Guest Editorial

Abstract

Before one can engage in the formation of national goals, or for that matter personal goals, we must first determine where we are and how we arrived at that point. Such was the major thread of the workshop titled "Toward a Framework for National Goals." The workshop emerged through the general frustration and apparent malaise of the scientific and technical community as a consequence of the recent reordering of national priorities and the general public's challenges hurled due to the negative impact of technology on society. The felt need was to ascertain if there was a means of developing a channel through which inputs could be made at the local, national, and international levels in relation to goals formulation. What became immediately apparent was that there existed no common conceptual framework or language through which values could be discussed as they related to goals, and hence goals formulation was not feasible in this context. The papers that form the basis of this special section were developed in response to specific invitation and were circulated in advance of the workshop. They served as points of departure for discussion through a common information base. The format which ensued was that of planary sessions interspersed with small group meetings leading to a final planary session. The outcome of the first planary session and panel discussion was the formulation of the four questions: "Where are we now?" "How did we get here?", "How do we like it?", and "What can we do?" These served as the organizing theme against which the group took on the task of developing a framework for goals formulation.