Linear Worldview Research Articles

ADMIRAL ZHENGHE AND THE WEST:

Zhenghe’s epoch-making voyages and the subsequent European expansive maritime exploration have exacted varied historical impacts and impressions upon the world. This paper argues that the contrasts stem from their radically different underlying belief systems, namely Confucianism and Christianity. In the East, the Confucian’s monistic and polytheistic ethos, coupled with a sanguine and circular worldview, underpinned Imperial China’s multilateral and restrained approach in dealing with the outside world. In the West, the Christian’s dualistic and monotheistic creed, together with a melancholic and linear worldview, moulded European Imperialism’s unilateral and forthright strategy to transform the world. Aside from the past, these divergent philosophical and religious worldviews continue to affect the present, including the current China and US geopolitical and civilizational rivalry.

Enhancing pandemic resilience: planning and institutional resilience, a learning model for Indonesia

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most expensive and destructive threats facing millions of people around the world. Policymakers generally have a linear worldview and can help the economy and society to track epidemic shocks and crises by pulling the right levers. For example, in recent years, Ebola, MERS, Zika, and SARS have demonstrated a limited willingness to respond promptly and responsibly. The pandemic emphasizes the need to be more proactive. Yet, existing epidemic response frameworks are either disease-specific, category-specific, or non-specific, with no comprehensive framework encompassing all components of institutional resilience. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic requires a holistic approach to meet the challenges. In this study, the goal of resilience to the outbreak of the epidemic is to develop an overall framework by identifying institutional departments to strengthen resilience planning. The framework can guide evidence-based decision-making and prioritization. This article encapsulates a framework that focuses on the interactions between processes and their system characteristics, which leads to an overemphasis on a limited number of features, significantly enhancing the flexibility of the organization

The Long-Waves and the Evolution of Futures Practice and Theory

Futures studies explore potential consequences of present day actions, and help in formulating desirable visions of the future, to guide action in the present. Although these aims have remained roughly the same, the practices and implicit theories supporting them have varied through time. This article looks at the evolution of futures through the framework of the long-wave theory, discussing the results of thematic interviews of futures professionals in three geographic areas: Finland, South Korea, and California. The long-wave theory sees societies changing in forty to sixty year cycles driven by technological development, around which social practices evolve. There have been five socio-technical waves since 1780s. Each wave brought about a set of policies and social models, and a shared mind-set. In the fourth wave, futures was mostly practiced with the spirit of the postwar economic expansion, techno-optimism, and linear worldview, with futures methods that reflected trust in scientific authority, and aimed at forecasting the most probable outcomes for the future. The fifth wave was defined by uncertainty, which was managed by using strategy tools like scenarios that prepared for various different short- and mid-term outcomes. For the sixth wave, futures practitioners are divided between the expertled quasi-predictive model that dominates especially in the technology forecasting work, and the systemic perspective, which questions the centrally organized process-view to futures. New methods, often developed outside the field, have in many ways inspired and shaped the intellectual space in which the evolution of both practices and theory may occur in the future.

Missing the wood for the trees: systemic defects and the future of education for sustainable development

The division in approaches to education for sustainable development (ESD) as described by Vare and Scott is revisited. A strong bias in ESD towards personal behaviour change and aspirations to ‘making a difference’ (ESD1) is contrasted with systems level or more creative and critial approaches (ESD2). The lack of balance is further revealed when a critical eye is cast on familiar ideas such as recycling, efficiency saving (energy), ‘small steps add up’, reducing consumption, etc. Some ideas/contexts identified as central are identified as not discussed at all until very recently, e.g. the role of money created as debt. The suggestion is made that although exploring values is said to be of importance in ESD this does not extend to the underlying values represented by linear/mechanistic worldviews in contrast to a more contemporary systems worldview. The evidence is that teaching of many of the most familiar topics or themes is resolutely based on a linear worldview and thus fails badly and continually on a simple intellectual level. ESD is a prime candidate if ever there was one for what is essentially a systems perspective and an ESD which hardly touches this base is incomplete – being heavily biased towards social and environmental contexts to the downplaying of the economic – and is badly in need of review. The author%s personal journey away from ESD as commonly understood – despite 20 years of work in the arena – towards the broader discussion now described as the circular economy, is summarised.

