To my mind, one of the great cultural cleavages in humankind is that between power and understanding. Basically, power seeks to change things, at root, by brute force. Understanding, in and of itself, seeks to perceive the way things are, and hence sees the exercise of power, per se, as a threat by the very fact that it disrupts what needs to be understood. Power, per se, takes no notice of understanding whatsoever. Both of these proclivities are essential to human survival and, as is so frequently the case with human values, can be fundamentally at odds with each other.
I suspect power is earlier in the course of human evolution than understanding. As a species, humans were as much prey as predator, if not more so. Thus, living in constant fear, they were both impressed with the power of the animals that preyed on them and, perhaps, longed for the power they witnessed. It is instructive that the animals that received so much honor in human religions were the powerful ones, especially the lion, in India the elephant, and in Mayan culture the leopard. It is not surprising that power being so long and deeply ingrained in human nature should be more suasive in human affairs than understanding. In daily discourse we often hear people say what do I have to do?; not what do I have to know when confronted with a problem.
Understanding, being of more recent evolutionary development, is less firmly ingrained in our nature. It is, however, what finally allowed humans to redress their power imbalance with their predators. Using the two together the human species became the dominant species, for good and bad.
One of the continuing imbalances in our human and social affairs is that between these two influences. We so easily take the fruits of our understanding and wantonly place them at the service of our power proclivities. Through understanding, our brains continually create new technologies, new ways of dong things, which we, almost gleefully, pursue to their, often bitter ends. We created extremely useful computers, cameras, sensors of all kinds and produced the Predator and Reaper drones used to hunt and kill human beings as if in a video game.
Of late, there has been a movement to adhere to a "precautionary principle" which would require an assessment of all technology for its potential impacts before it is released for use. Genetically modified grains are a case in point. On a much larger scale, notably weaponry, this way of thinking needs to be implemented and rooted deeply in the human response to the inventions of its brain. For example, malaria, until the 19th century, was thought to be caused by bad air. With the discovery that it was transmitted by mosquitoes their breeding grounds were drained, netting used over beds at night, etc. People hailed the conquering of this disease that had been a primary source of childhood mortality, and made building the Panama Canal feasible. As a result many more humans survived to child bearing age and populations increased globally. This along with many other beneficial sanitary developments based on increased understanding greatly increased the human life span as well. Both contributed to increased population growth, which if not stopped, will destroy our species. We can ask, should we have required a reduction in birthrate as these consequences of disease mitigation took place? This is an old problem going back to Thomas Malthus who saw in the 19th century that mankind could out grow the resources necessary for its survival and therefore must control its growth. Seeing no other way to control that growth, he assumed it was one of the functions of famine, disease and constant war. This is the kind of problem that has become critical for human survival, largely because of our technological capabilities. It is also, obviously, a fundamental human problem to be resolved by humans if they are to continue to survive. By obvious implication, if technology is the primary source of this kind of dilemma, then the science that is technology's birthplace must be taken into account.
Science, in and of itself, is the fundamental cultural expression of the human proclivity to understand. We often undertake scientific efforts that have no practical use and thus no potential for our power impulse: the astronomy of intergalactic space is a case in point. Along the way we may find some uses for the knowledge we thus acquire, but that is not the reason for the undertaking. The more narrow minded among us, especially those politicians seeking the vote of the uninformed, often decry the uselessness of such, often expensive, knowledge quests, e.g. NASA, as a waste of money. The word "use," so employed, is an expression of power.
An interesting feature of understanding and one that I suspect may become fundamental to human survival is that understanding is much less culturally restricted than power. If you notice, understanding can break the bonds of cultural parochialism that cause so much conflict and human destruction. Physics, chemistry and mathematics remain the same whether in America or China or Timbuktu. This bodes well for the basis of a global human society. We have the basis for a common understanding. We have a way to get beyond the cultural divisions that plague us. This implies that the current attempt to deal with the dysfunctions of cultural diversity, i.e. to celebrate diversity, is in the long run inadequate. While I understand the intentions behind this approach of cultural identity awareness, I think it is clear that mankind needs a human identity if it is to survive on a planet of increasingly known limitation.
With respect to science, a world of fact and evidence, generating a moral system, you may find the book "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, significant. I am finding it so.
A Case in Point:
The history of Japan and the United States over the last 50 years offers an instructive example of these two proclivities in action. During that period the United States spent its energies on power, specifically the power to dominate the world. Japan, a small nation with few natural resources, substantially by a major emphasis on education, developed an economy that was the second largest in the world, after that of the United Sates. I am aware of some of the usual arguments made for this glaring difference, e.g. Japan did it under the military protection of the United States and hence did not have to invest so immensely in armaments. Protect them from what, the fantasies that led to General MacArthur's deliberate provocation of China and its entry into the Korean conflict? In any event, all that says is that peace, per se, can be more productive than war. In matters of such large scale as mankind's future, all the caveats usually lodged against Japan's achievement still leave this difference between it and the United States highly instructive.
The Learning Society
The Learning Society is an ongoing effort by UNESCO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to base economic development on life-long education. Far too often, indeed I suspect in the majority of cases, nations have built their economies on conquest, i.e. power, as did the United States as it pushed indigenous people from one ocean to another. The hegemony-declaring Monroe Doctrine asserted our power over the western hemisphere. Teddy Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet, a flotilla of warships, around the globe to emphasize our power and our willingness to use it. I submit this whole posture crushed the potential for an understanding-based society that could have sprung from the passion to understand found in some of our nation's most prominent founders, e.g. Jefferson and Franklin, had we heeded Washington's advice against entangling foreign alliances.
The point of these kinds of large-scale and admittedly very complex examples is that our species cannot continue to exist if we rely on power as the driving mechanism of our future as we so thoroughly have in our past. We have developed the capacity to destroy ourselves and yet behave like children with a new toy at each technological advance in the exercise of power. We, as a species, have demonstrated the capacity to develop through understanding. Our problem has been that we then insist on wantonly turning that understanding into power. We must learn to be satisfied with understanding, tread lightly on this earth and each other and be far more careful about turning understanding into power.
The Precautionary Principle
By way of developing a method to inhibit our largely uncontrolled practice of turning understanding into power there is an effort to define and implement deterring practices known as the Precautionary Principle. There are various definitions of this principle due to the complexity of the many issues and the vested interests of various segments of the world's population. Basically the principle would prohibit the introduction of new technology and the accompanying processes unless it was proven to be safe with respect to mankind and the environment. A Google search will turn up a plethora of information, and complexity, for those who may be interested.
As The Learning Society initiative evidences, there are people and groups concerned to deal with the problems our species faces by the use of mankind's unique capacity to understand. We need to bring this need and this approach to general public awareness accompanied by the urgency it deserves. We must think our way out of our massive dilemmas lest we destroy ourselves in the emotional responses we customarily make.
Bob Newhard
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