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Science, Technology, Innovation & Social Responsibility | |||||||
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Science, Technology and Innovation are among the most powerful forces driving social change and development today. They have been the source of both remarkable advances and existential threats to civilization. Some aspects of scientific development and application such as nuclear technology, pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals and food additives are strictly monitored and controlled by governments and law. Other areas such as computerization of financial transactions, automation, biological research and telecommunications have been left primarily to the self-government of scientific institutions and business entities. Today the rate of scientific and technological development, dissemination and application far outpaces the capacity of society, institutions and individuals to adapt, contributing to increasing social imbalances, stress, upheavals, displacement and disruption. The challenge before humanity is to arrive at the most effective blend of governance and self-management to maximize both the freedom for scientific creativity and technological innovation and the welfare of present and future generations. On November 11, 2015 the World Academy of Art & Science organized a symposium in Geneva in collaboration with CERN under the auspices of the United Nations Office at Geneva and with the participation of senior executives of seven UN agencies. |
In his inaugural address, Michael Møller, Director General of UNOG, referred to the growing gap between the knowledge acquired by modern science and prevailing policies. He stressed the great importance of integrating science with public policy formulation. Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN, emphasized the critical importance of values in scientific research and education as the key to development and proper utilization of scientific knowledge in society. WAAS President Heitor Gurgulino de Souza traced the origins of the World Academy to rising levels of concern regarding the threats posed by the unregulated development and proliferation of scientific technology. WAAS’ eminent founders, a number of whom had been directly associated with the development of nuclear weapons, committed themselves to evolving effective ways to promote the beneficial applications of science while avoiding a repetition of its horrific potential for destruction. The symposium surveyed the international mechanisms now in place to ensure socially responsible management of scientific activities by the research community, business and governments. The key role played by science in understanding the potential threats of climate change were emphasized by Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the |
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, GENEVA Science will deliver the progress we need – or it won’t. Our abilities to set priorities will decide. PARADIGM SHIFT OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, GENEVA CONFERENCE ON ANTICIPATION, TRENTO CONFERENCE FOR A GREEN & INCLUSIVE ECONOMY, GENEVA Course on Mind, Thinking & Creativity, Dubrovnik, Croatia XIII International Colloquium, University of Lisbon, Portugal |
UPCOMING EVENTS
International Conference on Course on Social Power, Empowerment & Social Evolution, Dubrovnik, Croatia NEW ECONOMIC THEORY (NET) REPORT DEMOCRACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY |
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World Meteorological Organization, who described the complex scientific network of agencies involved in monitoring and projecting environmental impacts. He stressed the importance of cooperation and urged that all scientists of the world should work together to address the challenges confronting humanity today.
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commercial objectives that may not be aligned with public welfare.
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The Big Picture …. externalities are still the rule
The importance of enhancing the interface between science and public policy was stressed by Julia Marton-Lefèvre, former Secretary General of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and Maurizio Bona, adviser to the DG of CERN. Carlos Alvarez-Pereira called for development of a new business model which redefines business purpose in order to eliminate the inherent conflict between corporate social responsibility and the pressure on corporations by shareholders to maximize profits. |
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Presentation at the Conference on Science, Technology, Innovation and Social Responsibility held on November 11, 2015 at CERN, Geneva Science will deliver the progress we need – or it won’t. Our ability to set priorities will decide
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Increasing globalization of the economy in Space, accelerating velocity of movement and social change in Time, growing Complexity and integration of activities, sectors and levels of society, rapid Evolution of global society undergoing continuous transformation, and rising imbalance between technological development and cultural adaptation present unparalleled challenges for individuals, nations and the human community. Evolving effective responses to these challenges and ways to transform them into opportunities for human progress lies at the heart of the Academy’s agenda in collaboration with the World University Consortium and partnering organizations. On November 10th, 2015 WAAS and WUC convened a meeting in Geneva to summarize the core findings of fifteen conferences and workshops conducted over the past four years and to identify the agenda for future work. A consensus has emerged from these efforts that a new conceptual framework is urgently needed to reflect the complex realities of global society. This calls for a paradigm shift in thinking in the social sciences as significant as the earlier shifts in the natural sciences from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe and from a mechanistic Newtonian world to the complexity revealed by Quantum Mechanics. This paradigm shift will challenge many fundamental premises, break down arbitrary barriers between disciplines, and penetrate into the trans-disciplinary strata of social processes common to all fields of human endeavor. It will represent a quantum shift away from mechanistic, naturalistic, materialistic conceptions and models of human society, making human welfare the focal point and central objective, affirming the central importance and validity of universal values in the human sciences, restoring scientific legitimacy to subjective experience, and recognizing the catalytic role of creative individuals in the evolution of the collective.
