Spariosu, Mihai. (2005). Global Intelligence and Human Development: Toward An Ecology of Global Learning. Reviewed by Marc Pietrzykowski, Georgia State University

Spariosu, Mihai. (2005). Global Intelligence and Human Development: Toward An Ecology of Global Learning. MIT Press. Pp. 287 $57 (Hardcover) ISBN: 0-262-19511-9 $23 (Paper) ISBN: 0-262-69316-X Reviewed by Marc Pietrzykowski Georgia State University February 21, 2005 The idea that the forces of globalization have precipitated a crisis in our ways of viewing knowledge and education has been widely accepted in the academic community, and not a few theorists (Appadurai (1996); Laszlo (2003); Symonides and Singh (1996); etc.) have acknowledged the potential for positive change that this crisis has occasioned. Shaping this potential in its nascent stages is the project Mihai Spariosu has undertaken in Global Intelligence and World Development, a work that inspires and frustrates in equal measure. His project is best discussed in terms of two distinct but decidedly interdependent aspects of Spariosu's wide-ranging response to the question of global education: first, a theoretical frame work for restructuring human relations, in which models based on power are rejected in favor of models based on peaceful co-existence, education, and cooperation; and second, a more palpable set of suggestions for restructuring research universities in such a way that the conditions of the theoretical framework are disseminated and then continually reshaped. Ideally, these two elements would be inseparable, seamlessly coexistent aspects of the same evolving whole, but such an ideal is, at present, untenable, and so Spariosu does not try to make them seamless, choosing instead to make various suggestions about the sort of educational environment necessary to allow a global university system based on peace and cooperation to come into being. Spariosu opens by discussing the familiar problems and potential benefits associated with globalization: rapidly advancing technologies disseminated across national boundaries, neo-liberal idealization of the marketplace replacing authoritarian ideologies in many places, non-linear approaches to human problems replacing more inflexible linear models, and so forth. A blunt summation of Spariosu's take on the state of things is that the world is changing at an accelerated pace, and we had better come up with some new ways to think about ourselves and how we live. Spariosu then rejects both neo-liberal and post-Marxist ideologies as simply codependent perpetrators of the same problems, since both claim they want to alleviate because both are concerned primarily with power; thus, in his view, resisting those who seek power over you only grants them more power, and a better means to exercise it as well. Escaping this cycle can only be accomplished by encouraging a significant shift in the way we approach human problems, and such a shift “will be brought about neither by our technosciences, nor by neo-liberal market forces, nor by 'freedom,' 'resistance,' and 'fundamentalist' movements, nor by a New World Order, nor by new barbarians. Rather, it will be brought about by each of us” (p. 4). The path to making “each of us” shoulder some of the work involved in reshaping the way we think about human problems is education, and on a global scale that means involving, encouraging, and celebrating the local. Only by understanding how the local resonates globally, according to Spariosu, can we hope to begin developing “global intelligence,” defined here as “the ability to understand, respond to, and work toward what is in the best interest of and will benefit all human beings and all other life on our planet” (p. 6). This global intelligence would necessarily be both spiritual and material, and in fact would work toward removing the artificial distinction between the two concepts while fostering a deep ecological integration with the processes of the natural world, but it would accomplish this without, simply trying to reproduce natural systems mimetically on a human scale. To begin fostering this global intelligence, Spariosu says we must transcend the relationship between knowledge and power encouraged by the disciplinary system and look to more holistic systems, such as general systems theory, early Buddhist and Taoist thought, and Islamic Sufism. Spariosu's attempts at transcending the knowledge/power model (in a global setting), and in then turn developing a PhD program centered on this transcendence, constitute the remainder of the book. Globalization and the Social Sciences The first of the books' three sections explores some contemporary Western theories of globalization, each of which, according to Spariosu's distinction, aspires to globalism—mastery over the planet—rather than globality, which involves recognizing and nurturing a variety of real and potential local approaches within a global context. Neoliberalism, Marxist and Weberian critiques of neoliberalism, Nietzschean and Freudian critiques of power, and fundamentalist environmental critique are all devalued in favor of a flexible, nonviolent ecological approach that integrates local and global knowledge, a concept that Spariosu rather awkwardly labels the “local-global theory.” He