Civilization and Beyond by Scott Nearing
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Scott Nearing >> Civilization and Beyond
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MAN COULD CHANGE HUMAN NATURE
Man could conserve natural resources; he could remake human society. But
man himself? There, perhaps, is the root of the problem we are
discussing.
Can man change himself? Can he change human nature? Could human beings
as we know them be transformed sufficiently to live and survive under
the life-style that replaces civilization?
In our universe as we know it today, from the least to the greatest,
from the most minute to the most extensive, change is one of the basic
principles of existence. Nature changes. Human society changes. Changes
in nature and in society are paralleled by changes in man
himself--changes in outlooks and purposes, changes in ways of feeling,
thinking and acting.
Human beings have lived under the aegis of tradition, custom,
habit--thinking and acting "normally" and "naturally" in ways accepted
by their forebears and followed by them with little or no regard for
reason, foresight, or creative imagination. Rudiments of all three
capacities were known to exist in human beings. On the whole, the status
quo has been preferred; innovation frowned upon and innovators
discouraged, denounced, reviled and sometimes even put to death.
In the field of natural science revolutionary short-cutting through the
use of man's creative imagination has been widely used. The great
revolution is one aspect of the anticipated result. Similar
revolutionary short-cutting in the field of social science and social
technology is bound to produce a "new man" in the same way that similar
practices have remodeled, regenerated and renewed man's relations with
nature, and his theories and practices of association.
Despite efforts of the Establishment to impose conformity,
non-conforming individuals continued to be born and to grow up as
deviants, misfits and intentional non-conformists. Some of these rebels
against the established social order left home, joined the army or went
to sea. Others stayed at home, bided their time and, when opportunity
offered, joined with like-minded fellows in organized underground
opposition or open rebellion against the status quo.
History reports the existence of such dissident individuals and social
groups and movements in one civilization after another.
In a very real sense any invention, discovery or innovation in any field
of human thought or action, if widely accepted or adopted automatically,
becomes a revolt against the status quo. Our experience with innovation
during two centuries of the great revolution gives us every reason to
suppose that the flow of scientific and technical invention and
discovery will continue for an indefinite period into our future. On the
whole the evidence suggests increase rather than decrease of innovation
and therefore of change.
A time of troubles such as that through which western civilization is
now passing offers individuals and social groups unique opportunities to
play significant roles in shaping the course of events. In every human
population there are individuals who are dissatisfied with the status
quo and prefer change to status. For such individuals a time of social
troubles is a holiday.
There is also an ever-renewing social group for whom a time of troubles
presents a challenge and an opportunity--the young people of the
on-coming generation.
Adults are generally conditioned and shaped by the social situation into
which they were born and in which they matured. Young people are passing
through the conditioning process. They are undergoing the process of
rapid change.
Young people in their teens and early twenties stand, usually hesitant,
on the threshold of life. They are bursting with energy, eager, hopeful,
anxious to enter the stream of adult activity. Inexperienced, they
under-estimate the difficulties, taking up any line of activity that
promises quick results. They are impressionable and generally seeking "a
good life."
Such resources of energy and idealism exist in every generation and
reappear as the generations follow one another. Youth groups have played
active roles in one country after another where opportunities were
restricted by the establishment and revolutionary propagandists painted
a rosy future. Political nationalism in the eighteenth century and
economic and social emancipation in the nineteenth century mobilized
high school and college age youth in the Americas, Europe, Asia and
Africa.
It is folly to assert that human nature is a given and unalterable
quantity in every social situation and that since "you cannot change
human nature" intentional social changes are out of the question. The
facts are otherwise:
1. There is a wide diversity in human beings ranging from
herculean physical strength to pitiable weakness; from the
mental power of genius to the nonentity of imbecility; from
outstanding and unquestionable talent in arts and letters
to illiteracy and clumsy inefficiency. This wide diversity
in human capacity is one of the outstanding features of
human nature, recorded again and again in history and
encountered in all human aggregates.
2. There is a period in human life when the habit patterns
of childhood are exchanged for the habit patterns of adulthood.
At this turning point, youth is likely to follow
dynamic and purposeful leadership.
3. There is a wide diversity in social situations, from rock-ribbed
stability, to entire communities teetering on the brink
or plunging over the brink into the maelstrom of revolution.
Such diverse situations have existed again and again
during the 1750-1970 revolutionary epoch.
4. When a revolutionary situation develops, a revolutionary
leader well-established in a community trembling on the
brink of a revolutionary overturn may seize the reins of
power and establish a regime founded on opposition principles,
dedicated to another set of principles and practices.
When such a revolutionary coup is successful the bells of
history have tolled for the older order and the trumpets
of victory have sounded for the new society.