Prevailing myths about the market represent a core premise of contemporary economic theory. Debunking the superstition of |
Market Myth: Gaps in our Understanding ©T. Björkman, Ekskäret
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![]() Report on the Conference on Anticipation, University of Trento, Nov 5-7, 2015 |
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As an emerging field of study influencing a wide variety of disciplines and exploring relationship with uncertainty and complexity, anticipation is instrumental for framing the movement toward a new paradigm in human development capable of effectively addressing enormous challenges confronting humanity today. Applicability of anticipation is pressingly significant for domains economic, environmental, geopolitical, technological, and social, and most importantly, for the complex interconnectedness of these domains. Aiming to generate a more defined and more unified understanding of anticipation in theory and practice, the University of Trento partnered with UNESCO and the World Academy of Art & Science to organize the First International Conference on Anticipation at Trento, Italy from November 5-7, 2015 in association with the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), the Advanced Design Network and the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento as co-organizers. As a first time event, the conference had an unprecedented success by gathering over 300 international speakers at 17 main sessions with 70 panels and featuring a group of distinguished keynote speakers, including Roberto Poli, chief organizer of the conference and UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems at Trento, Riel Miller of UNESCO, Jens Beckert and Ruth Levitas. Conference panels and presentations covered a wide range of disciplines and topics, such as anticipation in education, politics and political economy, philosophy and sociology, biology, engineering and design, research and innovation, urban futures and migrations. |
WAAS convened two sessions with a total of five panels on “Anticipation for Transition to a New Paradigm” and “Bring forth Futures.”
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The rich 3-day long exploration on the topic of anticipation both in theoretical and practical terms and with the aim of developing a research field and a nascent discipline was followed by an announcement that the next conference on anticipation will take place in 2017 and the preparation for it has begun. Additionally, various publications ranging from academic journals to book projects are planned and under way. The organizing committee, chaired by Roberto Poli, will be particularly focused on publishing a handbook on anticipation, that way giving more comprehensive, formal contours to the new discipline. Mila Popovich |
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Education and Anticipating the Future
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![]() Conclusions of the International Conference for a Green and Inclusive Economy organized by Green Cross International at Geneva on 6-7 October 2015 |
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A green and inclusive future is possible! We have the knowledge, technology and public support to achieve it: what we are waiting for is the political leadership to take us forward. This must be delivered in Paris in the form of an ambitious, binding and universal climate change agreement backed by ample climate finance. It is time for a fundamental transformation of our economic, financial and energy systems. Such a transformation is not a choice: it is a moral, economic and environmental imperative. In December, humanity has an appointment with its future—we cannot miss this momentous opportunity to launch a new era of global climate action. This is the clear and determined message put forward by over 2,700 people participating at the International Conference for a Green and Inclusive Economy, held in Geneva on 6 and 7 October 2015. As the birthplace of the Red Cross, the European home of the United Nations, and the site of the world’s largest network of environmental organisations, Geneva is a city that represents the world’s ability to come together to overcome adversity; it is calling for a science-based, people-driven global strategy to combat the biggest threats we face, while helping to lead the way in making the fundamental changes needed. This diverse gathering included representatives of the City and Canton of Geneva, the United Nations and its institutions, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), universities, civil society, technology, business and the military, but was united in its simple message that Paris Climate 2015 must:
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The future is not preordained. It is up to us. Alongside the direct plea to decision-makers at Paris Climate 2015, the Geneva gathering was overflowing with ideas and examples of the solutions and innovations needed to build a green and inclusive future. At the heart of all proposals are people—the immense capacity of humanity for creativity, ingenuity, adaptation, hard work, and care for others. Action on climate change can be a catalyst to transform and reform our societies, to shift the currently undemocratic balance of power, and to promote the human rights and wellbeing of all people. In the mammoth undertaking of transforming our economies and |
