Vow and Infantilism in the Social Sciences

["Schulte-baeuminghaus" <schulte.baeuminghaus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Geoff,

The politicians - "our leaders" - have had no guidance from the political,
social and economic gurus, except of course to let everything run free, hang
out, feed greed.
A period of what has arguably been the most revolutionary ever in scientific
and technological advances - including three concurrent revolutions in
telecommunications, bio-technology and quantum theory - has coincided with a
period of political, social and economic infantilism.
Somehow we have to "mature" this infantilism at least into the vigour and
restless questing of adolescence.
Any sort of new adulthood - similar, let's say, to that of the first
two-thirds of the twentieth century - is still some years away. In the
meantime, all we've got is protest rather than any creatively new political,
social and economic movements.
VOW is a pragmatic attempt to launch a movement that goes beyond protest -
and beyond infantilism in the social sciences - into a newer and richer
period in which, in the area of politics, social management and economics,
we will catch up with the human genius for scientific and technological
creativity.




James Cumes
http://VictoryOverWant.org



----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Edwards" <g.edwards@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Schulte-baeuminghaus'" <schulte.baeuminghaus@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 12:57 PM
Subject: RE: GATS


> Thanks for the response, James.
>
> I am intrigued as to the causative forces that have led to this situation.
> Trust and confidence in our politicians is at an all-time low. Certainly
> some of that is on account of a well-recorded declining sense of community
> and social capital (Putnam's argument); but I can't help feeling that
there
> is something else as well.
>
> Has society swallowed the glitter of materialism post-WWII and we are now
> seeing the politicians who are the product of that trend? Or is causation
> running the other way: politicians were lured by the siren song of
> free-market economics; and by a combination of policies and attitudes have
> dragged society in that mean-spirited direction? Or are cause and effect
> intertwined?
>
> It is relatively easy to trace the rise of free-market economics after the
> first oil price shock; on accept of certain global and scholarly trends;
> but that does not explain why parties of the Left and Right all over the
> Western world accepted this ideology.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Geoff Edwards
> PhD Student
> Griffith University
> Brisbane, Australia
>