\ See, SR.

THE WASHINGTON POST Saturday, July 8, 1967

 

“tk
, Wen yet
Seience and Man : +4 By Joshua Ledesberf

The World of the Future

MAN'S UNIQUE quality.
is his! self-conscious aware-
ness of history, Every man

-looks back at a cultural tra-.
dition that, .
whether he -
understands
it or not, has
molded his
personality,
his language,
his capacity
to cope with
the external
world. om
looks ahea +
to a posterity Leder
and around himself to a
community of other men on
whom his own life inevita-
bly impinges.

Religion is this conscious-
ness of the species, the in-
sight that man in complete
isolation is nothing, that his
life can have a meaning only

“in communication across
time and space with his past
and future traditions and |
with his [elows.

If ever man needed a con-
sistent world model, it
should be in the present era
of unbounded technological
power, Problems of personal
identification, the sources of
the juvenile revolt, are para-
doxes of aff{hienee too co-
gent for our health as a Na-
tion to be dismissed as pass-
ing fads. Psychedelia is not
unrelated to geopolitical
paralysis, our failure to con-
struct a plausible model of
the future world.

THE MOST utilitarian as-
pects of scientific effort are

  

ne

 

intertwined with these con-
fusions of purpose, We think
of using science to promote
health, alleviate hunger,
Open up communication,
Support economic develop-
ment, invigorate education,
defend national security.
Yet every rational plan we

_ begin to make in any nar-

row sphere runs into con-
flicts of short- and long-term
goals and between one ef-
fort and another.

For over 20 years, Ameri-
can policy has been domi-
nated by the doctrine of con-
tainment: the frustration of
Communist expansion, first
Russian, then Chinese. It
can be argued that to tempt
a predator into violence by
displaying weakness is im-
moral, besides being foolish
and cowardly, But what are
our long-range positive aspi-
rations?

What can we hope to
achieve after another 20
years, or 50, of pursuing this
coniainment policy? Do we
spend a hundredth of the cf-
fort in positive planning—
not to mention its imple-
mentation—that we do in
the defense of the status
quo?

Is it possible that we lack
the courage to diagnose the
future? Now the Chinese
have demonstrated their H-
bomb, but what myopia is
revealed or pretended by
the note of surprise that this
has happened sooner rather
than later, We can no longer
evade the reality of the
emergence of power in the
other world,

' .

THE MOTIVE to imple-
ment a so-called antiballistic
missile defense! comes from
clinging to a delusion of a
unique power that we had
no way of using even white

we fleetingly had it. Techni. °

cally, a few months remain
during which a concerted
Russo-American effort might
efface Chinese nuclear
power, just as the United
States alone might once
have waged a preventive
war against the rest of the
world.

These suggestions are not
necessarily more inhumane
than the likely events of
fulure history, but they are
politically absurd if only be.
cause our long-range strate.
gics are contaminated by
tactical motives that would
arouse: fatal ~ suspicions
among our momentary al-
lies. Nor is a world domi-
nated by the naked military
power of any nation very
happy to contemplate even
by its own citizens,

The, military and diplo-
matic routes to world secu.

rity aside, we have then to
ask what place we will have
in a world in which the
Western tradition holds a
minority place, already in
population and soon inevit-
ably in military power and
agricultural and industrial
output. We ean still aspire to
world leadership through
pre-eminence in science and
technology and Participation
in the humanistie arts. This
will be possible, however,
only if we maintain the high.
est possible investment in
the education of our citizens,

We must also prove our
leadership by providing con-

-Vincing models of the kind

of world that could result
from it. At the very least,
this would be a world whose
economic organization gave.
every other nation an oppor.
tunity to reach not just sub-
sistence but the Kind of af.
fluence we know how to
achieve. That leadership js
our crucial export,

rumen Bs poco
fleae Mrr2>:
FEB 20 1982

du) Kore Jen,
Pevtaes