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THE THIRD CULTURE and the emerging Knowledge based Society
Andrei
Dorobantu, Phd
(Center for Complexity Studies - Bucharest)
Our world is going
global - for the better, we hope. This will bring to us new institutions,
new organizations, new cultures, new problems. Some of us will choose to
regain a certain local note by submerging into deeper and deeper
professional specialization. Fewer of us will choose to courageously
navigate over the waves of the cultural planetary ocean. Everybody will make
new acquaintances: people, philosophies, technologies, ideas. We shall have
to adapt first to the world of Earth, then to the worlds of Space which will
soon become our worlds too. We shall have to learn to use the interplanetary
internet, to travel aboard a spaceship, to breathe and walk on other
planets. An ever increasing need will be manifest: to be able to
communicate with fellow humans, notwithstanding their outer shape, with
fellow plants, with fellow animals and, finally, with fellow inanimate
things with all those who are the other US. For all that, some of us will
have to learn new sciences and new technologies and make them produce goods
useful to the whole world, most of us will have to learn to use them, all of
us will have to get prepared to UNDERSTAND what others will tell us using
the language of science and technology, of arts and poetry, of religion and
philosophy.
Back in 1959, Baron
C.P. Snow spoke of two existing cultures those of the literary
intellectuals and of the scientists- separated by an ever-deepening gulf.
Only four years later, on the 10th of April 1963, in the year of his death,
Pope John XXIII introduced in his last Encyclical, an almost incredible
text:
in order to imbue civilization with sound
principles and enliven it with the spirit of the gospel, it is not enough to
be illumined with the gift of faith and enkindled with the desire of
forwarding a good cause. For this end it is necessary to take an active part
in the various organizations and influence them from within. And since
our present age is one of outstanding scientific and technical progress and
excellence, one will not be able to enter these organizations and work
effectively from within unless he is scientifically competent, technically
capable and skilled in the practice of his own profession.
The Encyclical was
published in Pacem in Terris. Peace on Earth the ideal for all
generations to come.
To fulfill this
ideal, and since scientists seem to be the most important (if not also the
most numerous) community of professionals in the world of today, one must
find a way to COMMUNICATE their findings to the rest of the world in an
intelligible language. One must fill the gap still separating the Snow two
cultures. The bridge over this gap is THE THIRD CULTURE, the culture of
intelligible communication. The TRANSLATORS called upon to perform this duty
should be the scientists themselves that is, those of them who have a
genuine desire and also the capability to do this. THE COMMUNICATORS are the
mass media. People, anywhere in the world, under free democratic régimes, as
well as under totalitarian oppression, in rich as well as in poor countries,
have a natural tendency to TRUST mass media, television and radio in the
very first place. Journalists working in these two institutions are called
to fulfill an even more difficult task: to LEARN TO CONVEY THE EXPLANATIONS
PROVIDED BY THE EXPERTS and to DRAW ATTENTION on the matters SELECTED from
among the wealth of scientific and technical information available every
day. Which puts a twofold and even heavier burden on their shoulders: TO GET
FAMILIAR with the essence of the work of scientists and to FIND THE RIGHT
WORDS in which to speak to the rest of us, normal people. In a way, THEY
WILL HAVE TO TRAIN THE PEOPLE for the next generation future. But to do
this, they will have to go themselves through an appropriate training. They
will have to be shown that science and technology, even at the most
sophisticated level, are as NATURAL as common knowledge, as EASY TO EXPRESS
as any daily news and, anyway, as BEAUTIFUL as any work of art.
And, since this is a
GENUINE EXERCICE IN THE STUDY OF COMPLEXITY, our Center for the Study of
Complexity is the one taking the responsibility to apply to perform this
task, to the benefit of the entire society.
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Bucharest 2004
© 2004 Centrul Pentru Studii Complexe Andrei Dorobantu
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