goes on to reject dialectical (Western) explanations for the historical development of globalization, and also the attendant notion that a paradigm shift in human culture is already underway, since such a idea is predicated on a linear, materialist world-view. As one possible alternative, Spariosu recommends a resonant explanation of history, somewhat analogous to Giambattista Vico's (1968 [1744]) corsiand ricorsi, in which local movements resonate into global aspirations that may be favorable or unfavorable; favorable historical resonances include Jaspers' (1953) axial age and the nonviolent social justice movements of the 20th century, while unfavorable (that is, totalitarian) instances include the Persian and Napoleonic empires.. In addition, the influence of contemporary technology and the accompanying compression of spacetime changes the conditions for these moments of historical resonance, allowing them to occur more quickly and more broadly. By fostering what Spariosu calls “an emergent ethics of global intelligence,” that is, a means to examine cultural identity and difference without resorting to essentialism, he hopes to further encourage globality, and thus the potential for positive, peaceful resonances between the local and global. To help this emergent ethics of global intelligence grow and evolve, he proposes establishing a field of intercultural studies that would, using Roland Robertson's (1992) concept of a “global culture” as a leaping off point, hopefully transcend the current ideological and political impasse of Western-style cultural studies, at the same time that it would preserve and reorient some of its valuable insights toward global intelligence. It would situate itself in the vanguard of a much needed, comprehensive study of and sustained dialog among world cultures, not only from a local, national, or regional perspective, but also from a global one. This type of intercultural learning and research project would necessarily involve an unprecedented, collective and cooperative effort on the part of learners, educators, scholars, researchers, and other practitioners from academic and nonacademic fields throughout the world. (Spariosu, p. 59) Exactly how this cooperative effort might be accomplished is not discussed at any length at this point in the book, and Spariosu goes to great pains to emphasize that the ideas he proposes are only the most tentative of first steps toward the admittedly utopian goal he envisions. What he does provide is a series of methodologies and guiding principles, including the aforementioned notion of intercultural resonance (rather than mimesis); dialogic understanding; intercultural and global self-awareness and comparative analysis as an alternative to cultural critique; the establishment of “liminal sites,” spaces where cultures overlap and can be examined using dialogic and collaborative methods; and the use of a variety of research methods that could be developed from Spariosu's suggestions and also from the peaceful, cooperative dialogues occurring at the liminal sites just described. Globalizationandthe Ecology of Science The second section takes up the culture of Western science, offering an incisive critique of both Darwinian evolutionary theory and the “grand unified theory” school of elementary particle physics. In each case, what Spariosu objects to are the claims to universalism that both theories make, and how such claims require a strict reductionism that does more to harm the health of our planet than explain to any useful degree just how it works. As an alternative to these models, Spariosu suggests we use general systems theory (as applied in chaos theory, complexity theory, and the Gaea hypothesis) to develop a more globally fruitful understanding of Western science and its relationship to global health. He also discusses, in this section, certain aspects of early Buddhist and Taoist thought, as well as the Sufist tradition of Islam, noting the similarities between the nonlinear, integrative nature of these models and general systems theory. From the commonalities established between these non-linear, open-ended models, Spariosu goes on to propose an “ecological model of science,” one which would elude the conflicted, dualistic problems of the current environmental movement and the exemptionist tendencies of the “hard”sciences. Such an ecology of science would, for Spariosu involve a globally intelligent system of values, including those advocated in early Taoism and Buddhism, or, later on, in Islamic Sufism. They need not be expressed only in negative terms, such as the absence of exceptionalism, hubristic arrogance, and violence, but also in positive terms, such as responsive understanding and action, attentive awareness, generosity, peacefulness, benevolence, gentleness, kindness, modesty, playfulness, cooperative spirit, compassion, and so forth. It is by cultivating these qualities, or a genuine Tao of science, rather than by devising and enforcing a disciplinary protocol or by competing with its “natural enemies,” such as religion, that Western and other science will become truly authoritative in a global environment. (p. 160) Within such a model, distinctions between physical and human sciences would be unnecessary, as all would