Conclusion

Flatulence is a Problem Aired: Resmelling the stench of past undertakings (Part #3)

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Aside from its "straw-man" style (as noted above), is the characteristic smell of the review one of "shooting down the messenger"? Curiously both The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal have been variously complicit in an ongoing high-profile case involving such a process.

If the Encyclopedia is to be compared to an exercise in pointing the finger towards a condition meriting attention, is Vidal's review an invitation to focus closely on the finger rather than on the direction in which it is pointing -- recalling the challenge for any dog owner in seeking to focus attention of the dog on some distant matter of concern?

Would Vidal now consider matters otherwise after the learnings of two decades of Earth Summits and other questionable global initiatives? Does their output have a "sell-by date" -- reached long ago in some cases? "Food For All By The Year 2000"? "Shelter For All By The Year 2000"? "Health For All By The Year 2000"? "Education For All By The Year 2000"? Do they start to "smell" -- if not to "stink"? Is progress then to be understood as a rejection of the stench of the past -- "moving on" to avoid it?

A more considered assessment of the Encyclopedia, prior to Vidal's review, was that of the American Library Association (ALA) for whom it was a "problematic monument to idiosyncrasy, confusion, and obfuscation" (Booklist, 83, January 1987, p. 698). Again this can be understood as an admirable description of the condition of the times which the Encyclopedia sought to mirror through the language of the constituencies contributing to the condition. Few would now deny the degree to which the terms "idiosyncrasy", "confusion", and "obfuscation" prevail in relation to global governance. In that sense the Encyclopedia was indeed an effort to articulate a "problematic monument" to the condition of humanity.

Like that of Vidal, however, the ALA assessment was primarily concerned with the scope and nature of the Encyclopedia and not with the conditions it endeavoured to encompass. The terms used by the ALA are however very helpful in framing the condition of any undertaking purporting to be a comprehensive reflection of human preoccupations. Any library is necessarily a "problematic monument" in that light, given the variety of mutually contradictory perspectives it is called upon to reflect for users of different needs and perusasions. A semblance of order is only achieved by "specialization", with the exclusion of materials contrary to that speciality or worldview, or the use of a particular classification system (such as the Dewey Decimal Classification or the Universal Decimal Classification). These have their limitations in reflecting the variety of dynamic considerations required for any transdisciplinary systemic approach to the global condition -- hence the experimental approach used in the ordering of the Encyclopedia, as described separately (Functional Classification in an Integrative Matrix of Human Preoccupations, 1982).

More perceptive expertise was applied to evaluation of the Encyclopedia in assessing a funding proposal to the European Commission Information Society programme (Info2000) which ensured its development within a consortium initiative through to 2000 (Ecolynx: Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation, 1997). An even more assiduous evaluation was later undertaken by experts of the World Bank's InfoDev programme, leading to approval for funding of an adaptation of the Encyclopedia -- deferred due to the priorities of a regional conflict (Interactive Conceptual Environmental Planning Tool for Developing Countries, 1999). InfoDev is a global partnership programme to enable innovative entrepreneurship for sustainable, inclusive growth and employment in developing countries. In each case the Encyclopedia methodology and data were evaluated for the possibility of their improvement (through a consortium of three bodies, of which the UIA was the lead agency).

What then of the Encyclopedia, twenty years after Vidal's review -- with no thanks to The Guardian? Again a useful attempt at a summary of its condition is ironically provided by Daniel Michaels (Encyclopedia of World Problems Has a Big One of Its Own, The Wall Street Journal, 12 December 2012). A fourth hardcopy edition appeared in 1995.

Since the time of Vidal's review, the internet has rendered accessible valuable open source resources like Wikipedia-- and the various search engines now bypassing the limitations of traditional library facilities. The Encyclopedia could well have evolved according to the open source model, given its "crowdsourcing" from international constituencies. As it is, archival profiles from the fifth (online) edition have long been made freely accessible -- following the Info2000 funding through to 2000. This enabled experimental development of multimedia access to the complex networks of relationships (see video) -- beyond the facilities currently offered by Wikipedia. The online facility continues to integrate profiles in multiple data sets (problems, strategies, organizations, values, meetings, metaphors, and the like). Clearly meriting updating, it could however be said, of the problem profiles at least, that the world's problems are very patient. They do not go away -- their "stench" persists.

Rather than the framing offered by Vidal, it could be usefully said that the Encyclopedia experiment constitutes a question rather than an answer. What form should the organization of knowledge take to enable the emergence of better answers in the future -- if indeed it is "answers" that are required? The question is consistent with the recent vigorous arguments of Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: things that gain from disorder, 2012). If a condition of global sustainability were to be successfully achieved, what then would be the "sweet smell of success"?

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