Skilluminati Research

“Changing Images of Man” in PDF Format

Posted Jul 07, 2007

UPDATE 12/30/07: I just got handed a smaller, searchable OCR copy of this document. Here is the superior copy of the file. Enjoy.

Changing Images of Man SRI report We're downright giddy to finally have a copy of this legendary document. 10,000 thanks to whoever took the time to digitize this. "Changing Images of Man" has been -- much like Jose Delgado's "Physical Control of the Mind" -- the subject much more speculation than actual study. If you're unfamiliar with this report, here's the blurb that accompanied the Torrent:

Changing Images of Man - Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) released a report in 1974 that has become a classic in the "alternative futures" literature. It has been adopted as a text in non-traditional courses at more than a dozen universities and reprinted repeatedly by SRI. Changing Images of Man explores the reasons why changes may have to take place in the fundamental conceptual premises, laws, attitudes and ethics once suitable for guiding the development of the United States and other highly industrialized nations if a humane (and "workable") future is to be achievable. It discusses the evidence that such changes may be occurring and the possibility that an evolutionary transformation may be underway that is at least as profound as the transition in Europe when the Medieval Age gave way to the rise of science and the Industrial Revolution. SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND WORLD ORDER LIBRARY -- Explorations of World Order 255 pages - 1974, 1982 O.W. Markley, Willis W. Harman (DIGICAM PHOTOS OF ORIGINAL - PDF FORMAT)

DOWNLOAD "Changing Images of Man" (30 MB) in PDF

VERY TASTY TRILATERAL REPORT: "CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY"

It only takes a few minutes with this document to realize that the "Crisis" in question here is actually Democracy itself. It's an old report but still a very interesting read, and we present a few nuggets along with the download.

The Increase in Social Interaction

In every developed country man has become much more of a social animal than before. There has been an explosion of human interaction and correlatively a tremendous increase in social pressure. The social texture of human life has become -- and is becoming -- more and more complex, and it's management more difficult. Dispersion, fragmentation and simple ranking have been replaced by concentration, interdependence, and a complex texture. Organized systems have become tremendously more complex, and they tend to prevail, in a much more composite and complex social system, over the more simple forms of yesterday. Because of the basic importance of the comtemporary complex social texture, it's management has a crucial importance which raises the problem of social control of the individual.

The Democractic Challenge to Authority

The essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to the existing systems of authority, public and private. In one form or another, this challenge manifested itself in the family, the university, business, public and private associations, politics, the government bureaucracy, and the military services. People no longer felt the compulsion to obey those whom they had previously considered superior to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character and talents. Within most organizations, discipline eased and differences in status became blurred. Each group its right to participate equally -- and perhaps more than equally -- in the decisions which affected itself.

A Question of Vision

What is in short supply in Democratic societies today is not consensus on the rules of the game, but a sense of purpose as to what one should achieve by playing the game. In the past, people found their purposes in religion, in nationalism, and in ideology. But neither church, nor state, nor class now commands people's loyalties. In some measure, Democracy itself was inspired by manifestations of each of these forces and commitments.

Protestantism sanctified the individual conscience; nationalism postulated the equality of citizens; and liberalism provided the rationale for a limited government based on consent. But now all three gods have failed. We have witnessed the dissipation of religion, the withering away of nationalism, and the decline -- if not the end -- of class-based ideology.

The Dangers of Freedom

The democratic spirit is egalitarian, individualistic, populist and impatient with distinctions of class and rank. The spread of that spirit weaks the traditional threats to democracy posed by such groups as the aristocracy, the church and the military. At the same time, the pervasive spirit of democracy may pose an intrinsic threat and undermine all forms of association, weakening the social bonds which hold together family, enterprise, and community. Every social organization requires, in some measure, inequalities in authority and distinctions in function. To the extent that the spread of democratic temper corrodes all these, exercising a leveling and homogenizing influence, it destroys the bases of trust and cooperation among citizens, and creates obstacles to collaboration of any common purpose.

DOWNLOAD "Crisis of Democracy" -- 1975 Trilateral Report