5. The intensity and the direction of the social changes which
radiate out from the climax of a revolutionary situation
and the consequent, subsequent attempts at counter-revolution,
are the outcome of active, purposive intervention by
all of the social groups present at the center of revolutionary
activity.
The current shift from a laissez-faire economy ("letting nature take her
course"), to a planned, managed, controlled economy is a precedent which
gives us a foretaste of what will lie ahead when a planet-wide federal
government undertakes the planning, direction and management of a
planet-wide economy and society.
The outcome cannot be determined in advance. Unexpected situations will
arise, the resolution of which will shape the fate, present and future,
of mankind. In a very real sense, our eggs are all in one basket--the
Earth. Our future, for generations to come, may be determined by the
decisions we are making or the social policy we are initiating at the
present moment.
Large scale research and experiment should go a long way toward
developing the skills required by competent and successful planetary
leadership. Political experiments like the United States of North
America or the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics or the League of
Nations or the United Nations, the planet-wide search for petroleum or
the joint scientific efforts that went into the splitting of the atom,
have given us opportunities to develop the science and art of
planet-wide leadership.
Behind and beyond our training courses--our formal educational system
(which should be in the front rank of our priorities)--we could train
apprentices in every occupational field, selecting the most apt, the
most eager, the seemingly best qualified and giving them every
opportunity to try out their skills and improve their qualifications in
their chosen fields of endeavor.
Aspirants for any occupational assignment would divide themselves into
three groups: those who feel that they have chosen wisely, find
themselves in congenial surrounds and want to spend coming years in the
occupation of their choice; those who are uncertain and still unable to
decide upon the field of their life activity; and third, those who have
chosen badly, are dissatisfied with the occupational groove in which
they find themselves and who are ready to move into another field at the
first opportunity.
The well adjusted will constitute the elite of their chosen occupations,
learning its skills and joining with other well satisfied professionals
in passing on their enthusiasm and knowledge to the next generation of
aspirants for inclusion in the same production teams. The undecided
should be the object of special attention. They have entered an
occupational field on an experimental basis and should be advised and
helped during the experimental period when they are deciding to make a
go of it or to try for something more congenial or at least more
acceptable.
Misfits who have made a wrong choice and who have no clear call to stay
where they are should be advised and helped to find more congenial
occupational surroundings.
We may think and experiment with this selective process as though it was
easy and probably final. Nothing could be further from the reality. Even
the best adjusted have moments of uncertainty and indecision about their
occupational futures. The less adjusted spend a part of their lives
looking around for a more attractive field.
In every field, some of the best adjusted go as far as their interests
and capacities carry them and then shift over into other occupations
which, in turn, offer them more chances to employ their talents to
greater advantage.
In every field of human endeavor individuals come and go. They should
stay where they seem to be useful and go when their usefulness is
decreasing or coming to an end.
Balance between status and change is as desirable for the individual as
it is for the group. The decision to stay or go should remain open to
the endless round of individuals who comprise any working team. The
existence of such flexibility is limited, however, by the need to
maintain a working force of interested, alert, eager individuals--skilled,
adjusted and disciplined in group endeavor and achievement.
We are describing the unending process of selection which goes on from
hour to hour and day to day in any well ordered social group. Every
group has its fields of endeavor, its goals and its scale of priorities.
Individuals come and go. The group carries on. Excellence in group
performance depends upon its competence in selecting, training and
coordinating its endeavors.
Every social group has its hard corps of trained and tested veterans.
Also it has its problem of aging. The apprentice of yesterday becomes
the experienced, skilled operator of today. Tomorrow brings retirement
for those who have reached the age limit of service and who as a matter
of group routine are replaced by newcomers. In the course of this cycle
the directors of the group have their opportunity to improve the level
of group efficiency by phasing out the old and incorporating the new.
The range of capacity, from perception and facility to ineptitude and
incompetence, holds for the new generation as it did for the old. The
tone and performance level of each group is determined by the
effectiveness of this selective process.
At some point it becomes necessary to inquire into the biologic aspects
of any social enterprise. We are doing our utmost to select and educate
and train the fit. Are we producing potential fitness?
Long experience has taught us that we cannot produce a silk purse from a
sow's ear. Eugenics emerges as an important aspect of every long term
group endeavor. Qualities and capacities are handed on from parent to
offspring. Are we reproducing fitness or unfitness?
As we move beyond civilization onto a more mature and more complicated
culture level, we may have a workable system of social priorities, but
does our oncoming stream of manpower have the interest, the imagination,
the competence, the sense of social responsibility and the staying power
necessary to arouse in a series of generations the will and
determination to carry out social policy?
Are the oncoming generations able and willing to shoulder the loads of
clearing out the rubbish accumulated through ten centuries of western
civilization, make effective use of science, technology _and_ available
human capacity and move onward and forward to new levels of social
achievement?
