Quiet Revolutions

Revolutions can be bloody as the Arab Spring and Syria demonstrate but revolutions can also be quiet events. Quiet revolutions do not involve guns and bombs but are arguably far more effective in bringing about lasting change.

A change in values for example can change the world in which we live. This happens because we never see or know everything that we encounter: we always select information, images, sounds and ideas. This selection has its roots in a natural process called “autopoiesis” which literally means “self-making-poetry”. We effectively make up poems and stories about ourselves and the world in which we live. In this sense we create our own worlds and this is done in accordance with the values we posses. So changing values does change worlds.

At a deeper level still, changing knowledge changes worlds.
This was Foucault’s point in the book “The Order of Things: an archaeology of the Human Sciences” (Foucault 1970). In this book Foucault revealed how different eras in European history were established on different possibilities for knowledge. This works like values inasmuch as what we know feeds into our “self-making-poetry” as we create our lived-in worlds.

Primal Reporter exists to reveal a quiet revolution. This one has only recently started; let’s say at the start of the new millennia for easy reference. It is a quiet revolution that arises from a new possibility for knowledge of ourselves and the world we inhabit. This emerging revolution is likely to replace the Modern era in our history which was characterised by a belief in abstract, reflexive rational systems such as neo-classical economics, traditional forms of monetary accounting, free markets and financial institutions.

According to some authors, the Modern has already been modified by the Post Modern. For example, Ronald Inglehart (1934 - ) is a political scientist and director of the World Values Survey which undertook national surveys in over 80 societies on all six inhabited continents. These surveys are claimed to represent 85% of the world's population. Arising from his studies and surveys, Ronald developed the sociological theory of post-materialism. The title of his influential books reveal something of his objectives and they include:

·                The Silent Revolution, Princeton University Press, 1977;

·               Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society, Princeton University Press, 1990;

·               Modernization and Postmodernization, Princeton University Press, 1997; and

·               Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, Cambridge           

          University Press, 2005 (co-authored with Christian Welzel).

Student of Quiet Rvolutions - Ronald Inglehart

Ronald’s work demonstrates that as values and beliefs changing so do their political, sexual, economic, and religious behaviour. This is evidence of a global quiet revolution.

However as far as PR is aware, Ronald interprets these changes on the basis of a revised version of modernization theory: “…no trend goes on in the same direction forever. It eventually reaches a point of diminishing returns. Modernization is no exception… At the heart of the post-modern shift lies a change of values orientation linked with increasing emphasis on human choice and self-expression… At the peak of Modernity, rational science has the same absolute author as religion in premodernity.” (Inglehart 2004, p.7). 

There is then already evidence that a quiet revolution from the Modern to the Post-Modern is under-way.  PR extends this revolution beyond both the Modern and the Post Modern by reporting on a new possibility for knowledge in an emerging era called Primal. It is called Primal since it is based on the knowledge that science now provides about the origins of things and, in particular of the Human sciences; and this is the story in the book “Intrinsic Sustainable Development: epistemes, science, business and sustainability” (Birkin and Polesie 2011) as well as in the article “The Relevance of Epistemic Analysis to Sustainability Economics and the Capability Approach”, also by Birkin and Polesie and forthcoming in the Journal of Ecological Economics.

References

Birkin, F.  and Polesie, T. (2011). Intrinsic Sustainable Development: epistemes, science, business and sustainability. Singapore, World Scientific Press.

Birkin, F.  and Polesie, T. (2013). The Relevance of Epistemic Analysis to Sustainability Economics and the Capability Approach. Forthcoming in the Journal of Ecological Economics.

Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things: an archaeology of the Human Sciences. London, Routledge.

Inglehart, R. (2004). Human Values and Beliefs. Mexico, Siglo XXI.