Changing Images of Man (Web Accessible)

CHAPTER 1: Images of Man in a Changing Society

Man is a symbol-forming organism. He has constant need of a meaningful inner formulation of self and world in which his own actions, and even his impulses, have some kind of "fit" with the "outside" as he perceives it.
-- Robert Jay Lifton, in The Development and Acquisition of Values (1968)

Symbolic thinking is not the exclusive privilege of the child, of the poet or of the unbalanced mind; it is consubstantial with human existence, it comes before language and discursive reason. The symbol reveals certain aspects of reality — the deepest aspects — which defy any other means of knowledge. Images, symbols, and myths are not irresponsible creations of the psyche; they respond to a need and fulfill a function, that of bringing to light the most hidden modalities of being. Consequently, the study of them enables us to reach a better understanding of man.
-- Mircea Eliade, in Myths and Symbols (1952)

IMAGES AND SOCIAL POLICY

In this study we attempt to identify and assess the "images of man" that are fundamental organizing principles of (1) our society and/or (2) of key civilizations that have contributed to it. All public and private policy decisions necessarily embody some view (or compromise of views) about the nature of man, society, and universe. The kinds of educational systems and goals a society sets up, the ways in which it approaches the problems of material distribution (poverty and wealth), how it treats the welfare of its citizens, the priorities it gives to various human needs — all these aspects and many more are affected by the image of humankind that dominates the society. Precisely how we cannot say with detailed accuracy — which is why metaphors, myths, allegories, theories (all of which attempt to express an image) are useful. But in a very real way, all policy issues are issues relating to fundamental assumptions about the nature of man and his concerns:[ i]

• If we see ourselves as separate from or superior to nature, then an exploitation ethic can be fostered more easily.
• If we see ourselves as a part of or one with nature, then an ecological ethic can be fostered more easily.
• If we view human beings (e.g. in medicine, employment, architecture) as animated machines of physical parts, then non-physical aspects of our existence are likely to be ignored.
• If we view humans as solely spiritual rather than physical beings, then material aspects of our existence are likely to be ignored, e.g. in public health, employment opportunities, housing.
• If human nature is seen as complete and fixed, then our task is to adapt ourselves and our institutions to enhance that development.

A WORKING DEFINITION OF "IMAGE OF MAN "[ii]

We use "image of man" (or of humankind-in-the-universe) to refer to the set of assumptions held about the human being's origin, nature, abilities and characteristics, relationships with others, and place in the universe. A coherent image might be held by any individual or group, a political system, a church, or a civilization. It would consist of beliefs as to whether we are basically good or evil, whether our will is free or is determined by external forces, whether we are cooperative or competitive, whether we are essentially equal, and so on. It includes both what man (woman) "is" and what he (she) "ought to be."[iii] Most societies have a reasonably coherent image of what it means to be "human," defining, for example, the ideal social nature of a person. But different societies may assume exactly opposite social characteristics. Hopi culture, for instance, sees people as ideally cooperative while "mainstream" American culture usually sees competitive achievement as the ideal. If the successful or ideal adult is assumed to be competitive, then children as they grow up are encouraged to be competitive, games are based on competition, success in competition is rewarded, and competition becomes a dominant motive, thus validating the assumption contained in the image. The same is true, in a similar manner, if a society's image defines the ideal person as cooperative, as independent, or as having any other of the many possible social attitudes.

An "image of (the nature of) man" is thus a Gestalt perception of humankind, both individual and collective, in relation to the self, others, society, and the cosmos. It may contain many levels and face contradictions and paradoxes — as does the living human being — and still be experienced as an organic whole.

However, any image is necessarily selective, not only as to what categories of human attributes are included, but also as to the facts which are asserted to be true of them. Some images are narrow, ignoring many possibilities; others are more comprehensive, embracing more of the person's potential being. Each, however, selects which attributes and qualities are to be considered real and which are to be developed, admired, accepted, despised or otherwise attended to.

These images are held at varying degrees of an awareness by persons and by societies. For some (e.g. the "True Believers" described by Eric Hoffer, 1951), images are likely to be in the forefront of awareness, seen as reality and used consciously in perceiving the world and in making decisions. For most, however, assumptions about the nature of human beings are held beneath the conscious level of awareness. Only when these hidden assumptions are recognized and brought into awareness is an "image of man" discovered and/or constructed. Then the image can be examined carefully and with perspective, to be retained, discarded, or changed.

