I was intrigued to see what Geoffrey Vickers had to say about this topic, as it's become current once again in the context of climate change. So I tracked down his paper*. Vickers was concerned with rapid industrialisation as a major disrupting factor in an established economic, social and political balance. As I've found in the past with his work, he made some interesting points such as...
"In an expanding society numbers increase and every individual claims to take up more room, both directly...and indirectly..... Since the surface of the planet does not expand, it is inescapable that people should become more thick on the ground....The problem for Western democracies is to socialise their indivualist ethic without losing its essential values."
50 years on, I wonder how Sir Geoffrey would think we are doing? In his models in his paper, he drew out what he considered as essential features of adaptation and put a lot of emphasis on regulation and understanding the systems that industrialisation disrupts. Along with his observations on value systems, this all still seems very relevant today.
*Vickers, G. (1959), "Is adaptability enough?" Behavioral Science Vol. 4 pp.219-34
"In an expanding society numbers increase and every individual claims to take up more room, both directly...and indirectly..... Since the surface of the planet does not expand, it is inescapable that people should become more thick on the ground....The problem for Western democracies is to socialise their indivualist ethic without losing its essential values."
50 years on, I wonder how Sir Geoffrey would think we are doing? In his models in his paper, he drew out what he considered as essential features of adaptation and put a lot of emphasis on regulation and understanding the systems that industrialisation disrupts. Along with his observations on value systems, this all still seems very relevant today.
*Vickers, G. (1959), "Is adaptability enough?" Behavioral Science Vol. 4 pp.219-34
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