This is the version of the 28.11 2008 developed in collaboration with the PhD student of the Auckland University Rendt Gorter http://www.linkedin.com/in/rendt after his article Sustainability, fear and excitement: Change is in the air
http://rendt.gorter.gen.nz/2008/10/sustainability-fear-and-excitement.html#linksThe current crisis nature and new urgency for developing democratic societies
.Currently any idle chap around is spending his time in hot and furious discussing the World-markets crisis. This very crisis affects the strongest way the countries with well-developed market economy, the so called “Golden Billion”, countries that form the dominating majority of the globalised World economy. Simultaneously series of serious crises, such as hunger, epidemics, wars and so on, occur in other countries but all of them are more or less connected with “Maltuzian crisis” - overuse of the population ecotope resources. There's connection between World Market Crisis and increase in the violence level in countries which aren't strongly integrated into world market economy. But this connection is not as direct as it seems from first glance The increased population density automatically switch on the natural mechanisms of its number auto
-regulation. All these mechanisms, and especially the military conflicts, cause mass population extermination. As a result a result population density falls, and that let the biotope capacity to be restored. So it happens with the “usual” biological species, it is the natural way of their existence. The biological mechanism does not pay attention to any unique person, they operate with “biomasses”. So it works and any emotions here are senseless.However, the humanity history is a history of opposition of the unique person to the crowds, “biomass”, “the herd", - so it may be regarded as the history of the mind Individualization. In the countries, which are less economically developed, this individualization is hampered due to the economical means - being alone the person cannot just survive, thus it'd be nothing outside a community. Therefore people are “forced” to follow the interests of a community and hence they fallow some strict inter communal rules of the behaviour; one of the main one of which is following the strict and rigid hierarchical structure and the subordination to the herd leaders. In human society that mean the autocratic administrative organization.
In the developed countries this person-community liaison and hence the necessity in unified behaviour rules were lost long ago. Together with this a new, quite unnatural form of the social organisation behaviour was worked out – the democracy. It can be met nowhere in the biology – the biology pays no attention to the individuals, thus the natural sustainable form of the population is autocracy.
But human being is something more than just one of the biosphere species. The democracy that occurs in its population for the first time in order to replace the lost pressure of natural selection on the social level. But H.sapiens – a species wich is not usual, it is a social species, therefore it is subdue to the biological lows influence. Democracy occurrence became possible as a result of this "individualization". She make possible the mobile society structure adjusting to the changed conditions NOT through mass society determination or the private will of one person – let it be some GENIOUS; that genius may get ill,insane or just die and being a human being it may be just wrong after all, - but this adjusting is possible through the coordination of the several points of view that provides “the 3D vision”.Thus despite its highly unnatural nature the democracy is the only way of providing human society with the sustainable long term existing. By not the less natural reasons the human society always tends falling into the natural state of authoritativeness.
In the countries, whose structure has been the result of a long history of democracy development the market economy has been developed. It's is able to meet better the raising modern needs of a human society. After all it's one of the main principles of the market economy – demand creates a supply, moreover, it can CREATE new types of demands. However the marketing technologies development made people falling into the autocracy of other type – the autocracy of marketing forming technologies.
It happens just due to the market ideology. For after all the market is aimed to the most mass consumers, thus the higher the product consumers quantity is – the better, That makes the commercial revenue higher. (The mass consumers are never characterised with some outstanding mind properties – that is the reason these properties are called "outstanding"). Hence the market is aimed to meet the demands of the "maximum” of the statistic distribution curve. Simultaneously the needs of any person that would not be able to survive successfully are to be met; many activities that formerly needed human participation and constant attention and mind applying are now automatized, hence the life of common civils requires now less mind applying, the eliminating factors have been removed and otherwise the minimal values of mind development scored the advantage. There is the statistical law, that shows that if the eliminating selection factors are absent, the maximum of that curve shifts toward the more frequent feature. That is why the market,wich is aimed to the mass consumer needs meeting and simultaneously ensuring the surviving of the less intellectually developed individuals causes the decrease of the general intellectual development of a society. It proves by the Flynn's Effect that shows that in the developed countries the “general IQ” level was significantly raising up to approximately 70 s, but tuned backward later. At the same time the individualisation level, regarded as just some kind of asocial behaviour on the contrary increases. In combination with the Flynn's Effect and laws of marketing it led to of a mass postmodernism arising (in its mass pop-forms; talents and unique persons occur always and everywhere ) and its flourishing in the pop cultures.
This is a convincing explanation for a pattern in IQ test scores over generations that has been named after the first researcher to document it, as the 'Flynn Effect'. The roughly linear increase, averaging 3 IQ points per decade, since tests were first standardized, has shown a curious flattening after the 1970s, in developed countries at least. Without entering the controversy of how much an increase in test scores reflects actual intelligence, it nevertheless must reflect changes in education and cultural circumstances that IQ testing assesses. Interestingly, it is less the school-content related tests in arithmetic and vocabulary that show change but more a category of 'general intelligence', of how subjects apply learned knowledge to life problems. This points to an area where education must be important, not by delivering more curriculum content, but by building capacity to act intelligently and responsibly as individuals. This is of note particularly in countries still evolving democratic traditions.
