THE GLOBAL MIND: Beyond the Limits to Growth

by Lewis J. Perelman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1976

The temptation to sum up, synthesize, and organize everything one has learned into a unified-field theory of human life is a perilous one for the mind that has not yet recognized its own limits and talents--often a student mind. This book by a young scientist and educator, explaining and praising yet again the ""paradigm shift"" that is moving us away from the disastrous Western concept of man-outside-nature, suffers from that sort of lame comprehensiveness in place of sharp originality. It is a clear but pedestrian, useful but derivative synthesis-cum-critique of just about everyone from Hardin, Commoner, Ehrlich, and the Club of Rome to Bateson, Fuller, Lilly, Norbert Wiener, Lewis Mumford, Ivan Illich, et al. The ardent reader will be better served by seeking out the originals and making his or her own synthesis; surely it's a vestige of the old culture, what Perelman calls ""hardworld"" as opposed to ""softworld,"" to think that all this knowledge has somehow to be crammed into one book! But for those who have not or will not do such reading, and perhaps particularly for high-level educators--who are used to jargon, and to whom Perelman addresses some of his most specific injunctions--this book provides a fair introduction to the radically altered world view which traces ""ecocrisis"" to a fatal flaw in epistemology, the structure of our knowing, and which re-places man and his culture firmly within the network of information and relationship which is life. Most useful are a ""softworld primer"" introducing the reader to such fundamental cybernetic terms as entropy, synergy, and feedback, and a set of suggestions for an eco-education program to hasten the transformation of our societal consciousness. Adequate-plus.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Mason/Charter

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION