Re: pushing development--or pushing the status quo?

kerry miller (mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU)
Mon, 6 Jan 1997 14:42:48 -0600

Message-ID:  <Pine.SOL.3.91.970106143911.17600A@fox.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date:         Mon, 6 Jan 1997 14:42:48 -0600
From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: pushing development--or pushing the status quo?
To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>

An excellent overview and analysis of various interpretations of
'sustainable development is
 Sustainable Development And Philosophies Of Technology
    http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v1_n1n2/nieto.html

====== On reading Steve's concern for 'common ground' (and the use of epithets such as 'true believer' and 'all-out critics') I am compelled to add another bit of WWW booty:

University of Chicago Magazine, Dec. 1994, Richard McKeon http://www2.uchicago.edu/alumni/alumni.mag/9412/Feat4.html

"I think it can be shown that ideological agreement on one philosophy by all mankind is neither possible nor, if it were possible, desirable," McKeon told his students in the first lecture of Ideas and Methods 211. "It would probably put us into a kind of intellectual sleep in which we need do no further thinking....

"The progress of knowledge is, rather, that with the solution to any problem, a large number of unsuspected problems arise; and therefore, the more problems you answer, the more problems you have. This, I suggest, is not discouraging; rather, it would indicate that as thinkers, you have a future."

The transcript notes that, at this point, McKeon and his students shared a good laugh.

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IOW, maybe the important thing to communicate in both development work and meta-development discussion is the value of difference and diversity - which is not, to some people's undoubted surprise, the same as disagreement.

kerry