"As long as humanity's power to act was limited, lack
of wisdom, of enlightenment did not matter too much:
humanity lacked the means to inflict too much damage
on the planet [3]."
- Can Humanity Learn to become Civilized?
The Crisis of Science without Civilization
(Published in Journal of Applied Philosophy 17,
2000, 29-44.)
Nicholas Maxwell
Emeritus Reader in Philosophy of Science at
University College
London
By "humanity's power to act was limited" he's
referring to how science has solved this limit to act
by an increased understanding of nature, and the
technology that has developed with this scientific
understanding. Now that humanity's power to act is
NOT as limited as before the 20th century, and the
lack of wisdom is still here, this reminds me of a
tribe in Australia. They used stone axes to cut down
trees and traded and used this wood. Stone axes
couldn't cut much so this limited their actions of
cutting wood. Then settlers in Australia gave these
people steel axes. The people didn't change how long
they cut wood. They kept cutting as long as they cut
when they had stone axes, but the steel axes allowed
them to increase their power, their energy expenditure
in cutting wood. The previous limit was broken, and
the steel axes allowed them to cut more wood in the
same amount of time. This drastically changed their
culture where wood increasing became scarce as they
had to go further and further away in distance to find
more trees to cut to fulfill their economy. Their
wisdom did not keep up with the times, the increased
technological know-hows of the day. They kept the
same mind-set and did not change their intellectual
static patterns to adjust to these steel axes. They
did not change their social patterns of value either.
This different inorganic pattern, steel versus stone,
created a tension in their old ways. They didn't have
a dynamic understanding that could one day lead them
out of their old ways. Their static patterns became
stuck, but the outcome was very different. In the
face of an ecological disaster they were forced to
change their ways. I know this happened in Australia,
and read this article in the university in an
anthropology course. I don't know what happened to
these people. I know they didn't become extinct, and
I do know changes occurred but I don't know what kind
of changes they were. I do know due to this lack of
resources they became more and more dependent upon
other surrounding cultures.
This article is stimulating. I'll try not to keep
quoting and giving my thoughts on the article. I
thought I'd give this quote a copy and paste to stir
some discussion and/or thought. By realizing that
something dynamic is here, isn't that to help stir our
thoughts, keep us creative, and flexible to any winds
of change?
thanks.
SA
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