Homeland Earth 1 - the Planetary Era

This is the second essay about Edgar Morin’s brief “Homeland Earth” book and part of a series of essays on The Predicament and Hope of Mankind.

The Planetary Era began when humanity started to discover our round planet, a tiny part of the solar system and the rest of the cosmos; and simultaneously, when disperse civilizations began to communicate with each other on a global basis. This chapter of the book describes in 25 pages this seven centuries adventure until 1992 - an adventure framed by colonialism, independence, wars, industrialism, the birth of the nation state...;  and also framed by the gradual emergence of a planetary consciousness as humanity’s history oscillates between integration and autonomy of people and societies. I add some notes to update this history until 2013.

Homeland Earth 0 - The history of History

Terre-Patrie 0 - Tierra-Patria 0 - la historia de la Historia

This is the first of a series of essays on Edgar Morin’s “Homeland Earth” [1], and part of my series on The Predicament - and hope- of Mankind.

The title of the prologue of the book - “The history of History” is a recursive play of words so common in Morin’s writing. The chapter condenses in three and a half pages the history of humanity from hunter-gatherer times until “the birth of History”* (Mesopotamia) and on until the start of “the Planetary Era”, when humans began to realize that they live in a finite planet. Morin also follows the development of the science of History from its birth to present time - thus the history of History.

The predicament -and hope- of Mankind

Welcome back my faithful readers =) Bienvenidos de regreso mis cuatro lectores =).

Over the summer I happened to read a series of books that nicely complement each other into an either tragic or hopeful sequence.

In 1972, it was published the famous report: “The limits to growth: a report to the Club of Rome project on The Predicament of Mankind”. It described World3, the name of a [Systems Dynamics] model of the planet and humanity. The authors used the model to analyze several possible future scenarios for the Earth and its inhabitants up to 2100. Some of these scenarios ended in a planetary collapse due to pretended infinite growth in a finite planet;  some were hopeful but required difficult changes to world politics and institutions. I borrow part of the sub-title of that book for a series of essays that partly deal with this topic: the predicament of Mankind, including some dashes of hope...

On learning and who should judge it

Schools are about a thing called "learning", and school reform movements try to increase this thing. But learning itself is never defined; it is suposed to be understood what Learning is, though actually it is as difficult to define as Time or Quality. Just try

First of all, learning as "increasing one's knowledge" doesn't do, because it leads us to define knowledge: equally difficult. I like Chilean philosopher Rafael Echeverria's definition:  learning is "Increasing one's capacity for effective action". [1]

Genealogía de los átomos en tu cuerpo

Erase una vez un átomo de carbono* que nació en una estrella, está en tu cuerpo y existirá por siempre...

Exploration vs exploitation: natural, human and artificial

Desmond Morris in his famous book "The naked ape", that studies the Human Animal as a zoologist would study the species, has a chapter on "exploration", a word related to the Latin term Neophilia: love of the new. He mentions that neophilia and Neophobia -fear of the new- must be balanced on humans for proper functioning. Neophilia and the exploratory urge is a distinguishing capacity of our species, and it has enabled our zoologically unprecedented adaptability to changing environmental circumstances, whereas other species perished because they were unable to adapt. However, neophilia must be balanced by some neophobia, the conservative instinct that enables us to take advantage of all that neophilia has discovered. We would have long perished if as a species we would only have developed neophilia or neophobia.

Particular individuals -or cultures, or sects- may exhibit excess of either neophilia or neophobia, but on average on Planet Earth over the ages there has been a healthy balance between both.

Las palmeras en la página del blog

Mi madre y sus tres hermanas heredaron de mi abuelo un Cocal y cuatro plantíos de henequén en Yucatán. Ibamos todos los años a revisar el estado de nuestras propiedades, cada hermana en una diferente época del año. El henequén luego desapareció como el principal negocio del estado, y el Cocal lo vendimos. Me gustaba especialmente ir al Cocal, a orillas del mar de Campeche; las palmeras llenas de cocos frescos que comíamos y bebíamos en la playa y por supuesto el delicioso pescado fresco, frito a las brasas.