Constraints

Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future (Part #2)

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1.1 Range of disciplines: It is convenient in the academic world to limit the range of "disciplines" to those which are represented by university faculties or the various branches of research and specialization within them. One exercise to identify the number of such disciplines resulted in a count of 1,800 (see Intellectual disciplines and sciences. In: Union of International Associations, 1976). These are the disciplines currently legitimated in some way by a Western (and often Eurocentric) concept of a valid approach to knowledge.

The scope of "discipline" may be also be usefully extended in terms of its relationship to the varieties of forms of intelligence. In this sense, discipline is understood as the disciplined application of intelligence. A recent study by Howard Gardner (1983) identified seven forms of intelligence.

The notion of a "discipline" has been vital to many religions and spiritual traditions which encourage their practitioners to develop a spiritual discipline. This may range from the disciplined practice of prayer characteristic of the major religions, through practices such as hatha yoga, to the progressive development of a range of cognitive skills as in raja yoga. Buddhist literature, for example, is extremely precise in its rich articulation of the nature of such disciplines (Union of International Associations, 1991)

Aside from the disciplines noted above, it is important to acknowledge the kinds of discipline acquired through long apprenticeship in traditional cultures. Typically this includes the knowledge of traditional healers as well as the therapeutic skills of shamans and the like.

In these critical times, when it is unclear what knowledge is vital to survival on this planet, or how it can be rendered accessible, there is merit in accepting a broader rather than a narrower understanding of "discipline". The question of Japanese management education and its link to military discipline and techniques of political re-education merit exploration.

1.2 Pettiness in the politics of knowledge: It would be naive in discussing the prospects of transdisciplinarity to omit any reference to the constraining effects of inter-disciplinary politics. Many have remarked on the arrogance, narrowness and egotism of the eminent in any discipline, whether academic, charismatic or spiritual. Together with a primitive approach to territoriality, these factors have been of major importance in hindering or obstructing any progress towards a more fruitful form of interdisciplinarity. They have reinforced the development of disciplinary priesthoods and bureaucracies of the least helpful kind.

In a period of scarce resources, there is a worrying natural tendency on the part of academics towards self-censorship and the pursuit of fashionable topics which have some chance of attracting funds. Careerist concerns naturally erode the development of disciplines and any tendency towards unrewarded explorations of interdisciplinarity. Respect for disciplinary "pecking-orders" is then to be expected.

It may be asked whether all the historical problems of geopolitical territory (imperialism, colonialism, etc) are not to be recapitulated with respect to the functional territories claimed by the emerging disciplines.

1.3 Inaccessibility of knowledge and insights: The problems of information overload are widely acknowledged. Less clearly recognized are those of information underuse. It has been estimated that the average academic article is read by one person (other than those involved in its publication). Much new knowledge is only available in a form which is beyond the current budgets of individuals or institutions, especially those in developing countries.

The conventional response of any discipline is to imply that any information from outside that discipline is to a high degree irrelevant and may therefore be neglected. The implication within the disciplines is that of all the information generated, only that emerging from acknowledged centres of excellence need be accorded serious attention. Sophisticated information retrieval systems reinforce the problem by restricting their coverage in terms of such priorities and favouring the use of narrow search profiles. It is not difficult to argue that this situation is leading to a progressive erosion of collective memory.

This situation with regard to contemporary knowledge is paralleled by the regretful erosion of insights from traditional cultures as they are progressively "civilized". Their insights and languages are progressively lost as informed elders die out. Whether or not some of these insights are "preserved" in anthropological studies, it is not too far fetched to compare the process to the loss of "cultural rainforests", through savage "cultural deforestation". There is a distinction to be made between a living insight and one preserved in a research paper, as with the contrast between a living insect and a specimen of an extinct species preserved in formaldehyde.

In this context is there not a faster mode of access to the key insights of particular disciplines? Is there not something suspect about the length of the period imposed through educational systems for acquisition of such insights? To what extent do practitioners and incumbents require such lengthy periods through respect for the spirit of traditional apprenticeships -- in which long periods of drudge work were considered important to inculcate the lore and social relationships of the discipline or priesthood? The attitude of professors to the use of "post-graduate" manpower certainly reinforces this suspicion, as do the arguments against fast-track medical education in a world where even modest medical knowledge is at a premium.