We could develop a corps of socially responsible technicians as we have
developed a corps of competent scientists and technicians in the field
of natural science. In each field priorities are constantly changing.
Each field is called upon to meet the changes by making corresponding
changes in its personnel, its education and its apprenticeships.
In addition to formal schooling and apprenticeship we have a vast
network for the distribution of information and the formation of public
opinion. The printing press, the camera and other means of communication
determine the levels of information and the willingness of the public to
keep abreast of the shifting social scene.
A social structure resembles every other human meeting place--it tends
to accumulate dead wood. There are two answers to this problem: periodic
housecleaning, without fear or favor, together with careful scrutiny of
the apprentices and other newcomers in the field.
Every social group has its quota of defectives and
delinquents--biological and social, physical, mental, emotional. Here
the critical problem is where to draw the line. Perhaps the best general
answer is to measure productiveness, including those who make a net
contribution, including those whose presence is desirable and excluding
undesirables. Again this involves periodic housecleanings.
Throughout the past two centuries mankind has been confronted by an
epoch-making, many sided development--the great revolution of
1750-1970. As I write, the great revolution is modifying the structure
and functioning of human society and, consequently, the forces which
condition, shape and, in large measure, determine the directions and
channels in which humanity lives, moves and has its being.
The great revolution is changing man's relation to nature, to the
structure and function of human society and the ways in which men think,
feel, act and live. The great revolution has shifted the human living
place from rural to urban, replaced a large measure of self-employment
by wagery, lifted large segments of mankind out of scarcity into
abundance, led to widespread migrations across Europe and from continent
to continent, expanded nations and built empires. In the course of these
developments Europe became the center of world economic, political and
cultural affairs, held the position briefly and lost it in the course of
two general, suicidal wars.
Speaking broadly, such a period in the life of any society may be
described as a revolutionary situation--one in which changes are made
frequently, rapidly and with far reaching consequences. In a word, the
existing social pattern is in process of being turned over, turned
upside down, transformed by forces which seem to operate according to
their own principles and often quite independently of human intention or
intervention.
Our society--western civilization--is undergoing a revolution. People
born into a rapidly changing society are often tempted and sometimes
compelled to play significant roles in the revolutionary process.
Unconsciously or consciously, unwilling and unwitting or deliberately
and purposefully they are revolutionaries.
Among the participants in the revolutionary process, the far-seeing,
imaginative, perceptive and mature develop into purposive
revolutionaries. In the course of a series of political, economic and
cultural revolutions like those which played so fateful a part in China
between 1899 and 1969, an entire generation is born, grows up and, in
larger part, retires from active life or dies off.
Long continued cultural changes play a part in local history. They have
an equally important role in the lives of neighboring nations and
peoples. With present means of communication, transportation and travel,
the influence of revolutionary events such as those in China from 1899
to the present day may be profound.
The bourgeois revolution from 1750 to 1840 centered largely in West
Europe and the Americas. In scope it was economic, political, cultural.
The Chinese and other revolutions of the present period, beginning with
the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the Chinese Revolution of 1911, are
once more transforming the economic, political and cultural life of
mankind.
UNESCO's _History of Mankind_ (Harper and Row), particularly its Volume
6 titled _The Twentieth Century_, presents voluminous comments from a
wide range of qualified scientists and commentators on the changes
associated with the great revolution of 1750-1970.
The economic, political and cultural life of the majority of human
beings has been modified by the events comprising the great revolution.
Its influence has been, and continues to be, planet-wide. Consciously or
unconsciously, human beings have been brought into contact with
influences that are transforming them as they revolutionize human
society.
Western man and his way of life have been primarily responsible for this
great revolution. The changes brought about in the human life pattern in
the course of the great revolution have created a new world--in
structure, in function, in outlook, in stepped-up capacity for even more
spectacular changes in the future.
Instead of regarding human beings and human society as unchangeable and
sacred we must regard both as a part of our social problem: taking the
steps necessary to reach and occupy the highest possible levels of
social and individual health and effectiveness. We can and should make
every effort to improve human society. We should be equally concerned to
improve man and his nature.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MAN COULD BREAK OUT OF THE AGE-LONG PRISON HOUSE OF CIVILIZATION AND
ENTER A NEW WORLD
We humans have been living for ages with various lifestyles--as hunters
and fishermen, as herdsmen, as cultivators of the soil, as craftsmen, as
traders and merchants, as professionals, as exploiters, as parasites,
wreckers and plunderers. On the whole, our energies have been spent in
relatively small, self-sufficient groups, staying close to nature, as a
part of nature.
Occasionally we have turned from this "natural" way of life, to build
towns and cities, experimenting with large scale mass enterprises and
expanded aggregates of population, wealth and centralized authority to
which we have given the name of civilizations.