be aspects of a single ecology of science, a field of study in which the chemistry experiment and the study of urban-rural migration are but elements of the study of humanity-in-the-world. Globalization and Education Having established the social science and hard science models for understanding and encouraging the “emerging ethics of global intelligence,” Spariosu devotes the third section of his book to a discussion of ways to establish and nurture local-global learning environments. Institutes of higher education most readily fit the bill, despite the trouble most of these institutes find themselves in; to emphasize the potential these sites have for encouraging peaceful, cooperative local-global resonance, Spariosu frames his discussion with a brief history of the Western university system, from its origins in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford to our current “factories of knowledge.” The conflict between aristocratic and democratic values characteristic of the modern (and pre-modern) University system feeds an inflexible, disciplinary arrangement of knowledge, an effect so pernicious for Spariosu that it has made interdisciplinary studies a discipline in itself. The set of alternatives proposed by the author involves a sort of transdisciplinarity in which the university is dispersed, taking advantage of distance-learning technology; the danger, of course, is that disciplinary divisions will be replicated across this system. Still, such a flexible, distributed system could, according to Spariosu, encourage greater continuing education programs and cross-disciplinary dialog, as well as a much greater community presence along the lines of the university extension programs enacted in the U.S. during the 1860's. Eventually, this distributed, localized, ongoing scheme would make Universities into the “liminal spaces” Spariosu envisions as encouraging networks of local-global resonance and peaceful, cooperative, self-fashioning via education. The final chapter and appendix of Spariosu's book contain some concrete proposals for reforming the North American university system, as well as a proposal for the establishment of a PhD program in Intercultural Knowledge Management. Primary among these proposals is for “faculty members and students to reclaim the university from corporate bureaucrats” (p. 201). To do so, faculty would need to make the traditional, tripartite system of university governance (trustees, administration, faculty) more properly democratic, quite a difficult task given that, in Spariosu's words, “the bureaucratic administrative branch has taken over” (p. 202), and it seems unlikely they would give up this advantage easily. If this difficult task could be accomplished, then faculty could introduce a fourth body—the students—into the system of governance which, as Spariosu points out, is not as radical as it sounds, since the students participated in the governance of the first modern university at Bologna. Other suggestions for reforming the university system made by the author include reforming university charters to make them more democratic; reconsideration of tenure, professionalization, and other bureaucratic bugaboos that plague that modern university; removing the system of extra compensation for university administrators (aside from release time from teaching), drawing all administrators instead from the rank and file faculty and establishing strict term limits for any such positions; outsource fund-raising to professional organizations; make administrative positions elected positions, voted on by faculty; reduce administrative regulations regarding degree programs, allowing students to move across disciplines and even from university to university; do away with academic departments, replacing them with centers of learning and teaching grouped around three general branches (physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities) through which various faculty members could move according to the topic their research presently addressed. That all of these reforms would take place while refocusing attention on global human problems almost goes without saying at this point, and one further element of Spariosu's project involves laying out a blueprint for a globally-oriented, ecologically-based, transdisciplinary program in Intercultural Knowledge Management. This program, as described in the appendix, would help nurture a group of “local-global elites,” guiding them through a doctoral program focused on generating and managing knowledge from a global perspective. Students would move among various regions of the world, taking a variety of courses at different learning centers and learning how local communities organize and disseminating knowledge. To be accepted to the program, students would need to possess some form of advanced degree, prove fluency in at least three languages, and show evidence of the sort of cognitive flexibility necessary to complete studies in several continents. Sample research projects include examining the effect of urban sprawl on three different cities and creating a world encyclopedia of cultural concepts; coursework would include such offerings as “Intercultural Knowledge Management: Theory and Practice,” “Toward an Ecology of World