chapter 12 - the domain of the future

introduction

• the rate of attrition for creativity within domains is very high, and that for new domains must be at least as large
• each was successful within an existing scientific domain before trying to establish a new one

the science of survival

• the name barry commonder has become synonymous with the ecological struggle. he was among the first scientists to realize, in the 1960s, that some of the fruits of technology, posed dangers for human health

at war with the planet

• the main story, according to commoner, is thaqt we have unintentionally declared war against the planet on which our lives depend. science started out as a powerful tool for increasing human well-being. but when knowledge within separate domains is pursued without understanding how its applications affect the whole, it unleashes forces that can be enormously destructive

science and politics

• but, commoner is using science in its most basic, truest sense. what he objects to is not systematic, careful observation, only the irresponsible uses of it. what he objects to is the ritualized worship of domain knowledge for its own sake, instead of the integrated knowledge we actually need to avoid becoming history.

struggling with reality

• "one approach to this problem then is to solve it, not to write a paper that will fit into a particular discipline or even a combination of disciplines. that's why I say we are adisciplinary, not interdisciplinary" - Commoner
• like so many of our respondents, commoner insts on the importance of maintaining two usually contradictory attitudes toward his work: to keep an emotional link to what he does and at the same time a rigorously objective perspective

splicing the cultural DNA

• hazel henderson also has dedicated her life to keeping out species from destroying the habitat in which it lives. but because she was trained in economics instead of biology, her concern is more with how patterns of consumption affect our uses of resources than with the biochemical consequences of our lifestyles
• for a starter, she wrote to a number of resorts in Bermuda, proposing that she run their hotels in exchange for lodging, good meals, and afternoon lessons with the tennis and golf pros. her offer was eagerly accepted, and she chose the most glittery resort. it showed her the possibility of stepping out of the money economy and of organizing small-scalle, mutually benefical exchange systems

the blindness of nations

• she concluded that these societies, which represent only about 13 percent of the world's population but use up most of its natural resources, have blinded themselves to reality by measuring their GNP without taking into account the social and environmental costs of their so-called progress

the real wealth

• as is usually the case, the formulation of the problem implies its own solution. formulating the problem is conceptually the most difficult part of the entire proces, even though it may seem effortless
• "what I'm interested in is the DNA code of societies and of organizations. that is, the program of rules derived from their values. every culture is really a high-quality program of software, derived from a value system and a set of goals. and every corporate culture and every institution is like that. and so what I like to do is to write the DNA codes for new organizations" - hazel henderson

midwife of change

• but with time she discovered that to "hang aound too long" was a mistake, because the volunteers who joined her out of idealism would get stifled and dependent on her. plus her ego would become too tightly bound up wit the success of the enterprise. so now she passes on the leadership of the young organization as soon as possible and doesn't worry too much whether her initial design will be followed to the letter

making high mischief

• not many people confeess to feeling like extraterrestrials, but one must be able to look at oneself from a certain distance in order to get an objective view of the human condition. and in order to invent new watys of living that are not compromised by past traditions, one must strive to attain such objectivity. yet at the same time, one must also maintain one's "emotional attachment to the species" this dialectic between rational calculation and passionate involvement was mentioned earlier as one of the traits of creative individuals in general. it is perhaps even more essential for those whose creativity lies outside of traditional domains.

steps to peace

• elise boulding discovered her problems in the vicissitudes of real life and tried to solve them first within the boundaries of an existing domain. upon finding out that this was impossible, she left the security of academic field and struck out on her own, hoping to develop new approaches to the threats that she saw endangering out future

no safe place left

• what boulding saw was that the world was too interconnected to allow anyone to withdraw to a safe haven. violence can spread everywhere instantaneously. boulding confronted the systemic nature of our mutual dependence. she realized that the only way the world was going to be a safe place was it everyone worked to make it so

grounding

• boulding appraoched the problem of peace from the ground up so to speak. the steps are simple and obvious
  • first we must raise children to be peacemakers
  • second, we must understand how families can achieve internal harmony
  • third we must link harmonoius families into neighborhoods and communities
  • finally, people so linked should be made aware of their global identity, of their mutual interdependence
• when the dark night of the sould descends, elise boulding retreats to her mountain hermitage. there, surrounded by distanct peaks and her cherished objects, her days ruled by ritual prayer and meditation, she can restore inner balance and rediscover her spiritual grounding

releasing potentialitities

• because john gardener was not seeking either money or power, the goal he was striving for remined elusive even though to an objective observer it would have seemed that he reached it several times over

the excellence of plumbers

•  basically, gardner became convinced that we don't live up to the potential for excellence that is the birth right of every person. this has two consequences
  • our lives become drab and impoverished: we never experience the feeling of exhilaration that one has when acting at the fullness of one's capacities
  • the second consequence is that people who are both badly paid and have dull jobs eventually become alienated from the fortunate few with time, this tension necessarily results in social conflict
• the problem, as gardner saw it, was to implement an ethos of social equality even while recognizing the reality of profound individual differences

reaching the people

• basically, he felt that the way to combat alienation was to get people more involved in the decisions that affected their fortunes. Common Cause and Independent Sector

living with a sense of responsibility

• instead, he chose to do whatever helped most the common good - not so much out of a sense of obligation, but decause he genuinely believed that his was the best thing he could be doing
• gardner realized that to influence the new fields in which he was operating, he neede to develop new strategies and rebuild his own personality in the process. this required a great deal of openness and flexibility on his part.
• the ability to discover what one can do well, and enjoy doing it, is the hallmark of all creative people

the domain of global responsibility

• what commoner, henderson, boulding andgardner have in common is that they hav realized the systemic interconnections among the events that happen on the planet, and they are struggling to act on thie realization
• what people like the ones described in this chapter are doing it rediscovering, within the domains of different sciences, the grounds for taking these intuitions seriously
• non of the seems to be motivated by money and fame. instead they are driven by a feeling of responsibility for the common good, a feeling that sometimes borders on traditional religious values but more often seems to depend on a spiritual sense for the order and beauty of natural phenomena that transcends any particular creed. but they wear this feeling of responsibility lightly, as a privilege rather than a duty
• like the other creative persons we studies, flow is the typical state of the consciousness