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This study analyses the problems and prospects of the Third World.
It formulates a general economic and political theory the author
calls the "global strategic transition" (GST) model. The central
feature of this model is the global strategic demand response
mechanism involving an interaction between the world's expanding
strategic core and its fringe, which is facilitated through
strategic inflation. This model also provides the basis for a new
policy approach to economic development.
In this ambitious and imaginative work, noted social and biological
theorist Graeme Donald Snooks explores the origin, development, and
role of the self-conscious mind. He does so by employing a realist
general dynamic theory_his celebrated 'dynamic-strategy'
theory_based on a large-scale systematic observation of the broad
patterns of life and human society. The outcome of this exploration
is the discovery of the 'selfcreating mind'_ the 'mind that created
itself' through the response of countless organisms to the
ever-changing demands of their dynamic societies. They are driven
to do so by the need to survive and prosper, which Snooks calls
'strategic desire, ' the shaping force of all animal instincts. The
Selfcreating Mind_which displaces the mind hypothesized by
psychoanalytic, Darwinian, and complexity theorists_provides a new
perspective on human nature; the origin, nature, and purpose of the
self-conscious mind; the reasons for its continuing breakdown in a
significant minority of the population; and on the surest road to
mental recovery. It also explores questions about the future of
brain genetics, artificial intelligence, and the possible
elimination of mental disorders. Read about Graeme Snooks' The
Collapse of Darwinism: Or The Rise of a Realist Theory of Life,
available from Lexington Books.
Dead God Rising provides a completely original explanation for the
many religions and myths that have arisen in human society. In
particular, it exposes the mechanism by which human religion has
been transformed over the millennia. To do this, the book focuses
on a number of important and representative case studies in early
human society (the Neanderthals and Aboriginal Australians),
together with those at the core both of the Neolithic (or
agricultural) Transformation in the Fertile Crescent from Egypt to
Mesopotamia (Egyptian religion, Zoroastrianism, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam) and of the Industrial Transformation in
Western Europe and beyond (scientism). This is a study in economic
sociology rather than religion more narrowly defined. The book's
basic argument is that religion and scientism arose from humanity's
attempt to understand and sustain the hidden life-system
responsible for human survival and prosperity in a hostile physical
and social environment. This hidden life-system, which Professor
Snooks calls the "strategic logos," is the book's major discovery.
In addition to explaining the central mystery of life, it shows
that religion - or "strategic ideology" - is the outcome of a set
of rituals by which the Shamans and, later, the priestly
philosophers attempted to gain access to, and to influence, the
"strategic guardians" - the guardians of the logos - who were
misleadingly called "gods" and, eventually, "God." What makes this
book distinctive is the unique underlying theory - the
"dynamic-strategy" theory - that Professor Snooks has developed to
explain the dynamics of human society and of life itself. This
realist transdisciplinary theory, which is based on 40 years of
systematic observation of the patterns in life in general and human
society in particular, extends beyond the work of orthodox
sociologists and exposes the flaws in the arguments of the new
atheists (such as Richard Dawkins) and Sociobiologists (such as
Edward Wilson).
THE COMING ECLIPSE deals with the most important issue of our era,
and deals with it in a unique way. This book is concerned with a
critical choice of futures: either the adoption of a comprehensive
climate-mitigation program or the emergence of a new technological
revolution. As this book succinctly explains, the adoption of one
will eclipse the other. A climate mitigation program of the type
proposed by the IPCC will require the establishment of an
artificial system of prices, which could only be achieved by
establishing a command-like economy. Such an economic system would
lock us into the old polluting fossil-fuel technological paradigm
and thereby delay, even derail, the newly emerging technological
revolution - the Solar Revolution - which will be based on
radically new methods of energy extraction. By using a realist
general dynamic framework, Professor Snooks shows that, by the end
of the twenty-first century, the real dynamic costs of the
mitigation program proposed by the IPCC will amount to an
astronomical 90% of world GDP rather than the 1-2% estimated by
climate mitigationists. Owing to their inadequate methodology,
orthodox economists have massively, and dangerously, underestimated
the real costs of climate mitigation, which would inevitably arise
from delaying the imminent technological revolution due to begin in
the middle decades of this century. A revolution that will
transform our world, just as the Industrial Revolution transformed
the commercial world of the eighteenth century. A revolution that,
ironically, if not derailed will solve the current problem of
climate change. This book is designed to be read in a couple of
sittings by busy powerbrokers and businesspeople, as well as the
educated public.
This book explores truth in human society - its nature, role, and
future. But it does so in an unorthodox way, by employing a
fictional framework. Truth conveyed within a lie. It is an
exploration that ranges from Greek rationalism (truth told to
outsiders and lies to insiders) in the West and Zoroastrianism
(Truth versus the Lie) in the East, to the pragmatism of today, and
beyond. It is the year 2044 in a world reeling from the devastating
effects of a radical experiment by governments to impose a
draconian global climate-mitigation program. After decades of
oppression, right-wing forces in Metropolis, the world's leading
society, have thrown off these shackles, taken political control,
invaded the devastated oil-rich countries, and are advancing on
China after a limited nuclear exchange. In the turmoil, a
determined scholar is editing the unpublished essays of an obscure
thinker, active between the 1960s and 2010s, who had predicted
these events using his revolutionary general dynamic theory of
life. A voice from the underground that had been ignored in its own
time. The edited essays focus on the role played by truth in the
dealings of the state, the people, the intellectuals, the
businesspeople, and the clergy of Metropolis in the early years of
the twenty-first century. A role that led to the chaos of 2044.
Arguing from the grave, our thinker shows there is no general "will
to truth," even among philosophers; there is no societal demand for
truth in the struggle to survive and prosper; and that
truth-seeking is the most extreme of extreme sports - a form of
self-vivisection - pursued by deviants who often end mentally
disturbed or taking their own lives.
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Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R205
R168
Discovery Miles 1 680
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