by Hugh M. Lewis

High-lighting this week the concepts of Simultaneous E-Culture and Trans-culturational, systems-based K-Civilization underscores and defines the foundation for understanding the emergence of global human systems as a single, imperfectly integrated meta-systems framework. It was from an anthropological and cultural point of view, always this, only never self-consciously so, as human beings, bound within fairly narrow group contexts, came to define themselves as unique, as uniquely human, compared to all other peoples and all the symbolic-behavioral possibilities that different people represent.

If we look back upon the long history of human achievement and record of technological progress in the world, we see that all human beings ultimately share the fruits of civilization, or else fail to as a consequence of unfair human relationships and social practices. No group held for ever a monopoly upon a design or invention that has been fundamental to human civilization--not silk, nor fire, nor the wheel--Americans are coming to increasingly understand that their monopoly for instance on Nuclear weapons is quickly giving way. And this process is inevitable. We cannot say, after the fact, as a counterfactual form of historical abduction, that it would have been better if we never invented the bomb in the first place (which it would have been). One of the first acts in the invention of the bomb was espionage, instigated among the inventors themselves, to give secrets to the "enemy" to prevent there being an exclusive monopoly upon such a dangerous technology.

Human meta-systems development, given the structure and dynamic patterning of human acculturation and cultural development processes, can be construed as an historically inevitable process, in the long run, in spite of dooms-day prognostications or dark utopian projections. This process is neither good nor bad in any intrinsic sense, but it does have both positive and negative consequences and possibilities that we must face in the future. The outlines of these patterns, as they emerge on our current historical horizon, are becoming clearer and clearer with each passing year. Understanding the systems-framework within which this outline makes the most sense does point to some fairly specific and clear-cut moral precepts that can be claimed to be meta-ethical and pan-human in application. These include a commitment to human equality, human rights and responsibilities, human democracy, open human systems of structural stratification and economic exchange, as well as a pacifist orientation to human violence and a commitment to stemming and controlling human authoritarianism, exploitation and violence at its sources. This is a tall order to fill for anyone to fill--but if we are to have a more stable and secure world, we must all rise to the occasion. 

Another way of looking at this issue is to see that for the first time in human history, the possibility for global communications and infrastructure exists on which to build a globally integrated framework that is non-exclusive and comprehensive. This possibility never really existed before in times past, not at the level and scale possible or imaginable today. The conditions of social constraint and structural restraint that remain in the world, that are largely a carry over of bygone eras, serve to impede progress from being achieved on most fronts except in very narrow lines of development.

It is somewhat Anthropologically naive to assume that human cultural differences can be rendered overnight, or even in a decade, insubstantial and inconsequential to the human patterning of things. It is more enlightening to understand the degree to which human beings depend upon the cultural organization of their shared experience, and the constructive processes that culture brings to their world in adaptation and achieving success in the course of their lives. The processes of reconstruction that need to occur trans-culturally have a long way yet to go, and will take a long time yet, before they can achieve the level of integration between diverse peoples that would result in a stable and somewhat pacified global meta-system.

It is expected that the integration and rise of a meta-systems framework, to be effective, can neither be forced or made to happen in conflict to the basic cultural value orientations and patternings that different ethnocultural groupings of people maintain. It must be provided as an alternative framework for people to voluntarily contribute in, to be available and easily accessible to people to participate within, and not to fear or suffer the consequences of threat of violence or punishment by their participation. Overall, individuals can be brought to the framework, not groups. Groups are what will be left behind.

General Systems Essays, Vol. I