Furthermore, no one knows the total potentiality of humankind. Our awareness of human "nature" is selective, shaped by our symbolic and presymbolic images. From the total possibilities — nature, abilities, and characteristics that make up the human potential — our images of humankind reflect those aspects we are "in touch" with, or that are defined as real by the knowledge, social norms, cultural assumptions, and myths.

THE RELEVANCE OF IMAGES TO MODERN SOCIETY

The power of an image to bring about change is not easily demonstrated for two reasons: first, because of the intangibility of images themselves and, second, because the prevailing views in science have not yet readily accepted the evidence suggesting the power of images. However, there are numerous indications that a person's or a society's images can strongly affect perceptions, and therefore actions (see Table 1).

While it is obviously important that our underlying images and beliefs be good maps of the reality in which we live, we probably do well not to pay them overmuch attention as long as the continuing welfare of society and its citizens seems secure. Many of our present images appear to have become dangerously obsolescent, however.

An image may be appropriate for one phase in the development of a society, but once that stage is accomplished, the use of the image as a continuing guide to action will likely create more problems than it solves. (Figure 1 illustrates, in a highly simplified way that will be further developed in Chapter 3, the interaction between "changing images of man" and a changing society.) While earlier societies' most difficult problems arose from natural disasters such as pestilence, famine, and floods (due to an inability to manipulate the human's environment and ourselves in unprecedented ways, and from our failure to ensure wise exercising of these "Faustian" powers — as Spengler termed the term).

Table 1: INDICATIONS THAT PERCEPTIONS AND BEHAVIOR ARE INFLUENCED BY IMAGES
• Clinical data from psychotherapy indicating the life-shaping effect of an individual's self-image
• Anecdotal data relating to behavior changes induced by self-image change following plastic surgery
• Studies of effects of experimenter expectations in research with both animal and human subjects
• Studies of effects of teacher expectations on student performance
• Research on expectancy set, experimenter beliefs, and placebo effect in studies of hypnotic phenomena, psychotropic drugs, sensory deprivation, etc.
• Anthropological studies indicating that perceptions of self, others, and the environment are highly influenced by cultural images and expectations
• Research on visual perception indicating the extent to which what is perceived depends on past orderings of perceptions (e.g. the Ames demonstrations), on felt needs, on expectations, and on the influence of important others (e.g. the Asch experiments)
• Studies of authoritarianism and prejudice, indicating the extent to which other persons are seen in terms of stereotypes
• Examples from the history of science indicating how new conceptualizations have resulted in new ways of perceiving the world
• Research on the role of self-expectations in limiting academic achievement of underperforming children
• Hypnosis research demonstrating the influence of suggestion-induced images and expectations
• Athletic coaching practices utilizing deliberate alteration of expectations and self-image
• Expectation-performance relationships in studies of conquered peoples, prison-camp populations, etc.
• Anecdotal data from executive development courses based on the alteration of self-image and self-expectations through autosuggestion
• The sociological theorem of W. I. Thomas: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."
• Research of the Nancy school of psychology (Emile Coue, C. Baudouin, C. H. Brooks et al.) on the power of imagining
• Esoteric religious teachings, East and West, on the power of belief, images, and prayer, e.g. Matthew 17:20: "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move hence to another place,' and it will move."

Fig. 1. Hypothesized time/phase relationship between images and social/cultural development.

When images "lead" social development they are anticipatory, and provide direction for social change. When images are in this relation to society they exert what Polak (1973) has termed a "magnetic pull" toward the future. By their attractiveness and meaning they reinforce each movement which takes the society toward them, and thus they influence the social decisions which will bring them to realization.
As society moves toward achievement of the goals inherent in the image, the congruence increases between the image and the development of man and society: the promise of the image is explored, needs are satisfied. Then, as with paradigms and myths, there may come a period in which the evolution of the society goes beyond the adequacies of the image. Policies based on the dominant image then become consequently faulty, even counterproductive, precipitating a period of frustration, cultural disruption, or social crisis and the stage is set for basic changes in either the image of man or the organization of society.

Science, technology, and economics have made possible really significant strides toward achieving such basic human goals as physical safety and security, material comfort, and better health. But as Table 2 illustrates, many of these successes have brought with them problems of being "too successful" — problems that themselves seem insoluble within the set of societal value premises that led to their emergence.[iv] Improved health, for example, has caused population increases which exacerbate problems of social organization, food distribution, and resource depletion. Our highly developed system of technology leads to a higher vulnerability to breakdowns. Indeed, the range and inter-connected impact of societal problems that are now emerging pose a serious threat to our civilization.