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behaviour, there will be central roles for states, for cities, for regions, for the private sector and for civil society. But those with the most at stake are the young, and the generations to come. This is why our Conference is proud to support the new “Universal Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities of Humanity”, with its strong insistence on intergenerational solidarity, which was represented at the Geneva Green and Inclusive Economy conference by Scouts from all continents, |
and presented to world leaders at Paris Climate 2015. http://droitshumanite.fr
Other WAAS representatives present at the October 6-7, 2015 Conference in Geneva include F. J. Radermacher, Ivo Šlaus, Martin Lees, Garry Jacobs, Roberto Peccei, Alexander Likhotal, Mohan Munasinghe and Ernst von Weizsäcker. Adam Koniuszewski |
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![]() ![]() ![]() Mind, Thinking & Creativity Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia April 11-15, 2016 |
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Mind is humanity’s highest developed instrument for seeking knowledge; therefore, it is ironic that we invest so little time in education and scientific endeavor trying to understand the nature of mental knowledge, the character of the mental processes by which we arrive at it, the inherent limits to rationality and mental ways of knowing, as well as the extraordinary creative and intuitive processes by which mind transcends those limitations and tends toward genius. Thinking is the activity by which mind associates, organizes, coordinates and integrates information, thoughts and ideas. Creative thinking is the process by which mind extends the boundaries of existing thought and knowledge to connect, reconcile and unify previously unconnected or contradictory perspectives. This course will explore the characteristics of mental knowledge and thought processes, types of thinking, the character of rational thought, the mental and social construction of knowledge, deep thinking, creativity and genius. Rather than focus on abstract philosophical concepts, it will apply this knowledge to understand both the sources of humanity’s prolific mental creativity, the characteristic problems it confronts due to irresolvable conflicts and contradictions between mental perspectives, and their resolution in different fields of natural and social science, public policy, collective and individual behavior. |
LECTURE TOPICS
COURSE DIRECTORS: Goran Bandov, Vice Dean, Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations & Diplomacy, Zagreb, Croatia. Garry Jacobs, Chairman & CEO, World University Consortium. Winston Nagan, Professor of Law, University of Florida, USA. Alberto Zucconi, President, Person-Centered Approach Institute, Italy. Please contact [email protected] if you wish to participate as a faculty member. |
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Following highly successful conferences at Brazilia in 2014 and Gainesville in 2015, the World Academy of Art & Science and World University Consortium are pleased to collaborate in organizing a three-day conference on Post-2008 Global Dynamics & Structural Changes: Economic, Political and Eco-Societal Transitions at the University of Lisbon on May 11-13, 2016 in association with the Centre for African, Asian and Latin American Studies (CEsA), Research in Social Sciences and Management (CSG), Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG), and University of Brasilia (UnB). Although the international crisis starting in 2007 managed to generate some skepticism among decision makers, politicians and international organizations, the disturbances it created were apparently not powerful enough to inspire another shared vision of positive paradigm change. |
We hope the 2016 International Colloquium will stimulate thought and action on the vision of a sustainable, fair and equitable way to deal with the critical tasks society is facing. We need to examine the root causes of the current challenges and opportunities so as to formulate an integrated and comprehensive strategy towards the promotion of worldwide change to well-being. The XIII Colloquium will discuss the current international situation and its systemic stresses with special emphasis on Europe and will explore changes in economic theory and policy needed to cope with the challenges of globalization, mechanization, employment, migration and ecology. Paper submission is open until January 31, 2016. |
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![]() Eruditio, the e-journal of WAAS, complements and enhances the academy’s focus on global perspectives in the generation of knowledge from all fields of legitimate inquiry. It also mirrors the academy’s specific focus and mandate which is to consider the social consequences and policy implications of knowledge in the broadest sense. Contents of the Current Eruditio Issue – November 2015-January 2016 |
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Determinism and Reification: The Twin Pillars of the Amoral Society by Gerald Gutenschwager Breaking Free: Bringing the Overview Effect to Life & Work by Charles Smith Higher Education – Cornerstone of the New Era by Federico Mayor The Future of International Law by John Scales Avery EU between Monetarism and Keynesianism by Mladen Staničić & Josip Sapunar Introduction to the New Paradigm of Political Economic Theory by Winston P. Nagan |
Collabocracy: Collaborative Intelligence & Governance of Globalised Society by Dimitar Tchurovsky Reforming Electronic Markets and Trading by Hazel Henderson Remarks on Visions of Sustainable Development: Theory & Action by Robert J. Berg |