Commerce,” and “Traditions of Wisdom and Their Contemporary Relevance.” Spariosu closes his proposal by noting that the cost involved in such a program would not differ substantially from the cost of training a doctor or lawyer. Analysis The ambition of Spariosu's project is, I hope, readily apparent from my synopsis, and the admittedly utopian scale of the book is actually quite inspiring—it is reassuring to know that there are still thinkers willing to tackle such grand questions as the distant future of mankind. The need for reform, on a global scale, of the way different cultures interact and share knowledge with one another is hard to dispute, and many of the suggestions the author puts forth seem plausible and, more importantly, realizable. The struggle to wrest control of the University from bureaucrats is also laudable, if somewhat more difficult to envision than is replacing, or at least enriching, our Western, linear thought with Eastern, cyclical models, and therein lies the frustration of Spariosu's work: as with any utopian work, some aspects of his project seem well within our grasp, while others could only be realized generations from now. As teachers and scholars, we know (or I hope we know) how to play with modes of thought, how to encourage reciprocal, cooperative models among our students, and how to debate structures of power in the abstract, but who among us would know where to begin the day to day work of establishing the sort of liminal spaces Spariosu envisions? Well, quite a few of us, perhaps, but when we then remove the unwilling and the unpersuasive from that group, not so very many technicians of change remain. One way to begin developing these technicians, I suppose, would be to enact Spariosu's proposed PhD program and thereby create a class of “local-global elites” who could then show the rest of us, both within and outside the academy, the proper way. Knee-jerk reactions to Spariosu's terminology aside, I think we should, at present, remain suspicious of this idea, which essentially proposes generating a class of “strong actors,” to use the economists' term, to guide and shape society in a manner different from those already extant strong actors whose decisions and control of knowledge is less than beneficial to the planet. I would regard the PhD in Intercultural Knowledge Management with much more warmth, in other words, if some of the other concepts Spariosu expounds already had more traction—yes, there are a significant number of local and global movements that have the best interests of the planet at heart (UNESCO, the Quivira Coalition, TIFAC, etc.), and nurturing dialogs between these groups and disparate local-global communities via liminal spaces is a fabulous idea, but why should this not be encouraged on a much more broad pedagogical scale? Rather than placing the responsibility in the hands of a few elites who would roam the globe and cybersphere, why not try and make elements of this proposal part of the continuing education of all students? Which may be what these local-global elites are for, eventually: showing everyone how to be a local-global elite, just as Spariosu shows the reader of his book how to do a comparative, cross-disciplinary analysis when he puts general systems theory and the Buddhist, Taoist, and Sufi traditions side-by-side. If Spariosu's work is to be judged a success on the terms the author claims for it—that it represents but a small step in establishing a landscape where ideas can flourish without worrying about power, conflict, and ill health—then it does in fact succeed, since the conversations it could generate, the potential set of conditions it describes, are really far more practical at this point than many of the practical elements the author proposes. Once these conversations—and we should remember that they have been going on for some time—are joined and broadened by a more significant number of people, then the more practical suggestions may indeed be practical. The only way for this to happen, of course, is for each of us to talk, and to listen, and to continue talking and listening until utopia is achieved. References Appadurai, Arjun. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Chicago: U Chicago Press. Jaspers, Karl. (1953). TheOrigin and Goal of History. New Haven: Yale U Press. Laszlo, Ervin. (2003). You Can Change the World: The Global Citizen's Handbook for Living on Planet Earth: A Report of the Club of Budapest. Kansas City: Midpoint Trade Books. Spariosu, Mihai. (2005). Global Intelligence and Human Development: Toward An Ecology of Global Learning. Cambridge: MIT Press. Symonides, Janusz and Kishore Singh et al. (1996). From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace. Paris: UNESCO. Vico, Giambattista. (1968 [1744]) The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Translated by Max H. Fisch and Thomas G. Bergin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press. About the Reviewer Marc Pietrzykowski is a doctoral student in Rhetoric and Composition at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA, where he serves as Assistant Director of Lower Division Studies. His research interests include didactic poetry, global education, and the effect of technology on writing practices.