Thinking on grand issues

Abstract

The Renaissance in Italy constitutes, in many respects, the first period of confrontation between what can be viewed as the “modem mind” on one hand and overwhelming events on the other hand. Thinkers such as Guicciardini and Machiavelli (in The Discourses, rather than the better known The Prince) faced social transformations beyond understanding with available concepts and tried to make complex social processes comprehensible and manageable, inter alia with the help of new concept packages such as “fortuna,” “occasione,” and “virtu,” as applied to the handling of uncertainty. Four centuries have passed since the Renaissance, during which much has happened. In particular, the scientific method and its applied fruits, together with other factors, such as emergence of a world system and changes in accepted values, have transformed the world and radically changed the grand issues facing the most presumptuous of all of human aspirations, namely the hope and desire to influence human futures through deliberate and collective interventions with historic processes. Little wonder that attempts are under way to merge the scientific method with the future-shaping ambitions and to try and apply newly emerging approaches to pressing grand issues. I share these ambitions and hopes, as demonstrated by my continuing efforts to advance what I call, following Harold Lasswell, Policy Sciences. Nevertheless, comparison between proliferating writings that presume to present relevant and useful findings and ideas (up to patent prescriptions) on contemporary and expected human predicaments on one hand, with the shape of emerging realities on the other hand, leads to grave doubts about the potentials of the present human mind to influence human futures according to contemporary desires. The subject as a whole should perhaps be looked at in evolutionary terms. After all, the human mind in its present shape seems to go back about 5 million years, with complex state societies emerging around 5000 years ago and modem science becoming a major change-factor about 300 years ago. Within such a calibration, it seems rather absurd to expect jumps in human capacities to manage humanity itself to occur during a couple of decades. Human knowledge being in many respects a social artifact, its advancement must take time, even assuming that the potentials of the human mind in its present shape are adequate for much better handling of the complexities of historic processes. Compared