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Shaping the future in order to realize the economic and social goals that enable the establishment of a socially inclusive and environmentally healthy community is the fundamental challenge of human society. Technology has been shown to be the key player in meeting this challenge. Still, there remain many uncertainties related to the transformation of scientific results into technology regarding its positive economic potential, and social, and human outcomes. The rapid pace of technological change at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as the inability to understand technology and perceive its effects on society is one of the greatest, very subtle, problems of the XXI century. There are many who, facing the rapid advances in the XXI century, wonder if it will be possible or even desirable to continue along the path of such prodigious change. Technological advances per se do not guarantee above all how they will be used. Tomorrow’s technologies may contain destructive potential, a threat to the natural and human environment which may be too powerful and challenging to control. A purely technological risk involves the possibility of greater vulnerability to system-wide breakdowns. Certainly, the risks of over- or under regulation and of undercapitalization error of new technological developments are already present. Furthermore, enthusiasm about new developments often neglects the social, ethical, economic and political constraints. The complement of that is to overlook the secondary, very harmful, effects of new technologies offered for improving the condition of humankind. The interrelation of technological and cultural changes is vitally relevant in the globalized era in which we live. Associated with a belief in technological determinism, the convergence theory argues that we are becoming more similar to one another—i.e. the world is converging—since we all make use of the same technologies. The role of technological change in promoting the convergence of societies is less certain on the theoretical and empirical grounds. To think of technological change as a universal instrument that dissolves all prior religious, cultural and social patterns is not possible. The theory of cultural lag is predicated on the belief that habits, thoughts, values, and social arrangements often fail to change at the same speed as technological innovation. The belief that technology acts as an independent force in our life, unaffected by social forces and inertia in change of spirituality is known as |
“technological determinism”, and if it is true, we have become the servants of technology instead of its master.
No one can argue that technology has not been a key force in shaping the world we live in, and in which we will live, but we need to appreciate the fact that technology has not been independent of the society in which it is imbedded. Does social constructivism therefore offer the possibility for more human agency than technological determinism? The conference aims to open many questions related to the interaction of emerging technologies and society. With this in mind, the prospective participants are invited to contribute to any of the following topics:
Technical Details Deadlines Contact: Ms. Katarina Terzic For more information click here. |
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Humanity lives in a time of unprecedented capacity for accomplishment in every field of social life. Never before have we possessed power of this magnitude for good or for evil. Never before has power been so widely distributed within society. Democracy, law, human rights, science, technology, education and many other forms of social organization have generated immense power. Society governs the possession and exercise of this power through formal structures and institutions, such as law and human rights, as well as through both legitimate and extra-legal informal mechanisms including status, wealth, popularity, political influence and corruption. The distribution of power in its various forms powerfully impacts on the functioning of the economy, political system, educational, scientific, religious and and other social institutions, and on the overall productivity, strength, integrity, harmony and welfare of society. This transdisciplinary course will explore the sources, expressions, determinants and consequences of the creation, distribution and exercise of social power in its various expressions in politics, economy, society and culture and its consequences for the evolution of society as a whole. LECTURE TOPICS (partial list)
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COURSE DIRECTORS: Goran Bandov, Vice Dean, Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations & Diplomacy, Zagreb, Croatia. Garry Jacobs, Chairman & CEO, World University Consortium. Winston Nagan, Professor of Law, University of Florida, USA. Alberto Zucconi, President, Person-Centered Approach Institute, Italy. Please contact [email protected] if you wish to participate as a faculty member. |
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![]() ![]() WAAS and WUC partner with 20 institutions to develop course on New Economic Theory |
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Rising levels of unemployment, inequality and ecological damage pose severe challenges to the future of humanity. Yet efforts to seriously address these issues have been effectively opposed by vested interests and institutional inertia based on outmoded, conventional economic theories and models. Old ideas block urgently needed action. A concerted effort to synthesize and project the best available alternative thinking can effectively challenge the conventional orthodoxy. Following a highly successful conferences at University of Brasilia in May 2014 and University of Florida at Gainesville last May, WUC and WAAS have joined hands with 20 partnering institutions from 12 countries on five continents to close the intellectual gap that retards effective action on a broad front of economic and ecological issues. The project team and advisory committees include 48 thinkers, academicians and practitioners from a range of social science disciplines. The project seeks to gather together the world’s best thinking on alternative economic concepts and integrate them within a transdisciplinary human-centered framework for global sustainable development. The objective is to develop a comprehensive, integrated outline of new economic thinking and project it through a course of video lectures for university classrooms and online delivery. |
