Southeastern Massachusetts University - Scrimshaw Yearbook (North Dartmouth, MA)

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and social goals. Let me remind you at this point that the validity of the classic objection, we cannot afford it, has been destroyed by the drive toward unlimited productive power. We can afford to provide the- individual with funds which will encourage and enable' him to choose his own activities and thus increase his freedom, and at the same time increase to the required extent expenditures on community needs: particularly education, medical services, recreation facilities and conservation. There is now general agreement that if we are to to profit from the drive to eliminate the human mind from repetive tasks we must greatly increase our emphasis on education, We have been unwilling to face up to the fact that the school and the university were designed to serve the requirements of the industrial age. We have' therefore concentrated our attention on- longer periods of education for more and more people, rather than on changing the educational system to make it appropriate for the cybernetics era. We must find ways to develop the creativity and to enlarge the capacity of each individual in terms of his own uniqueness. We will have to teach people to think for themselves, rather than to absorb and then regurgitate with maximum A-level efficiency the theories of past thinkers. I believe that the best way to do this is to change our educational process from being discipline-oriented to being problem-oriented: to set up educational systems which will force people to face all the implications of each problem and to evaluate the individ'ual's potential in terms of his ability to perceive new interconnections between aspects of the problem. . We must do this in such ga way as to avoid the new-education emphasis on means - the smoothly-interacting group or Seminar - and concentrate on ends - the kind of problems which will be studied. I think this can probably best be 'achieved through what we can call the twodimensional seminar technique. Here the choice is up to the individual, he enters the system at the first level with a -multiple choice of seminars, he can than go on to specialize by movement up the levels of complexity in one problem area, or he can choose to gain wider knowledge by horizon tal movement, through participation in many seminars.

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The rich countries should accept an unlimited commitment to provide the poor countries of the world with all the resources they can effectively employ to help them to move into the cybernetics-based abundance era. Let me state explicitly, however, that such a commitment should not beaccompanied by the right to dump unwanted surplus industrial age products and machinery into the poor countries. Rather, the poor countries must move as directly as possible from the agricultural era, without being forced to pass through the industrial-age process of socio-cultural and economic realignments. Domestically, we should adopt the concept of an absolute constitutional right to an income through provision of Basic Economic Security. This would guarantee to every citizen of the United States, and to every person who has resided within the United States for a period of five consecutive years, the right to an income from the federal government sufficient to enable him to live with dignity. No government agency, judicial body or other organization whatsoever should have the power to suspend or limit any payments assured by these guarantees. I believe that the best means to implement these guarantees would be to amend the Employment Act of 1946 to read: It is the policy of the United States government either to provide job opportunities for all those seeking work or, if jobs are not available in sufficient number, to guarantee an income of sufficient size to enable the family to live with dignity. ' A second principle, Committed Spending, should also be introduced, which would embody the concept of the need to protect the existing middle-income group against abrupt major declines in their standard of living, for a very substantial proportion of this group will lose their jobs in the next decade. This principle is based on the premise that in the process of transition between the industrial age and the cybernetics- based abundance era, socioeconomic dislocation should be avoided wherever possible, whether caused by sudden large-scale reduction in demand or by sudden withdrawal of economic supports for valid individual -'1 Q

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eeflri foe-74' '1e,.1feZe'f59?Z:QPfi QiSf?? '5i2f.',slffkt 'f',, f,:5!3Qi?417ff,jl'Z11,,g,- m e, t i t 2 Qi f - seq .:': ,-'f Q-f.fji'i1'?f131'-,1512---1 the ff,-'A 2932 -'1 f---N 2- 2. typ 2 ..: , ff -t ,c's:Ef1 ?S:l:s.if 3fy5'i55-ff,:-- X-gin? Q 3 iw., ' .end ,,-fi.,-.Q ..,. yn. J, ..., ,,, ann :,...,..f , ,,. . , V , Yaleeioefhvse-twhviwefhwk 'fin 1311? :not IAA onlyabout the zprqbiemeeqfvzfeeefefy. bin-gene about the individual. 'For AA, example, the patient will his .doctor the basis . .of his babilityvtol Q-understand him. as a biological system., ,ratherif than v value A his apparent qruags-imagical' techniques as in our ' -. fe K - -- Hg, ffag, .'. ' ,. ' WI ig, lI?'l!glWllT1Tllal'lF' ,,.. ,, .. 'fr e'.,I'3!i- ' ' .121 - ' 3 ,, +1 lf -' V ' QQVQIIJIJII-IJIQI flabl- ' iiia' Iam sure that many humanists will be ShOCked by my acceptance of the system-thinking for they fear that man will be destroyed by the rationality implicit in systems thinking. In this view the rational is synonymous -with the concept of the logical solution to any problems inherent in a task, the choice of ,the one best way to do something, the constant search for the efficient. Compared to any system ,or smoothly running organization, man's thought processes are less rational, more subject to accident and distortion. According to this thesis , it follows that man must inevitably end by acting according to the instruction of the efficient UVbl0lU11'lllCh1llg IIICULIGILISIIIS YYLUUII 115 himself created for his service, to carry out his wishes, to fulfil his needs. But the efficient, knowledgeable servant becomes the administrator, the teacher and thus, the master. This is the case put forward by Jacaues Ellul in his book originally PUb1fSh6d in France in 1954 under the title of La Technique, and just published in the United States this fall under the title The Technological Society. It is impossible not to concede the immense strength of Ellul's arguement, even though it was based on the organizational efficiency drives existing before the emergence of the computer and its accelerating drive toward maximum- efficiency. My acceptance of system-thinking is based on reality: on my willingness to face up to the fact that there is no way to avoid the development of computer systems in the second-half of the twentieth century. Our only hope is to accept this reality and to use all of man 's energy to recruit technological drives for the attainment of our fundamental goals. . Let me conclude: the fundamental effect of cybernetics is anti-entropic as Charles, Dechert has pointed out. The increasing efficiency of organization permits greater output with less energy input. In the industrial, scarcity age, this process could only have worked to our .advantage for demand exceeded supply and energy sources were always insufficient. In the cybernetics-based abundance era, however, we are being con fronted with the need to place restraints on both production and the new energy sources, lest their drives destroy us. The danger of exploding production is no less real than that of destructive explosions. It is incorrect to assume that because we have presently unfulfilled' global production needs, we can absorb any extra amount, and rapidly. We are living in a world of exponential growth. But Dennis Gabor, Professor at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, has pointed out: ' .... exponential curves grow to infinity only in mathematics. In the physical world they either turn round and saturate, or they break down catastrophically. It is our duty as thinking men to do our best toward a gentle saturation, instead of sustaining the exponential growth, though this faces us with very unfamiliar and distasteful problems.