Table 2: SELECTED SUCCESSES AND ASSOCIATED PROBLEMS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL/INDUSTRIAL ERA
Successes / Problems resulting from being "too successful"
Reducing infant and adult mortality rates / Regional overpopulation; problems of the aged
Highly developed science and technology / Hazard of mass destruction through nuclear and biological weapons; vulnerability of specialization; threats to privacy and freedoms (e.g. surveillance technology, bioengineering)
Machine replacement of manual and routine labor / Exacerbated unemployment
Advances in communication and transportation / Increasing air, noise, and land pollution; "information overload;" vulnerability of a complex society to breakdown; disruption of human biological rhythms
Efficient production systems / Dehumanization of ordinary work
Affluence, material growth / Increased per capita consumption of energy and goods, leading to pollution and depletion of the earth's resources
Satisfaction of basic needs / Worldwide revolutions of "rising expectations;" rebellion against non meaningful work
Expanded power of human choice / Unanticipated consequence of technological applications; management breakdown as regards control of these
Expanded wealth of developed nations; pockets of affluence / Increasing gap between "have" and "have-not" nations; frustration of the revolutions of rising expectations; exploitation; pockets of poverty

Additionally, it appears that although some of our images and needs have come to be served most adequately by what we now term the industrial state, others have fared more poorly. From studies of mythology and past civilizations done by Joseph Campbell, at least five functions stand out as needing to somehow be fulfilled by images, rituals, and institutions of a society. They are the mystical, the cosmological, the sociological, the pedagogical or psychological, and the editorial functions.

The mystical function inspires in the individual a sense of the mystery, the profound meaning of the universe and of his own existence in it. What are the origins and the density of humankind? How is existence maintained and why? These are questions whose answers — however adequate they may or may not be — as experientially realized by an individual serve the mystical function.

The cosmological function is to form and present images of the universe and world in accord with local knowledge and experience. The structure of the universe is described and the forces of nature identified, such that humans may more adequately picture what their world is like.

The sociological function is to validate, support, and enforce the local social order, representing it as in accord with the sensed nature of the universe. For example, myths, rituals, and social structure from hunting cultures emphasize men as the bearers of power whereas those from planter cultures usually emphasize women as bearers of life. Medieval European culture emphasized the central importance of the Church, and our own, the legitimacy of the modified free-market economy and pluralistic body-politic.

The pedagogical or psychological function is that of guiding each member of the culture through the stages of life, teaching ways of understanding oneself and others, and presenting desirable responses to life's challenges and trials. Rites of passage, councils of elders, psychotherapy, and education all serve this function.

In its editorial function, the myths and images of a culture define some aspects of reality as important and credible, hence to be attended to, while other aspects are seen as unimportant or incredible, hence to be ignored and culturally not seen. For example, the anthropologist Malinowski reported that the Trobriand Islanders believe that a child inherits his physical characteristics only from his father. Hence, the Trobriands simply do not observe or notice any resemblance between the child and his mother, although to Malinowski, such similarities were quite evident.

Two additional functions — the political and the magical — are also noteworthy. The political, as distinct from the strictly sociological, function appears wherever a myth or institution of society is deliberately employed to represent the claim to privilege and authority of some special person, race, social class, nation or civilization; and the magical, wherever prayers, rituals or other "extraordinary" techniques are used for special benefit, such as for rain, good crops, war-winning.

How well do our current "myths" fulfill these functions which stand out in importance from the perspective of history? Mythology, at least among most "educated" people, is now relegated to the status of mere superstition, as is anything that sounds "mystical." The mystical function of inspiring in the individual a sense of the profound meaning of the universe has been neglected almost entirely, as synagogues and churches, the traditional servants of this role, have become increasingly concerned with social justice. Science now performs the cosmological function, but its successes in this regard have become so complex that the average person has little comprehension of how scientific knowledge defines the world, other than by consuming the products that science and technology have made possible. Bureaucrats and other civil servants, who make no claim to understanding or even seeking any larger picture of reality, now carry out the sociological function of enforcing the local social order. The pedagogical function of guiding each individual through life's stages has been — except for those who can afford psychotherapy — taken over by an institution of education which (at least until very recently) deals almost solely with preparation for work in an industrialized society. The editorial function in Western Culture was dominated first by the Church (which emphasized a very specific image of man and associated ideology) and more recently by science (which emphasizes another limited image). It appears now in the process of being taken over by the funding agencies (government legislatures and departments of program planning, foundations, and so forth) who also represent special interests in the selection of which aspects of reality should be collectively ignored and which attended to.