The goal is to formulate a valid theory that
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The network of participating research institutes, think tanks, universities and other civil society organizations includes:
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Conferences exploring alternative perspectives for the project are being planned for University of Lisbon in May 2016 and Stellenbosch University, South Africa in 2017. For more information on the rationale of the project and project plan, partners and participating individuals, past conferences |
and discussion papers, please visit www.neweconomictheory.org Individuals interested to contribute to the NET project are invited to contact |
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![]() A major international conference on Democracy in the 21st century was organized by Ismail Serageldin, President of the Library of Alexandria and WAAS Fellow, at Alexandria, Egypt on December 9-11, 2015 bringing together a host of international political leaders, scholars and activists, including seven former heads of state, to examine the historical roots, achievements, challenges and strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of democratic forms of governance. Participants included WAAS Fellows Emil Constantinescu, Garry Jacobs, Zlatko Lagumdžija, Alexander Likhotal, Rovshan Muradov, and Rosalia Arteaga Serrano. |
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Democracy was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. Just a few years ago democracy looked as though it would dominate the world. By 2000 Freedom House classified 120 countries, or 63% of the world total, as democracies. Between 1980 and 2000 democracy experienced a few setbacks, but since 2000 there have been too many to be listed as exceptions. Even in its heartland, democracy is clearly suffering from serious structural problems, rather than a few isolated ailments. Political systems have been undergoing dramatic changes in the past decades driven by globalization and neoliberalism. Vital democratic institutions have been tarnished and manipulated. Why has it run into trouble, can it be revived? According to the usual explanations of the Western writers, democracy as a model has been attractive, because democracies are on average richer than non-democracies, are less likely to go to war and have a better record of fighting corruption. More fundamentally, democracy lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children’s futures. Why then the crisis? The answer is that democracy is not only about how people live. It’s also about what they live for—it’s about human dignity, self-esteem, meaningfulness, sense of fulfilment. It’s about values! One thing is clear. The world governance has gone impotent. G7, G20, UN, World Bank, EEC, BRICS, UNESCO, World Economic Forum and the likes… Dozens of important organizations, dozens of important presidents, thousands of important ministers, millions of spies, analysts, the CIA, the Russian Federal Security Service, MI-6 and so on. And so on. An incredible financial, industrial, intellectual capacity. They really run the world. But they run it really bad. What went wrong? There are existential, political and operational reasons. The modern market economy was a natural outgrowth of the rise of liberalism and political democracy in the West. The extension of freedom and democratic rights to every citizen has gradually led to the emergence of economic democracy as well, in which each individual casts monetary votes according to his individual needs and capacity. In the absence of basic human rights, economic life as we know it today is inconceivable. But the further evolution of this value has played a trick with civilization. In this consumption driven world people have started to be driven by the belief in economic prosperity as the guarantee of human freedom. Material prosperity has become implicitly related to the extent of individual freedom. Personal wellbeing gradually has turned from a tool of liberal values into a competing goal, gradually devaluing and marginalizing these values. That is why the threat to the prosperity standards (leading to unbridled economic growth) has started to be seen as the erosion of freedom. As a result, human development and personal status have become hostages of economic performance, deforming the basic civilisation’s ethical matrix. Democracy, with economic issues dominating parliamentary agendas, has gradually been reduced to an instrument of economic optimisation. In the political sphere the end of the Cold War has paradoxically |
