Subject: Re: NetAction Notes No. 40
Keith Quigley (kjq@onramp.net)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 14:25:45 -0500
Message-Id: <35E46139.F4082D42@onramp.net> Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 14:25:45 -0500 From: Keith Quigley <kjq@onramp.net> To: roundtable@cni.org Subject: Re: NetAction Notes No. 40 References: <000601bdd088$f7be1080$e54c440c@vig>
I appreciate your measured reply Vidgor. A couple of questions however...
Vigdor Schreibman <fins98@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> A key historical fact about the paradigm shift that defines both
> political and scientific revolutions, is that the new paradigm
> cannot build on the one that precedes it. It can only supplant it.
> The two, according to Thomas S. Kuhn, renown author of The
> Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), are "incommensurable."
> Such a shift, said Kuhn, demands, "the destruction of the prior
> paradigm." (Ch 9).
Though Kuhn does postulate the dissolution or destruction of
*scientific* paradigms (coining the phrase paradigm shift in the
process), I am not convinced of his relevance to this discussion of
societal shifts and their necessarily causing the destruction of a
previous structures.
Are there no examples of societal shifts that were either gradual or
less than destructive? Agricultural to Industrial comes to mind. The
movement of the populace around the turn of the last century into urban
centers away from farm life was a direct result of a pursuit of an
economic goal, within the framework of a democratic structure. People
could change their lifestyle by working for someone else and then
"buying" the things they needed vs. growing, making and/or bartering
for them 'back on the farm'.
> The issue can best be confronted by asking the question as to
> what kind of future we desire, one guided by capitalist marketability,
> driven by profit maximization, or democratic sustainability, based on
> the advance of ecological integrity, social equity, and economic
> prosperity as mutually reinforcing goals?
The answer you get to the above question will certainly depend on whom
you ask! There are no doubt some on this list who would argue that
profit maximization doesn't have to indicate a lack of ecological
integrity. Again, I don't see the issue as so black and white.
> I am hopeful that these profound conflicts can be squarely confronted
> in genuine dialogue. That is the best way to assure that we may
> peacefully overcome the very dangerous waters into which we are
> moving out of all rational control.
I fully agree and reserve my right (and respect yours) to disagree as
rationally as possible.
Cheers,
Keith Quigley
<kjq@onramp.net>
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