Furthermore, there is no indication that our society, operating under its currently dominant guiding images and values premises, will not continue to create vexing problems at an increasing rate. Researchers at the Hudson Institute have identified what they call "The Basic Long-term Multifold Trend of Western Culture" that represents a cluster of social forces similar to those causing the "successes" noted in Table 2. The Multifold Trend includes developments such as:

1. Increasing sensate (empirical, this-worldly, secular, humanistic, pragmatic, manipulative, explicitly rational, utilitarian, contractual, empicurean, hedonistic, etc.) cultures.

2. Bourgeois, bureaucratic, and meritocratic elites.

3. Centralization and concentration of economic and political power.

4. Accumulation of scientific and technical knowledge.

5. Institutionalization of technological change, especially research, development, innovation, and diffusion.

6. Increasing military capability.

7. Westernization, modernization, and industrialization.

8. Increasing affluence and (recently) leisure.

9. Population growth.

10. Urbanization, recently suburbanization and "urban sprawl" — soon the growth of megalopolises.

11. Decreasing importance of primary and (recently) secondary and tertiary occupations; increasing importance of tertiary and (recently) quaternary occupations.

12. Increasing literacy and education and (recently) "knowledge industry" and increasing role of intellectuals.

13. Innovative and manipulative social engineering — i.e. rationality increasingly applied to social, political, cultural, and economic worlds as well as to shaping and exploiting the material world — increasing problems of ritualistic, incomplete, or pseudo rationality.

14. Increasingly universality of the multifold trend.

15. Increasing tempo of change in all the above. (Kahn and Bruce-Briggs, 1972)

The impact and likely consequences (for better and for worse) of continuing with this societal trajectory can be inferred from a study of Fig. 2 through 5. If such projections of the future prove correct, we can expect the problems associated with the multifold trend will become more serious, more universal, and occur much more rapidly than will growth of the trend itself.[v]

Fig. 2. The growth of human numbers. (Source: McHale, 1972.)

Fig. 3. Urbanization in the United States. (Source: McHale, 1972.)

But the multifold trend (essentially, rampant industrialization and consumption), with all its associated problems, need not prove to be the dominant characteristic of our future society. As Fig. 2 through 5 imply, for most of human history the growth of man's population was slow and its impact on Earth ecology relatively small. Humans lived close to the soil in widely dispersed communities, such that the actions of one community had relatively little impact on most others not near by. But now society grows ever more complex, specialized and interconnected, and the production and distribution of essential goods and services is increasingly dependent on the continued integrity of human institutional systems. Human systems, however, depend on trust, agreement, and political law rather than on unchanging "natural" law, hence they are inherently less stable in times of rapid cultural change than are "natural" systems. They are particularly sensitive to breakdowns caused by war, terrorism and simplistic attempts at societal reform.

Fig. 4. Selected world population, wealth, and consumption trends. (Source: McHale, 1972.)

Salk (1973) has suggested a simple graphical way of comprehending these changes and the corresponding level of changes that need to take place during the decades to come. As portrayed on Fig. 6, the past and future history of mankind can be represented as comprising two phases. Salk calls the first phase, which includes all mankind's past history, Epoch A — an epoch in which (for the above reasons) the survival of the human species depended on essentially individual actions, on the survival of the fittest, and on successful competition with other life forms. He calls the second phase, which must characterize any desirable future, Epoch B — a future in which humankind limits the growth of those activities that undermine the welfare of the ecology; hence where the survival of the species will depend more on the behavior of the whole species than of its individuals, on cooperation rather than competition, and emphasizing the survival, not of the physically fittest, but of the wisest.

Fig. 5. Depletion of world reserves of commercial grade ores if world population had U.S. living standard. (Source: Gough and Eastland, 1969, based on data from U.S. Bureau of Mines.)

Fig. 6. Two contrasting epochs of human history (Jonas Salk).

While it is perhaps unrealistic to expect that the United States and other industrial nations would voluntarily limit their own consumption of physical resources and share their wealth more equitably with less affluent nations, it may be equally unrealistic to think that we will not be forced into making just that choice. With only 6 percent of the world's population, the United States currently uses about half of the world's resource output. And this standard of living that we enjoy is the growth goal of most developing nations — most of whose citizens are undernourished and undereducated.

As the late Prime Minister of Canada, Lester Pearson, observed,

No planet can survive half slave, half free; half engulfed in misery, half careening along toward the supposed joys of an almost unlimited consumption. Neither ecology nor our morality could survive such contrasts ....

While not all researchers agree that such an epochal transition is facing mankind, most agree that the developed nations of Earth now face a series of fundamental dilemmas. By more adequately understanding the nature of these dilemmas, how they have emerged, and how they might be resolved, it should be possible to see new possibilities for a better future. As a concise statement of why the role of images is crucial to such an understanding, four different types or "levels" of societal problems are delineated below (Markley et al., 1971):

1. Substantive problems lie at an applied or operational level, and are usually identified as immediate targets for corrective attention or increased allocation of money or other resources.