These civilizations, in their turn, have passed through a recognizable
life cycle--the cycle of growing, developing, maturing, aging, breaking
up and disappearing. One aspect of their civilized life was the keeping
of records. Another aspect was building with baked clay and stone. Baked
clay, some metals and stone, have withstood the wear and tear of time,
sheltered in the temples and tombs which we are uncovering, deciphering,
translating.
While engaged in these scholarly pursuits, our variant of the
pattern--western civilization--has been passing through the customary
life cycle. If we read the signs correctly, western civilization reached
the high point in its cycle toward the end of the last century. Since
then, for seventy-five years, it has been on the decline.
If we accept the cycle of civilization as one of the facts or sequences
presented to us by history, we may continue to pass submissively through
the successive stages of decline until western civilization is
liquidated by the same forces that wiped out preceding civilizations.
This would be the normal course of a cycle of civilization as it appears
in recorded history.
Need we follow this course? Must we follow it?
History answers "yes" and also "no."
History answers "yes"--the record to date reads that way.
But the record of history also shows that men have repeatedly interfered
and intervened in the historical process by discovery and invention. The
historical record is subject to change. Man is not entirely free.
Neither is he helplessly bound on the wheel of necessity, presently
known as civilization.
In Chapter 10 we listed a number of discoveries and inventions which
have greatly increased man's control over his own destiny. As these
innovations are embodied in the life styles of planet-wide human
society, there is every likelihood that men can deal with the future
almost as comprehensibly as they now deal with the past. Those who take
this position argue that humanity has reached a point at which it may
break out of the present cycle of civilization and begin a new cycle
which will correspond with the possibilities brought to mankind during
the great revolution of 1750-1970.
The idea is not new. It has appeared repeatedly in various forms:
individual withdrawal from the world and its troubles to live solitary,
perfected, sin-free existences; the formulation of plans for utopian or
ideal communities; the establishment of such communities--apart from the
workday world; revolutionary mass movements away from the current time
of social troubles into a more workable, more acceptable, more basically
productive and fundamentally creative life style.
Hermits and reclusive monastic life need not concern us here. They are
to be found in many parts of the existing society. They live their lives
apart from the main currents of human life. We may make the same
comment, with slight modifications, on intentional communities
organized within the bounds of surrounding civilizations. They meet the
needs of exceptional individuals who find the existing order intolerable
and who wish to move at once into a more congenial community life.
Intentional communities founded to demonstrate particular social or
economic theories usually are short-lived, covering, at best, one or two
generations.
Intentional communities organized around ethical or social principles
are more enduring, lasting through generations and sometimes through
centuries. During their existence they may have considerable influence
on the communities of which they are a part. At best they parallel the
life of the civilization against which they protest, while they share
its problems. Religiously oriented intentional communities may be found
today in many of the countries composing western civilization.
What concerns us here is the split of western civilization into two
broadly divergent groups: capitalism and socialism-communism.
Capitalism, in its present monopoly form, is the outcome of a thousand
years of development. Throughout its existence it has been politically
and economically competitive. The vehicle of political competition began
as the nation, then continued as the empire. Economically, the vehicle
of competition has become the profit-seeking business corporation,
backed politically and often subsidized economically by the nation or
empire.
As western civilization has developed, nations and empires have tended
to form more or less permanent alliances. Business corporations likewise
have tended to establish conglomerates which include widely divergent
businesses, some limited to one nation or empire, some international.
Historically, the present-day business community developed out of a
segmented European feudal society as a protest against political
restrictions. Its early key-note was laissez-faire--freedom of
businessmen to make economic policy and accumulate profits. The
practical outcome of laissez-faire economy has been monopoly or finance
capitalism functioning through the sovereign state or empire.
Marxian socialism-communism, organized and developed largely since 1848,
has grown up as a rebellion against monopoly capitalism. At it matured,
after revolutions in Mexico, China, Tsarist Russia and East Europe, it
became an alternative and even a competitive life style. Marxism has
been, at least in theory, cooperative rather than competitive. Its
objective has been not private profit but a higher standard of economic
and social life for exploited masses of the business community and of
the Third World. Capitalism has had as its slogan "Every man for
himself". The slogan of Marxism is "Serve the whole people".
Until 1917 Marxism was a body of social theory and a program of specific
political demands. In the period from 1848 to 1917 Marxism operated
through minority political parties organized in each nation, but linked
together internationally in loose federations, except during the brief
existence of the Communist International from 1919 to 1943.
Beginning with the Russian Revolution of 1917, Marxism became a basic
state doctrine, first in the Soviet Union and subsequently in more than
a dozen other nations of East Europe and Asia. The area of Marxist
influence, as expressed in socialist construction, spread slowly from
1917 to 1943 and rapidly during and immediately after the war of
1936-1945.
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