In a world in which individual and planetary survival is an issue, how are the key insights of disciplines to be communicated? What are the 5, 10, 50 or 100 insights of each discipline? In what form should they be held to facilitate their comprehension and communication? Is it appropriate to ask what is the minimal set of insights from each discipline which are necessary to the survival of civilization in its broadest sense -- namely the nature of a "survival set" of disciplinary insights? What do people need to know and understand to surmount the problems of the immediate future? And in terms of what do the vital decisions on the future of the planet need to be made?

1.4 Application to crises: towards a higher conceptual order: The issue is now how to determine what insights are vital to survival (in its broadest sense) and how they can be appropriately configured to guide decision-making. Given the way that knowledge is currently communicated, notably by "consultants", to policy-makers, there is every possibility that simplistic policies will continue to be formulated in response to emerging crises. The best insights from the disciplines are not being brought to bear on understanding of the problems. There is a fundamental problem of complexity both in the nature of the problematique and in the nature of the relationship between the insights relevant to any response.

Beyond this is the very basic issue of the comprehensibility of configurations of insights relevant to any more appropriate approaches. A number of disciplines have identified methodological problems in interrelating incommensurable insights necessary to fully encompass the complexities of some phenomenon. The complementarity of the "wave" and "particle" theories in physics is the most cited example. In this sense the core issue of transdisciplinarity may lie in the possibility of providing tools to handle configurations of essentially incommensurable (and mutually "irrelevant") insights in response to the global problematique. The much discussed "new world order" may in this sense call for a corresponding, or complementary, "higher conceptual order".

For any such higher conceptual order to be of relevance to policy-making, it must be comprehensible not only to the policy-makers but also to those who mandate them, and ultimately to the electorate. This itself is increasingly problematic at a time when there is an alienation from academic knowledge and a rise in functional illiteracy, notably in the most developed countries. Academic knowledge is increasingly perceived as having failed to address issues and dimensions vital to everyday life, or as having exacerbated such problems by irresponsible initiatives (notably in relation to weapons research).

1.5 Personal survival and development: There is a well-documented search, on the part of many in industrialized societies, for disciplines which will ensure their own sustainable personal development. There is an expressed need for appropriate knowledge for personal psychic survival. A major dimension of this search is oriented to those forms of knowledge appropriate to personal integration. This is part of the traditional spiritual quest acknowledged in many cultures.

There is increasing recognition that there is some sort of "mirroring" relationship of complementarity between the degree of personal integration or maturity achieved by an individual (if only on occasion) and the degree of integration that then becomes perceivable in "external" reality (if only occasionally). It may be supposed that the reverse also holds true to some degree. The issue of transdisciplinarity may therefore also be considered vital to individual psychic survival. The present fragmentation of the disciplines and specializations does little to facilitate personal psychic integration or any quest for transcendence. But presumably a useful transdisciplinary perspective is itself dependent on the achievement of some form of sustainable personal integration, through whatever disciplines this is achieved.

1.6 Reconfiguring conceptual resources: The constraints above all point to the need to reconfigure the elements of knowledge and insight -- if only for some "extra-disciplinary" purposes. Somehow the pattern of conceptual resources needs to be reconfigured to increase the fluidity with which insights emerge, are cross-fertilized and are integrated into larger patterns (Judge, 1971, 1977). At the same time there is the fundamental question of how to render such patterns comprehensible beyond the territories of self-elected elites -- to those who have a desperate need for such insights in response to the crises which we collectively face.

There is much to be criticized in the current politics of knowledge. But however much the arguments for the status quo are misused to protect vested interests, there is nevertheless considerable validity to efforts to protect the identity of individual disciplines and their methodologies. Transdisciplinarity cannot be usefully achieved through a loss of disciplinary precision (painfully acquired) or through a general blurring of categories. Ways must be found to protect the "purity" of disciplines from the "abominations" they perceive in alternative perspectives.

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