The socialist system implosion has devalued and erased the stark comparative advantages of the Western political system. Not being able to use anymore the repressive models of the East block as a reference point, the West was challenged to start “sweeping in front of its door”, to confirm and prove the democratic model moral advantages in its own daily reality. But instead it has ceded the temptation to “establish” its gains in the cold war victory, quickly converting moral principles into geopolitical instruments. Already in 10-15 years, the world may be completely different. We are looking at communications and technology revolutions occurring in very abbreviated time frames. Soon, billions of people will interact via a fast data-transferring Metaweb, and it will change social standards as well as human behaviour patterns. Integrated global economies functioning as holistic entities will spur a deep reframing of global governance, shaping a new configuration of political, economic and military power. One can hardly expect that these changes will leave democratic mechanisms intact. Since the dawn of the modern democratic era in the late 19th century, democracy has expressed itself through nation-states and national parliaments. But globalisation has changed national politics profoundly. People today engage in social issues mainly through civil society and the use of social media as their primary tool. This holds fascinating prospects for de facto global citizenship and action, but it does something to the old type of representative democracy. The present-day social reality reveals new growing and influential actors. Alongside the notorious process of globalization, there is another process that receives much less attention. This is the process of “lateralisation”—the establishment of vigorous, polyphonic groups that benefit from the broad access to the IT and communications, financial, organisational, and technological means of the post-industrial world. We never anticipated a technology revolution so extreme in its productivity that it could actually reduce marginal cost to near zero for a whole array of goods and services, making them essentially priceless, abundant and beyond the market. What are the long-term goals? What is the meaning of world development in the twenty-first century, the answer to which will define the future of democracy. Democracy isn’t dying, it’s evolving. Democracy can be reset if it can provide a platform for collective judgement and individual development—in a value-driven process, when values manifest themselves in concrete and socially meaningful issues, not reduced to the economic optimization and politics of the wallet. In other words, the only remedy to resolve the crisis of democracy is more democracy. Alexander Likhotal |
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![]() Cadmus, is a journal for fresh thinking and new perspectives that integrate knowledge from all fields of science, art and humanities to address real-life issues, inform policy and decisionmaking, and enhance our collective response to the challenges and opportunities facing the world today. Contents of the Current Cadmus Issue – October 2015
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![]() Cultural Policy as a component of the New Paradigm of Human Development |
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The WAAS project on the new paradigm of human development should have a well-defined cultural policy as one of its components. The general aim of this policy should be to ensure preservation of cultural richness of humanity and enable creation of an efficient global governance system. Multiculturalism is the policy and practice of giving equal attention and representation to the needs and contributions of all cultural groups in a society. Two major multicultural policies have been developed so far. The first policy avoids presenting any culture as more important than the others, and it is usually referred to as traditional multiculturalism. It promotes cultural isolation with the aim of protecting cultural diversity. The second policy promotes interaction between different cultures, and it is usually designated as interculturalism. It brings intercultural competition. In the Western states, multiculturalism as the official cultural policy started in Canada in 1971 and Australia in 1972. After that, it was quickly adopted as the official cultural policy by most member-states of the EU. However, recently, the Governments of Denmark and the Netherlands have reversed their cultural policies, returning to monoculturalism. A similar reversal is the subject of debate in the UK, dominantly due to the evidence of incipient anxieties and segregation over home-grown terrorism. Several heads of state have expressed doubts about the success of multicultural policies—the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron; the German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Australia’s ex-Prime Minister John Howard; the Spanish ex-Prime Minister José Maria Aznar; and the French ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy. They have voiced concerns about the effectiveness of multicultural policies for social integration of immigrants. Today, with a continual very big wave of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa trying to enter and stay for good in the EU, it is clear that these and the surrounding countries have a huge political, social and economic problem with no consistent cultural policy to enable its sustainable solution. Interculturalists say that culture is not rigidly defined—its elements change with time, with intercultural interactions contributing to these changes. It has been established that these interactions reduce prejudices and hostility between |
different cultures. Critics of interculturalism debate whether the ideal of benignly coexisting cultures, which interrelate, influence one another and yet remain distinct, is realizable and sustainable. It is argued that a nation-state, which has been synonymous with a distinctive cultural identity, is endangered by enforced interculturalism, which can ultimately erode this identity.