Insight: The Application of Complexity Science to Decision Making

Our interaction with all aspects of our world starts with how we view that world. The identification of our current situation as crisis or opportunity is derived through our perception. Many individuals, and especially larger social institutions, subscribe to an outdated worldview that is inadequate to deal with the larger issues of the day. New concepts in science have shi.. ed our understanding of the universe from the mechanistic and linear worldview of Descartes and Newton to the holistic and interconnected ecological view fostered by discoveries in quantum physics, cellular biology, and neuroscience. Advances in science and technology enable us to observe pa.. erns and structures within the universe, giving us a new story of the natural world. Those who are unfamiliar with this new learning are limited in their ability to fully see, integrate, and appreciate the emerging story of unity and wholeness, reciprocity, interdependence, and cocreation within the unifying web of life. SCIENCE: THE FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE THAT GUIDES OUR PRACTICE Today we stand on the threshold of a revolution as daring as Einstein's discovery of relativity. On the frontiers of science new ideas are emerging that challenge everything we have come to believe about the world and how it works. Discoveries are being made that demonstrate what philosophies and religions have long held as true: humanity is more extraordinary than a mere physical machine that lives in a self-determined world. Through a dynamic quantum field we are ever-changing and deeply connected to all that is. Scientists carrying out well-designed experiments have uncovered the fact that we are not a collection of chemical reactions, but rather an energetic charge. All living things are a coalescence of energy emerging from a universal, pulsating energy field connected to every other thing in the universe. This potent universal field is responsible for the highest functions of our minds. As an information source, this field guides the growth and development of our bodies. It influences our brains, our hearts, and our memory. As radical as it may seem, the Universal Field, rather than genes or germs, determines whether we are healthy or ill. It is, in the end, the force that must be tapped in order to heal (McTaggart, 2002). Conventional science is grounded in the idea that ma.. er is the building block of all things. Life, mind, and awareness are held to be secondary phenomena of ma.. er. The Theory of Causation holds that interactions between elementary particles create various forms of ma.. er, moving from smaller to larger objects in predictable fashion (Hollick, 200..). Elementary particles form atoms, atoms create molecules, molecules make cells (including neurons), neurons create the brain, and the brain fosters awareness. Dualistic "either-or" and "cause-eff ect" thinking have been the hallmark of reason and logic for more than 400 years. Quantum physics reveals a reality more dynamic and connected. Rather than a universe of static certainty, ma.. er at the most fundamental level-and the world it builds-is uncertain and unpredictable, a state of pure potential and infinite possibility. Subatomic particles are not seen as solid objects, but rather as vibrating and indeterminate packets of energy that cannot be precisely quantified or controlled. Werner Heisenberg, an architect of quantum theory, posited the Uncertainty Principle, which states that nothing is certain: there are no definite locations for these quantum energy packets, only a likelihood-a probability- that they may settle into a specified pa.. ern. According to Heisenberg's principle, cause-and-effect relationships no longer exist at the subatomic level, where stable-appearing atoms suddenly elect to transfer from one energy state to another in an unpredictable leap (Heisenberg, ..97 1). Quantum physics demonstrates that subatomic particles have a capacity for cooperation. …

Missionary Zeal in a Transformed Melodrama: Gendered Evangelicalism in Korea

Feminist scholarship has argued that women, as the subordinated gender, had a different experience in their evangelical endeavor and in the western imperialist enterprise. In this article, I examine the nature and effect of gendered missionary discourse from Korea, specifically focusing on the writings of a woman missionary, Annic Adams Baird, who served in the Korea mission from 1891 to 1916. I use the term “gendered missionary discourse” to refer to verbal representation used to shape reality and portray indigenous people. I further claim that the discourse is gender-bound, i.e., can be distinguished on the basis of the gender of missionary writers. I argue first that Baird's missionary discourse complies with the linear worldview that Christian civilization is the ultimate one. At the same time, Baird was critical of and resistant to the overbearing attitudes of westerners toward natives and their cultures. This seemingly balanced viewpoint may be partly attributed to her marginal position as a woman. However, in the final analysis, her discourse is more in line with the overall framework of the missionary desire to convert “pagans” to Christianity. Second, I suggest that Baird maximized the effect of her discourse by adopting a highly individualized and personal approach to Koreans. In addition, she used the plot of a “transformed melodrama,” in which stereotypical “pagan” characters displayed extreme cruelty, violence, manipulation, and, finally, Christian virtue rescued innocent victims from paganism. Finally, Baird's narrative representation of Korea is de-politicized, in comparison to the writings of her male missionary counterparts. This period, just prior to the Japanese annexation of Korea, was one of great volatility and political upheaval. Ironically, Baird uses the metaphor of “daybreak” to talk about the transformation of Korea through Christianity at a time when Korea was heading into the dark era of Japanese colonial rule.

Honoring Diversity: The Reliability, Validity, and Utility of a Scale to Measure Native American Resiliency

SUMMARY A history of oppression and deficit orientation by the majority culture has resulted in pervasive negative stereotypes of Native Americans and has led to an undervaluing of the positive aspects of Native American culture. In looking forward to an increasingly multicultural society, it is crucial that social workers develop a greater awareness and appreciation of cultural factors that contribute to resiliency among oppressed minorities. This article discusses the “Ethnic, Culture, Religion/Spirituality” (ECR) scale designed to measure levels of identification and involvement with Native American culture based on a relational rather than a linear world view and sources of strength and resiliency rather than problems or risk factors. Cronbach's Alpha exceeded .70 and factor analysis supported the internal consistency of the instrument. Convergent and discriminant validity and differences in the utility of the instrument for both Native American (n = 73) and non-native (n = 74) samples are explored.

Computer Technology and Evolution

There is a traditional belief in the computability of nature and society, but it has run into severe difficulties. Computability is only simple for linear problems. But most problems in the world are nonlinear and complex—from the biological evolution of life to the ecological, economic, and social dynamics of human society. Classical physics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have often been inspired by the linear world view of the Laplacean demon.