Abstract
And so we arrive at the turning point, the crossroads, the decisive epoch in human history that will determine whether or not our species survives. Will the present generation be able to extract itself from the dilemmas that human history has created for it, dilemmas that only humans, unlike all other species, can consciously perceive and respond to? Is humankind up to forestalling its own self-inflicted extinction or not? For the disembodied scholar, there can be no more fascinating intellectual drama. For five billion flesh-and-blood human beings, the question and its answer are far more immediate.
Today we live in a globally interconnected world in which biological, psychological, social and environmental phenomena are all interdependent. To describe this world appropriately we need a new paradigm, a new vision of reality — a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions and values. The beginnings of this change, or the shift from the mechanistic to the holistic conception of reality, are already visible … The gravity and global extent of our crisis indicates that the current changes are likely to result in a transformation of unprecedented dimension, a turning point for the planet as a whole.
Fritjof Capra, 1982†
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
Fritjof Capra, ‘A New Vision of Reality’, New Age (February 1982) pp. 29–30.
N.S. Momaday, ‘A First American Views His Land’, National Geographic 150 (1) (July 1976) pp. 13–19.
B. Nietschmann, ‘The Third World War,’ Cultural Survival Quarterly, 11(3) (1987) pp. 1–16; quote is from p.1.
J.H. Bodley, Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems (Menlo Park, CA: Cummings, 1976) p. 214 f.
S.J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981) p. 325.
See E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered (London: Abacus, Sphere Books, 1974).
Hazel Henderson, The Politics of the Solar Age: Alternatives to Economics (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, Doubleday, 1981).
D. Dickson, The New Politics of Science (New York: Pantheon, 1984) P. 3.
M.H. Halperin, ‘Secrecy and National Security’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, (August 1985) pp. 114–17.
A. Pacey, The Culture of Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983) p. 171.
M. Stanley, ‘Three Post Political Futures’, The Humanist 33 (6) (November/ December 1973) pp. 28–31. Quote from p. 28.
W.D. Carey, ‘Charting a Course for Science’, Science, 212 (1981) p. 1455.
E. Chargaff, ‘Knowledge without Wisdom’, Harper’s (May 1980) p. 41.
Chargaff, ‘Knowledge without Wisdom’, p. 47.
Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, pp. 26–7.
Pacey, The Culture of Technology, p. 151.
H. Caldicott, Missile Envy (New York: William Morrow, 1984) p. 315 f.
C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) p. 160.
M. Midgley, Evolution as a Religion (London: Methuen, 1985) p. 135.
Midgley, Evolution, p. 142.
For a complete discussion of these ideas, see Mary Midgley, Heart and Mind (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1981).
A. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (London: Oxford University Press, 1949); quote is from Foreword, pp. viii-ix, 1948.
R.B. Norgaard, ‘Coevolutionary Agricultural Development’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 32 (1984) pp. 525–46; ‘Bureaucracy, Systems Management, and the Mythology of Science’, Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics Working Paper No. 297, University of California, Berkeley, 1984; ‘Environmental Economics: An Evolutionary Critique and a Plea for Pluralism’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 12 (1985) pp. 382–94.
D. Lee, Freedom and Culture (New York: Spectrum, Prentice-Hall, 1959) pp. 11, 23.
Lee, Freedom and Culture, pp. 24, 25.
See J. Goodall, In the Shadow of Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971). Dr Goodall’s studies of our nearest primate relatives, the chimpanzees, indicate the kind of social bondedness our shared common ancestors must have had.
W. Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1977) p. 224.
Ophuls, Ecology, p. 224.
Quoted in Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak, Green Politics (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984) p. 156.
Capra and Spretnak, Green Politics, p. 157.
R. Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984) p. 190.
I.I. Mitroff, ‘Beyond Experimentation: New Methods for a New Age’, Chapter 8 in E. Seidman (ed.), Handbook of Social Intervention (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983) p. 177.
‘A Conversation between David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson’, Annals of Earth IV(1) (1986) p.6. (Published by Ocean Arks, Inc., 10 Shanks Pond Road, Falmouth, MA, 01540.)
S. Aronowitz, ‘Mass Culture and the Eclipse of Reason: The Implications for Pedagogy’, College English (April 1977) p. 768.
J. Dewey, The Wit and Wisdom of John Dewey A.H. Johnson (ed.) (Boston: Beacon Press, 1949) pp. 90, 103, respectively.
R.T. Johnson and D.W. Johnson, ‘Cooperative Learning and the Achievement and Socialization Crises in Science and Mathematics Classrooms’, in A.B. Champagne and L.E. Hornig (eds), Students and Science Learning (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1987) pp. 67–93.
Dewey, The Wit and Wisdom, p. 93.
G. Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973)
and Social Power and Political Freedom (1980), both published by Porter Sargent, Boston.
O.N. Bradley, quoted in Charles Duryea Smith (ed.), The Hundred Percent Challenge (Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1985) p. 208.
M. Nagler, ‘Redefining Peace’, San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle (30 October 1983).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1989 Mark E. Clark
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Clark, M.E. (1989). Humankind at the Crossroads. In: Ariadne’s Thread. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20077-1_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20077-1_16
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-46600-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-20077-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)