Civilization and Beyond: Learning from HistoryNearing, Scott
History
Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History
Nearing, Scott
Civilization -- History
The current shift from a laissez-faire economy ("letting nature take her
course"), to a planned, managed, controlled economy is a precedent which
gives us a foretaste of what will lie ahead when a planet-wide federal
government undertakes the planning, direction and management of a
planet-wide economy and society.
The outcome cannot be determined in advance. Unexpected situations will
arise, the resolution of which will shape the fate, present and future,
of mankind. In a very real sense, our eggs are all in one basket--the
Earth. Our future, for generations to come, may be determined by the
decisions we are making or the social policy we are initiating at the
present moment.
Large scale research and experiment should go a long way toward
developing the skills required by competent and successful planetary
leadership. Political experiments like the United States of North
America or the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics or the League of
Nations or the United Nations, the planet-wide search for petroleum or
the joint scientific efforts that went into the splitting of the atom,
have given us opportunities to develop the science and art of
planet-wide leadership.
Behind and beyond our training courses--our formal educational system
(which should be in the front rank of our priorities)--we could train
apprentices in every occupational field, selecting the most apt, the
most eager, the seemingly best qualified and giving them every
opportunity to try out their skills and improve their qualifications in
their chosen fields of endeavor.
Aspirants for any occupational assignment would divide themselves into
three groups: those who feel that they have chosen wisely, find
themselves in congenial surrounds and want to spend coming years in the
occupation of their choice; those who are uncertain and still unable to
decide upon the field of their life activity; and third, those who have
chosen badly, are dissatisfied with the occupational groove in which
they find themselves and who are ready to move into another field at the
first opportunity.
The well adjusted will constitute the elite of their chosen occupations,
learning its skills and joining with other well satisfied professionals
in passing on their enthusiasm and knowledge to the next generation of
aspirants for inclusion in the same production teams. The undecided
should be the object of special attention. They have entered an
occupational field on an experimental basis and should be advised and
helped during the experimental period when they are deciding to make a
go of it or to try for something more congenial or at least more
acceptable.
Misfits who have made a wrong choice and who have no clear call to stay
where they are should be advised and helped to find more congenial
occupational surroundings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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