2. Process (or Procedural) problems are those that impede the process of collectively setting priorities and strategies to solve the substantive problems.

3. Normative problems concern the appropriateness and effectiveness of a people's values, preferences, goals, and so forth, that are the basis of planning and priority setting.

4. Conceptual problems are difficulties that seem to be intrinsic to the way we think, the words we use — in short, to the particular vision or understanding of reality that is dominant in a culture — thus affecting our ways of perceiving and doing, and also affecting the formation of our normative values. These four categories can be thought of as referring to four levels of (1) the state of society, (2) behavior, (3) motivations, and (4) basic values and perceptions (see Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. Levels of description useful in analyzing social change.

The importance of distinguishing the above four aspects is evidenced by the fact that most informed persons agree on what the crucial substantive problems of our time are: inflation, unemployment, pollutions, world hunger, threat of war, and so forth. Most of the visible disagreement — at least in the United States — occurs at the process level, in the assignment of priorities and in the choice of strategies: for example, in the supposed tradeoff between "environment and jobs," or in the choice whether to develop social policies that are future-oriented rather than those that are politically expedient, but short-sighted. But the third and fourth categories, normative and conceptual social problems, have been almost totally ignored to date.[vi] With the extensive changes brought by the accelerating "manifold trend" discussed earlier, however, obsolescent values and inappropriate conceptions may be precisely that which keeps us from finding satisfactory resolutions to the gripping social problems that increasingly confront us.

Our image of ourself and our universe has become fragmented and we have lost the guiding "sense of the whole" that earlier civilizations seem to have had. At present our society goes from crisis to crisis, with piecemeal responses being made to ameliorate each, and with the measures taken to relieve one crisis invariably making another problem worse, so interwoven is our social system. There has been little effort, and less success, in searching out deeper strata of social forces — the basic images of our nature and our future, and the associated premises which underlie the behaviors that lead to societal problems. Might it be possible that a more adequate image of humankind could lead to a renewed sense of wholeness and to better behavior — both individual and collective?

By addressing ourselves to such questions we hope to help elevate the level of debate regarding the future of our nation and future of humankind generally, thereby creating new understandings through which societal problems that previously looked irresolvable may become increasingly tractable.

Reproduced by permission of Newspaper Enterprises Association, Inc., New York.

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Notes:

i.

"All policy issues are also issues relating to fundamental assumptions about the nature of man's institutions and how they interact with man."
— Michael Marien

ii.

"By using 'man, mankind, men, he, and his' all through, you unconsciously convey the old image of the noble masterful male once more out to rescue the human race .... Here is the vocabulary you must use if the new image of man is not to be sexist as the old: 'humankind, humanity, human being, humans, persons, individuals', etc. For this century, at least, until our thought habits have been reformed, the use of 'man' as an inclusive term is out .... You can't stick in a sentence on women's lib and adequately transform the concept 'human' thereby."
— Elise Boulding

In the present version of this report, we have followed Dr. Boulding's advice with which we fully agree, whenever the structure of the phrase and thought allow it, only adding "we" or "our" to her suggested vocabulary, and putting the phrase "image of man" in quotes where its use seemed not feasible to avoid.

iii. What we mean by "image of man" or by the preferable but more awkward phrase "image of humankind in the universe" is something that by definition lies at the boundary between the conscious, and unconscious part of our minds. Because such imagery exists at a preverbal level of consciousness, it is hard to define satisfactorily. Readers who still feel uncertain or confused what we mean by those (and related) phrases after reading this section may want to read the glossary and page 69 (starting with paragraph 3) before continuing.

iv.

v.

"It should be noted that those (1972) figures reflect trends that preceded the OPEC oil blockade, energy price increases, and the host of trend-changing events that have since occurred. These figures are included in this 1980 edition, both for historical reasons (since they led to studies like this one) and since they still illustrate the policy implications of the traditional images and premises of Western Culture."
— O. W. Markley

vi.

"During the eight years since the first release of this report in 1973, a small, but increasing amount of attention has been and continues to be focused on normative and conceptual concerns. For example, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation have jointly sponsored a continuing extramural research program on 'Values in Science and Technology'; a major research institute, the Hastings Center has been established to examine questions involving social ethics; and a variety of books and reports are appearing that examine the possibility of conceptual and organizational transformation in various levels of society."
— O. W. Markley