Chapter 16: Retrospect and Prospect
Looking Back
When we look back
over the long course of hominid history, we see that we and our societies are
an integral part of the global ecosystem and that our species development has
always been part of the same grand process of biological evolution that shapes
all life on this planet. Yet it is
equally clear that our species’ development has been different from that of the
rest of the biological world in some fundamental ways. If we understand where and how our path
diverged, we can better understand our problems and those of our societies, and
perhaps be able to create a better, happier future (427).
The Divergent
Path
For millions of years
there was little to suggest that our early ancestors were destined to become
anything more than just another variety of primate. But genetic gradually provided our ancestors with the ability to
create symbol systems, a trait that is as much a product of natural selection
as wings, gills, social instincts, and the other adaptive mechanisms of the
biotic world (428).
With the aid of
symbol systems, hominids were able to use their primate capacity for learning
to far greater advantage and human evolution came to be shaped primarily by the
processes of cultural innovation and selection, rather than by the processes of
biological evolution (428).
The explanation of
the tremendous adaptive capacity of cultural information is its potential for
creating diversity. In this respect, it
is like genetic information, which is responsible for the striking diversity in
the biotic world. In the case of
cultural information, however, all the diversity is concentrated within a
single species.
Another manifestation
of culture’s capacity for creating diversity is the great variety of needs and
desires that humans have developed, needs and desires not even remotely related
to our survival as individuals or as a species. To satisfy these culturally triggered or intensified needs,
societies have depended primarily on the kind of
information--technological--that helps people utilize environmental resources
in new ways and for new purposes. Through
this process, humans established a new and unique relationship with the biophysical
environment (428).
The Question of
Progress
Despite the problems
that have attended our species’ reliance on culture, one thing is clear: culture has been a highly successful
adaptive mechanism. Humanity has not
only survived, it has flourished by biological standards. But numbers and dispersion are not enough on
which to base an assessment of human evolution. We must also ask whether the process of sociocultural evolution
has meant progress in terms of more uniquely human criteria and goals, such as
freedom, justice and happiness (428-429)
1. Freedom
The high value that
the members of modern industrial societies attach to freedom is revealed in the
growing challenge to all forms of authority, not only in the liberal
democracies of the West but in the authoritarian nations of eastern Europe as
well. But human freedom is more than
the absence of repressive social controls; it is also freedom from restraints
imposed by nature. People who must
spend most of their waking hours in an exhausting struggle to produce the
necessities of life are not truly free.
Once we recognize
this, it becomes clear that humanity’s long struggle to advance technologically
is not irrelevant to the desire for freedom.
Every technological innovation reflects the desire to overcome natural
limitations on human action. There has
been a price to pay, of course:
technological progress has necessitated larger and more complex social
systems (429).
The relation between
technological advance and freedom for the average member of society is more
complicated. If we compare the typical
peasant in an agrarian society with a typical hunter and gatherer, it is not at
all clear that there were gains. In fact,
the peasant had to live with a lot of new social controls while gaining very
little freedom from natural controls.
Thus, during much of the course of history--especially after the
formation of the state--the average individual probably experienced a decline
in freedom. With industrialization,
however, the pattern changes (430).
2. Justice
Justice has to do
with the fairness of a society in its treatment of members (431).
Social inequality
became more pronounced as societies advanced technologically and status became
increasingly dependent on the family into which one was born. The result was a weakening of the link
between a person’s efforts and rewards.
The trend in
punishment, meanwhile, was toward increasingly harsh and discriminatory
treatment. In most agrarian societies,
the privileged were free to abuse members of the lower class without fear of
reproof.
In general, societies
seem to have become less fair and less just as they advanced
technologically. With
industrialization, however, there are clear signs of a reversal. With respect to material rewards,
industrialization has resulted in some decline in the level of social
inequality among the members of society.
Public education now provides at least some chance for almost all
children to develop their abilities, and women and minorities have gained
numerous legal and economic opportunities long denied them. Industrial societies are also more
solicitous of their poor and handicapped, and provide a far broader range of
legal rights and protections for their members, whatever social status (432).
3. Happiness
Of all the possible
measures of progress, happiness is the most elusive, for it depends so much on
the quality of interpersonal relations.
There are several ways, however, in which technological progress is
relevant to this kind of happiness. To
begin with, some of life’s greatest tragedies involve the premature death of a
loved one, a factor diminished by industrialization.
Health too
contributes to happiness.
Hunger, another cause
of enormous human misery over the centuries, has been drastically reduced in
many societies as a result of industrialization.
The industrialization
of agriculture has also meant a substantially improved food supply, with
respect to quality, quantity, and diversity.
The increased
production of other kinds of goods and services, especially nonessential one,
has probably had much less effect on happiness (433).
When we take into
account the advances in health, the greater abundance and improved quality of
food, and the drastic reduction in premature deaths, to say nothing of the
improvements in freedom and justice, it is clear that industrialization has
eliminated the source of much of the misery of earlier eras (434).
Looking ahead
“The past is not dead
history, it is living material out of which man makes the present and builds
the future” (435).
There are several
things to keep in mind as we try to see across the years. First, we need to be aware that there are
some potential developments which cannot be anticipated but which could alter
the picture substantially. Second, the
subject we can speak about with the greatest confidence when discussing the
future, concerns the problems societies will face. Third, the more thoroughly a prediction is grounded in a tested
analysis of the past and present, the better its chances of success (435).
