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New Thinking for a New Era
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19786 |
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MODERN THOUGHT
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3 / 1991 |
4,440 Words |
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Ervin Laszlo
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As we enter the last decade of this extraordinary century, we find ourselves at a crucial juncture in the long and adventurous history of our species. We are transiting into a new kind of society, a transition as significant as the earlier grand transitions from the trees to the grasslands, from the grasslands into the caves, and from settled agricultural communities to industrial societies. What we are now living through is the transition from nationally based industrial societies to an interconnected and information-based global economic and social system.
Industrial society as we knew it since World War II relied on a seemingly unlimited supply of raw materials and cheap energy. Its aim was to produce mass-manufactured products for mass markets. It created trade, advertising, and transport mechanisms to bridge the distance between producer and consumer and place ever larger quantities of mass-produced goods on ever more extensive markets. This type of society is rapidly disappearing in the economically developed parts of the globe. In its place comes a postindustrial society that emphasizes the quality of life rather than the material standard of living and links producers and consumers, decision makers and citizens, directors and stockholders in flexible and participatory networks.
The grand transition from the industrial to the information age is a direct consequence of the way societies process information. In the past, our lives have been shaped mainly by information processed in human brains. This was the case when it came to raising children, creating businesses, setting up local or national governments, organizing churches or armies, and founding schools or theaters. But in the course of the twentieth century, the information processed in human brains has been increasingly supplemented by information processed in technical systems. In the last decade of this century, we find ourselves not only in a social but also in an informational environment. Our societies have become more than social systems: They have turned into information-based sociotechnological ones.
The transition in which we now find ourselves is the fastest ever: In the course of the last decade, time has telescoped. We are precariously poised in a present full of challenge and change; the future is upon us before we can look around and realize that the past has disappeared. Suddenly, standard values and beliefs became irrelevant--classical assumptions about the nature of the contemporary world have collapsed. This world is no longer an arena of the struggle between capitalism and communism led by two superpowers; it is a more complex world, with more players. In addition to the United States and the USSR, there is now Japan, the "little dragons" of Asia, and the Europe of 1992 with its 325 million people and increasingly competitive technologies. The issue of environmental degradation has shifted from a concern of marginal intellectual and youth groups to the center stage of politics and business, and the problems of the Third World now concern three-quarters of the world's population. Extensive growth may soon give way to intensive transformation. This will make a major difference. Extensive growth can occur by linear accretion (more of the same can be accumulated) but intensive change is nonlinear and transformative. The system must either evolve or be destroyed.
The global challenge is real. Although scientific applications have raised human living standards for millions beyond all drams and expectations, social inequities, political stresses, and unreflective uses of
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