In Third World countries those eliminating conditions still valid, but together with them other negative factors have significant influence on mind and free will development.
Despite that on the 20th century it was considered that Malthus theory was mistaken - after all till now we all are still existing. In fact Malthus had just underestimated the influence of the scientific and technical development – but there is no wonder, in the beginning of the 19th century it played almost no role at all. But since those times both the seed and the influence of it have been constantly increasing. In the developed countries it has almost removed a problem of decreasing soil fertility-thus the starving problem. Therefore the limit, set by him to the in 20th years of the 20th century had already been passed over – that is true, tough almost at this period of time, with that bit of difference, that may be neglected on the historical level, two World Wars happened. The Market generated scientific and technical revolution. By this effect the problem of the biotope resources exhaustion was "shifted" from them to the developed countries, ie the developed countries the Malthus theory effects to a lesser degree.
However the theory still affects the most of developing countries – if not all of them. It leads to the increase of mass violence level in the world. Besides, people with less developed mind easily fell into a crowd, the herd state, and consequently, into the natural for all the biological species herd structure – the autocracy. Currently the Word broken by the strict rapture, edge between the autocratic and the democratic branches of development. The main part of conflicts occurring now in the world happen between authoritative and democratic control systems of a society. The human density increase has positive influence on the interspecies struggle for life. It increases as well. Thus the competition of those two main evolutionary branches increase as well. Under present conditions the large-scale conflict may result either in the total biotope destruction, or – in the best case – to huge losses and human being rejection many steps backward, to the primitive animal existing, - hence the purpose of the developed countries it to prevent its effect
And it is possible only through removing of
the developing countries from under the influence of Malthus laws
through scientific and technical progress – as it's presented in
the article of one of the world’s leading and most
imaginative growth theorists Oded Galor, the Professor of
Economics, Brown University
Fellow, Department of
Economics, Hebrew University
http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Oded_Galor/Galor%20interview.pdf
together with moving people from the state of
the crowd, the biomass, one that is the subject of of
biological laws influence. And it is possible only only with
development of abilities to think independently – individually –
and this is possible only through development of juvenile
education system. However here there would be another trap – the
trap of absolutely asocial anarchy, the anarchy of unrestrained
desire, while the every moment desire gets out from the reason
control. It is not less fatal. This trap is well-“promoted”
by market economy psychology.
It should go together with the transition of the developed countries to new, modern, method of the decision of conflicts – non-militaristic win-win strategy. This method is more relevant to the current evolution stage and practically it had already been successfully applied to the after-war Federal Germany Republic and to the Japan. And in this situation the role of the countries-leaders of the civilised world, "the countries of the oldest democracy", England and, especially, the USA can be hardly underestimated. Would their leaders be able to realise it and to take this responsibility on? One of the difficulties is that all their enemies and ideological opponents stand at that stage of development that offer just military way of such conflicts solving. Hence they should protect them self and their citizens. The obsolete ideology paradigm says “the attacking is the best way of defence”. It results into "the war for democracy, the war against terrorism" that sounds like some oxymoron.
However, currently there is another trap
that occurs due to the market development. In Sante Fe there is an
institute that deals with interdisciplinary projects and the
complexity theory – quite a new discipline. One of its experts,
one of authors of the structurally-demographic theory professor
Peter Turchin
http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/people/turchin/, a mathematician, but
a professor of the
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well, says that
after the education level got measure of a person market success
it brought to the huge crowd of excess educated people occurring
and that provokes instability of the society. In human history
that usually results in revolutions. That is considered by many
exports as one of the main reason of the Russian PERESTROYKA,
which brought down the autocratic Soviet state
organisation. However it may not break down the market autocracy.
These peoples were developed under the market conditions, hence
the most of them would be able to exist quite well inside the
market conditions, searching for their “unique exit” in any kind
of choking post-modermism Post-modernism began as the
significant cultural phenomenon. However the prominent creators
are always rare, unique – thus it would not fit the market
ideology. Now this cultural method has strongly entered into
market pop culture which is generated by the dulling market
conditions, so its main features is just shoking.
In the same article http://www.expert.ru/printissues/expert/2008/42/interview_nakanune_velikoy_revolutsii/ Peter Turchin says that when there is “the educated elite overproduction” - and in the case being discussed the people with higher education are that “elite”. The history has already proved it many times - this situation causes the society crisis which is usually results in revolution. It happens due to the new occurring elite representatives get not incorporated into the obsolete society structures. The theory, developed in this institute, predict the USA considerable growth of social tension in the coming 20 years. However the countries, whose economy is based on market adoption of the innovative technologies would be able to incorporate some of them. Moreover the very existing of those countries without the technological advances is hardly possible.