Population
Population growth
during the decades ahead poses a serious threat to the well being of the entire
world system. Even if our annual rate
of growth, currently about 1.7%, averages 1.6% by the end of the decade, and then
1.2% for the first 3 decades of the next century, there will be 6.2 billion
people by 2000 and 8.6 billion by 2030.
Moreover, more than 70% of this growth will occur in the poorest
countries (436).
Urbanization which
was once a measure of advanced economic development has become increasingly a
symptom of its absence. In 1950, the 10
largest cities in the world held a total of 65 million people and 7 of them
were in industrial societies. By 2000
the 10 largest cities will have a total population of 192 million and 7 of them
will be in nonindustrial societies (436).
It is obvious that
our species’ population growth will stop at some point, but it is equally
obvious that the consequences will grow more serious with every year that
passes before it does. The most
critical question confronting human societies today may well be, when will the
nations of the world take action to bring population growth under control?
(437)
Natural Resources
and the Biophysical Environment
As the human
population grows in size and standards of living improve, the demand for
natural resources of every kind is bound to increase. While increasing demand for these resources is nothing new the
rate of this increase in years ahead will almost certainly be unprecedented
(438). Some of the most important
resources are energy, food, water, and biological diversity (438-490).
Technology
Technological advance
has been the most important factor in shaping the evolution of the world system
in the past and will continue to do so in the coming decades (441).
1. Rate of Change
The only things that
might conceivably slow the rate of technological innovation in the next several
decades are nuclear war, collapse of the world economy, or an environmental
catastrophe (441).
2. Content of Change
Up to this point,
industrial societies have relied primarily on coal, petroleum, and natural gas
as the principal sources of the vast quantities of energy on which their way of
life depends. Both coal and petroleum, however, are major sources of
atmospheric pollution and supplies of inexpensive petroleum are likely to be
exhausted within the next few decades.
Nuclear power which once seemed so promising is now being abandoned
because of it danger, cost of disposal, and short life (442).
Natural gas is a
relatively clean, abundant and inexpensive source of energy that is already
widely used for industrial purposes and for heating homes and its use will
increase in the future.
The sun is another
energy source that will almost certainly be more fully exploited in the future.
Finally, efforts are
under way to find the means of exploiting hydrogen and nuclear fusion as energy
sources.
One more immediate
concern, successful efforts are under way on many fronts to improve the end-use
efficiency of the various machines now in use in societies (442).
On another front,
numerous organizations are trying to develop more economical ways of recycling
the refuse of societies (443).
Population control is
another area in which there will probably be technological innovations in the
next quarter century (444).
Another area of major
significance is the application of the computer and microcircuitry to new
industrial tasks.
Yet another
fundamental innovation with revolutionary potential is the new technology of
recombinant DNA. This new technology is
particularly fascinating from the perspective of EET, for it marks a new stage
in our species’ capacity for handling information (445).
Ideology
If human societies
are nearing a critical point with respect to their impact on the biophysical
environment, it seems safe to predict that ideology will play an even larger
role in shaping societal change and development than it has played in the past. The beliefs, values, norms, and institutions
of a number of societies are certain to alter in some important ways (446).
Polity
The most important
political trend in the 20th century has been the spread of democracy. This has involved both the increasing
democratization of societies in which the process began prior to the start of
the century and the beginnings of democracy in others (447-448).
Economy
Barring a major
collapse of the world economy, there will probably be continuing economic
growth for the world system as a whole during the next quarter century and a
number of industrializing agrarian societies will probably joint the ranks of
industrial societies.
During the 1980s,
capitalism gained substantially at the expense of socialism, not only in
eastern Europe but in western Europe and the Third World. This gain was result of a desire for more
rapid economic growth and a growing recognition that market economies and
private enterprise are more conducive to such growth than centrally planned
economies and state enterprises (449).
Another economic
trend that is almost certain to continue is the increasing division of labor in
the world system (450).
The world economy has
not been without its disadvantages, especially for societies that specialize in
products whose value on the world market is low or fluctuates sharply. During the next quarter century, economic
ties among societies will probably grow even stronger than they are today. As this happens, societies will gradually
lose more of their economic independence (450).
Finally, there is one
glaring defect in the economies of virtually every contemporary society that
will almost surely become more apparent.
This is the failure to attach realistic price tags to things. The costs of disposing or recycling waste
are not currently included in the price of many commodities (451).
The World System
As the world system
of societies becomes increasingly integrated economically and in other ways,
societies will become more dependent on one another. With increasing economic integration, individual societies will be
ever more vulnerable to anything that threatens the functioning of the system
as a whole (451-452).
During the next 25
years, the threat of nuclear war will no longer lie primarily with the NATO
powers and eastern Europe and Russia.
These technologies are now more widespread and several Third World
nations possess small nuclear arsenals.
The greatest danger therefore is likely to come from the use of these
weapons by irrational or fanatical leaders or from a process in which some
limited conflict escalates out of control (452-453).
Another cause for
concern is the possibility of spreading ethnic conflicts within former
multinational states (453).
The Higher Goals
Early in this chapter
we reached the conclusion that sociocultural evolution has been accompanied by
declining levels of freedom, justice and happiness for the majority of people,
but that technological advances in the last 150 years have reversed this trend
(454).
Of all the species on
this planet, ours is the only one not doomed to have its evolutionary course
shaped entirely by forces beyond its control.
Thank to symbol systems and culture, we cannot only comprehend the
evolutionary process, we may also be able to chart for ourselves an
evolutionary course within the limits set by our genetic heritage on the one
hand and the constraints of the biophysical environment on the other--a course
that can provide for most people a high degree of freedom, justice, and
happiness (455).