Message-ID: <35A7D885.2EF6940C@alaska.net> Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 13:26:30 -0800 From: Christopher Effgen <mailto:build@alaska.net> Subject: Re: BAD EXPERIENCES/ PARADIGM SHIFT To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Offensively simplistic? The simple truth of life is that we create our own worlds, within the context of our experiences and the conditions outside of ourselves. The common human experience is: that we can not hope to alter the outside conditions, but can only alter that which is within ourselves. We are individuals alone in the world, who dependent on others for our day to day survival, and who set the conditions for that survival. You can not go anywhere in the world where this is not in some way the truth of human existence. We comply to these preset conditions because the failure to comply is immediate and obvious.You can go to a country to try to create a sustainable system of development, but your success is liable to be preordained by conditions whose history you know nothing about and can not be changed even if you knew about them.
When I read terms like
> { RADICAL paradigm shift based on a contextualistic and Open-Systems-Theory
> Or, First Design Principle structures transformed to Second Design Principle
> systems.}
I think ... offensively complex.
Under conditions in which individuals are free to pursue their own path of self interest, in which the only measures, by which they are measured, is their ability to achieve that success, and which is not achieved at the cost of another's freedom to pursue their own best interest, humans find a way.
The problems we face relate to creating conditions in which this kind of society can develop. It can not occur if a government is corrupt. It can not occur, if the major cities are located in areas where they are susceptible to natural disasters. It can not occur under a hundred other reasons and causes. Yet, it can only occur if the people are free to pursue their own self interest. Money is not important. The freedom from our dependencies on others that is based on anything other than the quality of our character is the only thing that, in the end, will matter. If this was the standard by which we validated projects, the money would follow like night the day. The individuals ability to foresee, understand and question consequences must not be hindered by the State, the Church, by the family, the local oligarchy, or by the NGO's. The reality is that the perceived limited self interests of these groups is responsible for most of the waste that occurs in ALL societies. The cause of this problem relates to the control of information. Because they believed it was in their self interest to pursue a particular path, the elite determine to pursue a course of action without a public disclosure, and that course not only harmed themselves, but also brought ruin to a people. This is the common thread to almost all human caused disasters. The individuals who could have warned of the danger had no voice to speak out. In fact, had they spoken out they would have or could have been harmed. That is the reality of human existence for most people everywhere.
Christopher Effgen