WAAS should adopt soft interculturalism as its cultural policy. We should support critical dialogue within cultures and between them, and challenge segregation tendencies in cultures. This policy should appear as a response to the criticism of traditional multicultural policy, which legitimized separate cultural communities, accentuated their specificities, and isolated them from each other. This policy should be based on the recognition of both differences and similarities between cultures. The intercultural policy of WAAS should be a global policy of recognition of common human needs across cultures. We should reject the claim that only the members of a particular cultural group have the ability to understand its specificities. In parallel, we should insist on protecting cultural diversity, often standing against economic forces, which favor uniformity. In 2005, UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which supports interculturality. The document states that multiculturalism has faced serious problems that need to be resolved through interculturalism rather than traditional multiculturalism. In order to define such a cultural policy, a WAAS working group should be formed. It should include committed members of the Academy and individuals from other organizations, mostly sociocultural anthropologists. However, since the membership of the Academy includes only a few such experts, whose activism in recent years has been minimal, this condition represents a serious obstacle. Thus, we should try to find a few distinct sociocultural anthropologists who would accept to become Fellows of WAAS and help us form the working group. Nebojša Nešković |
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INVITATION TO CONTRIBUTE Fellows are invited to submit content for the next issue on:
Send your comments and contributions to [email protected] |
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Seeds of a World University
The world then was divided into two major blocs, and educational institutions became a part of the ideological structure of the Cold War. Newly sovereign Asian and African countries were trying to find an identity, for themselves as well as their institutions, independent of their colonial rulers. Today, the world is fragmented in many ways, at multiple planes, and the interplay of the various parts presents us with a complex scenario that cannot be addressed with a single strategy. Education—affordable, best quality, inclusive, future-oriented—is perhaps the single most essential tool needed to devise a multi-faceted strategy that will usher in a new paradigm of social development. WAAS has been one of the early visionary organizations that have recognized the value of a world university in addressing the world’s challenges. The World University Consortium, founded by WAAS, functions on the lines of the World University, as envisioned by Taylor. The following are some of the ideas for the World University presented in his article: “An international network of scientists and scholars, a network similar to that proposed by the World Academy of Art and Science through which existing groups of intellectuals in the world’s universities can be brought directly in touch with each other through a central headquarters. Institutions deliberately designed to bring together an international community of scientists and scholars to deal with specific problems in science, technology and social change. One specific task for the World Academy of Art and Science might be to make suggestions and proposals to the existing world organizations of scholars through which regional research and teaching centers with a world point of view might be established, at least in embryo, by special institutes based on approaches to specific problems. Another possibility exists in establishing truly international communities within the framework of existing universities.” Janani Ramanathan |
The Future of WAAS
Now that international organizations have started replacing individuals in solving the world’s problems and creating unprecedented opportunities, their role in evolving a better society and speeding up social development is crucial than ever before, talking about which a question naturally comes to my mind: What is the future of international organizations, especially that of WAAS? It is said that the future is contained in the past. Analyzing the past can provide a glimpse into the future. That said, the founders of WAAS were true pioneers, idealists who wanted to create the future by taking full responsibility to change the course of evolution. WAAS was created as a forum for “distinguished scientists and scholars to discuss the vital problems of mankind, independent of political boundaries or limits—whether spiritual or physical; a forum where these problems will be discussed objectively, scientifically, globally and free from vested interests or regional attachments.” WAAS acted as spokesperson for the whole world rallying for ‘a world university’ well ahead of time. Its founding members tried to invent a new world, a new paradigm that integrated ideas and actions. So, thinking about the future of the Academy and its own evolution, one can’t help but come to the conclusion that the pioneers-founded organization will carry the characteristic of the founders and consciously speed up evolution and change the course of history. WAAS will have achieved its primary goals by 2020: A transdisciplinary framework of society, a World University, an integrated science of society, full employment, discovering and rewarding genius, integration of the arts and sciences, a global rule of law, a human-centered economic theory, a transformed financial system, abolition of nuclear weapons and power, global governance characterized by full democracy, so on and so forth. It takes a greater imagination to wonder what the goals and responsibility of the Academy would be after these aspirations are met. Suffice it to say that the future of WAAS is the future of humanity. Ranjani Ravi |