Throughout history there have been times in which cultures have exploded with creativity, in which civilizations have flowered, in which people have invented society anew in a great upsurging of the human spirit. There is a sense of destiny about such ages, of recovery of the past and of responsibility for the future. Such an age led to the invention of the Egyptian pyramids. Such an age sent explorers around the world from Elizabethan England to found an empire. Such an age is our own, pulsing with human potential in the midst of seemingly collapse. What is demanded to release that potential is a practical vision of how such an age can be made manifest. Such a practical vision was invented by the Research Assembly of Summer ‘71 and Summer ‘72.
A Practical Vision of the New Social Vehicle. Written by participants in the SUMMER ’72 RESEARCH ASSEMBLY
We anticipate more or less clearly our entire future at every moment. Jose Ortega y Gassett
The Summer ‘72 Research Assembly began its work by drawing together the social proposals (created in July of 1971) which will benefit all different dimensions of the social process in a single whirling set of relationships. The five have been named the Five Nexus of Proposals: Secularized Mythologies, Humanized Educations, Primalized Communities, Localized Polities, and Globalized Economics.
Proposal Nexus I: SECULARIZED MYTHOLOGIES calls for a recreation of the mythological basis of society in a way authentic to secular people. “We make sense of daily happenings by telling stories about who we are, where we have come from, whence we are bound and what we are here for. These stories carry mores from the past, values of the present and offer a sense of sureness towards an uncertain future.”
Proposal Nexus II: HUMANIZED EDUCATIONS proposes totally renewed educational structures and forms across the globe. “The development of technology and the rapid influx of data in the twentieth century have dramatically affected society. We know we are better technically equipped than ever before, and yet, we sensesthat the depth meaning of life eludes us. We are surrounded by data, but bereft of wisdom. Wisdom, unlike data, is not transmitted. It is built as surely as the Empire State Building or the Parthenon. It is built out of the ultimate significance, the final human, meaning on which a society lives.”
Proposal Nexus III: PRIMALIZED COMMUNITIES demands the reconstruction of primal community in the midst of the fragmentation of urban civilization. “A small town on the Mississippi River was suddenly threatened with ruin when the water rose to its greatest height in many decades. Not having taken the flood danger seriously, the town’s officials were unprepared for the rapid rise of the river. Just before the water reached the business district, sandbagging operations began. The whole town joined the struggle and stayed with it all night and into the next day when the river finally crested.”
Proposal Nexus IV: LOCALIZED POLITIES designs authentic participation for every human being in the decisions which affect life. “A picture is taken of earth from the dark side of the moon. For the first time in all of history, we see our common environment from afar—a cloudy sphere floating in blackness, Quite suddenly everyone is conscious they are only one in only one community in only one nation on a planet that sustains three and a half billion other people. Civilization has entered the post-modern age of global awareness. There is only one world.”
Proposal Nexus V: GLOBALIZED ECONOMICS insists that the present economy operate self-consciously for the benefit of the whole globe. “Walk into the business district of any major city in the world, from Hong Kong to New York to Cairo, at about 8:00 am on a weekday morning, and you will see an amazingly similar scene. Great office buildings stand as stark and gleaming pillars, about which the rest of the city huddles, seemingly for support. Hundreds, thousands of business people in their dark suits, carrying briefcases, hustle past, secretaries rush by. All are heading for the diversity of business offices in the center city. Once inside any office, you will find recognizably similar metal or wooden furniture, office machines and accoutrements, lifestyle and roles. The world over, technology as it developed in the Western Hemisphere has “won” in every nation that it has touched. It has recreated every people which it has touched after its own image. There is no question but that we have a “globalized economics.” Globalization has in fact taken place through economic developments. The issue is, how might we appropriate and use that fact, rather than allowing it to master us by its sheer strength and power?”