And what exit from this situation is? -neither Heavens, nor Paradise for any one on our the sinned Earth could be built, but it may help help to overcome the current crisis. After all the very scientific and-technical progress would allows the further development – but this progress can't go on without independent well-developed minds. For it's that only renewable resource that would be the key to.
So that “educated elite overproduction effect” may cause the social tension growth inside the USA, but being combined with anti-American moods in the outside countries it may get fatal to the country. The proposed measures - the world-wide “federal type” juvenile education system together with applying win win strategy may relief the negative effect of the “shifting” of Malthus effect to the less developed countries.
Recently the Prof. William E. Halal http://home.gwu.edu/~halal/index.htm from the Department of Management Science,The George Washington University had published in the “Washington profile” newspaper an article Science Futurism http://www.washprofile.org/en/node/7909 in Russian that proves that the humanity future is not that dark at all. That the humanity is just pasing to the cognitive age, and it's not easy
However to achieve the prospects of the “Science Futurism” coming true in real life would be just impossible without the humanity passing to new, cognitive, stage. These are just loud words, wich have been being repeated by many various peoples for a long time. But currently the moment it could be implemented had come. Moreover no further development is possible without it. And the opposite site of the development is collapse.
In place of a conclusion - more unanswered questions - REWROTE
If increasing number of social, political and economic crises are alarms that Malthusian limits have been reached, if technology has delayed and displaced the effects of this crisis, and if hope remains for democratic processes with responsible individuals, then there is hope. But no room for complacency. So which way forward from this situation? Independent minds are more in need than ever as environmental limits are breached to find innovative technical and social solutions. But modern societies must also be able to harness intellectual individuals to take part and act as intelligent, responsible individuals in functioining democracies.
If there is a need for education of change-makers, then there is also a need for societies that are open to those educated and ready to make change happen. (After the words of one culturologists the main difference between a university and a mosque is the free opinions exchange. The same is valid for any highly traditional culture; usually traditional society patters resist any changes that could result these opinions free exchange – since any society structures are interested in its pattern self-reproduction. So the more archaic the society structure is the steadier to any changes it has been for along times before) Educators have for a long time strived to make education work. Their potential could be used this “civilising” work “from the bottom”, the basis level of autocratic societies, that would give push to further development. Simultaneously that may contribute in overall reappraisal of the “Western” – ie individualized market values. That may be the way to find that “golden middle”, the sought for “middle-way” that pass between the “hemisphere” of heard psychology, “thawing among the mass of the fellow tribesmen” and the one of extreme individualism. It looks like the Tao way indeed? But what can be done – any extremes are dangerous
The key sense of this way achieving is “public opinion” changing from the bottom instead of any military actions. Traditionally any military actions were aimed to the power pattern changing, the changing of the upper society level. The upper level is leaning on the wild folk mass support, that is one the main reason of the archaic societies structures resisting to any changes. But what if the power structures loose that basis they are leaning on.? What they would be able to do without it?
So why this way could not be tried?
At the Buisness School, held in Auckland University on the Sept the 21st the concept of sustainable development was discussed: The 'Sustainable Development Strategy' that most major aid donors and many of their implementing partners have embraced, is characterized by four goals: 1. support equitable economic development; 2. support social development, with particular emphasis on people living in poverty; 3. support environment and natural resources management; and 4. support progress in democratic governance and human rights
The same concept was worked out back to the year of 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio. But till now few real inputs in real life were done. On the contrary many examples proves that this main conflict has been just deepening all that time long. May be the main reason of it was that since the 1970-es, when the development of 'underdeveloped' countries had become the principal - and enthusiastic - goal of international aid, that aid was provided not by new technologies but by ready products mainly. The miscomprehended idea of tolerance made that prominent concept to be forgotten in the name of “unique folk traditions”. Cannibalism was an unique folk tradition too, very ancient by the way, as well as self immolation of Indian wife by the funeral fire of her husband. They sincerely believe that woman's duty is to do it and some of them suffer a lot being not allowed. Should that ancient tradition be promoted?
So the Concept was forgotten. Isn't it now a time to recall it again?
But who is to take bother of this brilliant plan implementing? In 2007 it was reported that - except for HIV/AIDS, and deforestation rates - there had on the whole been satisfactory progress towards all national MDG goals in the neighbourhood of New Zealand, the Asia/Pacific region - at least from the perspective of the Asian Development Bank. The New Zealand is the regional leader – a responsible leader in Asia-Pacific Region. But if looking world-wide the World leader should take bother of that, and the World leader is the USA. That would help them to solve the inside problems too, to get out from under the consumerism autocracy.
That would make the dreams of the New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman coming true, the expectation that the America that would lead the world again - this time by example.
The USA accepting of such a responsibility would make mr. Friedman dreams come true – but are the United States ready for it? May be these are the changes Barak Odama was talking about?
But who would get bother seriously to put it into action?
The structure with similar goals was established in 1961 by the President John F Kennedy. However since its creation few were known on his activities to wide public. So may be the activity of the Peace Corp is to be revised regarding the new approaches and significantly reinforced then?
THE END