idolatry is always unsatisfying.
Even the simplest peasant, after all,
knows the kings die like other men
(Ps 82) --and that the cult of the king
is, therefore, ultimately a cult of
death.
We have, therefore, every reason to
labor unendingly, to contribute with
everything we do to the construction
of Omega, and no reason to weep
over our own limitations. The work
that we cannot finish, others will take
up, knowing that we labor in them,
even as we, now, make straight their
path. Nor is there any excuse to rest
satisfied with any partial totality,
when we can grasp the concept, at
least, of something which far
transcends any merely human
achievement.
This is the true faith of a mature
humanity --a humanity which is
certain of both its power and its
limitations, which has grown to the
point that it can feel at home in a
universe of which it is not the center,
in which it is not and never will be
Lord, but to which it nonetheless
recognizes as meaningful, and to
which it has something very
important to contribute. Our species
is being called on to grow up, to cast
aside both its childish dependence
and its infantile, nihilistic
rebelliousness, and get on with its
work. If we can do this, I feel
certain that, the present darkness
notwithstanding, the future will be
brilliant.
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