1970 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 110

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FROM TERRITORIAL IMAGE TO CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT

cadaver mentality of the German SS in World War II, or the Catholic Church's insistence on the infallible hierarchical power of the Pope). It is possible to interrupt this vicious cycle if we make room in our culture for another image from our early evolution: altruism. Spontaneous behavior, arising from altruism or compassion, helps us overcome social pollution and some practical implications of a Compassionate-Systems Revolution (2) are discussed. 1.

Introduction

Ours is a time of violently changing images. In this article, we will tiy to examine one reason for the difficulties in our development of new images — new ways of thinking and acting. This reason is a social pollution which can be traced to the dichotomy between ancient images which resulted from our organic evolution and the rapidly multiplying images created by our accelerating cultural evolution. Let us first define some concepts and word usages in the context of this article. When we talk about evolution, we will view it as a process — a biological adaptation to the environment. Two main aspects of the adaptation have been defined in general: the organic and the cultural or psycho-social. The organic evolution may be considered complete since historical man has seen no major changes in his physical make-up. The psycho-social evolution, however, progresses differently and rapidly. In fact, major alterations in the manner in which mankind will live in this world are expected. If mankind does not find revolutionary new ways in which man can relate to man, it will eradicate itself. All evolution, in a cense, depends on mental images, i.e., representations of earlier perceptions in the absence of the original stimulus. Images of feelings, thoughts, etc. are semi-permanent building blocks of the mind, resulting from attempts to make order out of sensory perceptions. The earliest of these images derived from environmental conditions which had selective advantages for survival. The most important of these grew out of the need to order the physical environment (in its simplest form, by fighting for an individual territory) and the need for a social order through a mutual determination of each other's rank in a group hierarchy.

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