Technology, Human Understanding and the Failure of Self-Interest in and of Capitalism - A lack of Verstehen
by Barry Piacenza
An Editorial from Climate Change Economics LLC - May 28, 2010
If history teaches us anything any civilization is in trouble when its technology is ahead of that
civilizations capability to adequately manage and understand its outcomes. This happened during
World War I to a degree during World War Two and certainly almost in the atomic age when we almost
destroyed mankind over the Cuban missile crisis.
We're living in an age when our technology, our ability to understand it, manage it and view it in
light of outcomes in our decision making processes is beyond our capability. The recent events in the
Gulf of Mexico with the British Petroleum oil spill that has irrevocably damaged the Gulf of Mexico
ecosystem for perhaps a century. The Massey Energy mine disaster in West Virginia, the derivatives
failure at the end of the Bush administration and the ensuing recession, the over faith that we have
had during the Bush years that business would be its own best regulator that business capability to
act in its own self-interest and not in the public good clearly shows the need for adequate regulation.
Policies that strip regulatory agencies of their capacity to function through budget cuts and political
tactics lead to the kinds of failures we have seen especially with British Petroleum, the financial
debacles. Indeed we are living in dangerous times the ice is thin.
Climate change and our inability to understand its outcomes because of our need for energy by burning
fossil fuels at a rate unknown in history have now damaged the planet irrevocably. We may have gone
beyond the tipping points indicated by the scientific community.
Our age of self-interest has undermined our ability to understand the common good. We lost what we won
during World War Two. During that time we hailed the common man as a matter of fact there is a piece of
classical music with that title Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copeland. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P26WtAhqzk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiB8B4XsBRk
We've lost sight of how interdependent our world has become and the weaknesses of those interdependencies.
We fail to see technology as something that can fail and the outcomes imperil us all. We lost ethics as a
means of decision-making. British Petroleum lies to the President of the United States, oil executives,
banking and financial executives lied to the Congress of the United States, executives play the blame game
at congressional hearings, what's worse, where are the demonstrators? In the 1960s history streets would be
filled with young people demonstrating we no longer seem to see that behavior pattern as a means to influence
government. We've lost the capacity to civilly show our government its failings. We've lost the ability to
understand the functioning of our government as a critical authority to control human behavior and its
detrimental impacts. It is time for all of mankind to stop to think and to listen. When you listen to what's
happening because of us. We face institutional failures, technology failures and knowledge failures based on
our lack of understanding of science and technology which has grown at a rapid rate in the last century.
These failings now endanger the planet. We need a new philosophy, one not based on our current economic
systems. Our current economic systems have shown weakness, failure to deliver for the common good over
individual self-interest. That may not be a radical idea and some may scoff at it due to their rigid point
of view however the evidence is clear. Alan Greenspan himself has stated that his faith in these philosophies
have led to the current failures. We must rethink our economic systems how they relate to technology, the good
and welfare of mankind and the future of our planet.
New systems must be based on the common good not on the individual wealth of a corporation or a person.
We must channel our energies into a different kind of reward system one based on human growth and development,
service to mankind or a discipline which enhances mankind and make decisions in light of outcomes. We must adopt
ethics in its best sense, not a predatory win lose environment there may be times when that philosophy may be
superior it is not the philosophy of the future. We must fulfill our capability for enhancement, we must also
understand our own predatory capabilities as a species study them and better understand how they influence our
institutions, the decisions inside and outside institutions and holistically see our decisions. It is almost
as if our age has outstripped the human brain's capacity to understand all of the parameters involved in our
decision processes. We must find a better way to interface with the massive information, and sometimes lack
of knowledge that our world has created. The German Word Verstehen - to understand it doesn't mean just
to understand in a factual manner but in a holistic way.
Barry
|
|
