The Competitiveness of Nations
(page 3)

Post-Modern Context

 If the traditional scientific model of knowledge is inadequate to the post-modern experience then how can it be extended, modified or replaced to fill the contemporary `knowledge' deficit?

The Spiral Ladder

One way to refresh the traditional model of knowledge is to update it, for example, by using the. famous image of the DNA double helix - the spiral ladder of life - the most complex process in the physical universe.

The conceptual dynamism and vigor of the double helix model can be used to generate a working model of the structure and fabric of knowledge - the most complex process in the human world.  The model could be used to test implications for soft or cultural competitiveness.  This model is the spiral ladder of cultural competitiveness (Exhibit 1).

The model deals with the sources, uses and purposes of knowledge.  It assumes that there are three uses of knowledge:

• knowledge-for-knowledge's sake;

• knowledge for decision and profit; and,

• knowledge for democracy, i.e. an informed electorate is a prerequisite for effective democracy.

The model also assumes three domains of knowledge corresponding to traditional primary, secondary and tertiary forms, i.e. facts, qualities and values.  These are:

• the Natural Science & Engineering (NSE);

• the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS); and,

• the Arts.

Natural Sciences & Engineering (NSE )

NSE consist of three primary disciplines: biology, chemistry and physics.  Virtually all other disciplines are permutations and combinations of knowledge derived from these three.  Some argue even biology and chemistry can be reduced to physics.

Generation of NSE knowledge is achieved by applying the scientific method characterized by replicability and objective testing. NSE corresponds to traditional primary knowledge of quantities or facts.  It Ives the search for objective knowledge to understand and control the physical universe. It is value-free, i.e. it is applicable anywhere and anytime excepting conditions just before and after the `Big Bang'.  The search is reductive in nature, i.e. questions are broken down into manageable pieces.  It provides the `how to' by which humanity may change and affect the physical universe.

Progressiveness of NSE knowledge is vertical rising up the rungs of a ladder (Washburn 1990).  Each step is closer to the truth, i.e. new knowledge displaces the old.  It is also characterized by intolerance of difference, i.e. progress is a process of reducing error, replicability is all.

In the model, exceptional treatment must be accorded to the medical sciences which, to varying degrees, create and apply NSE, HSS and, to a lesser extent, artistic knowledge.  Many medical sciences function at the borderline between mind and matter; between psyche and physis (Penfield 1975).

Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS)

HSS consist of two related branches; the humanities and the social sciences.  Both are concerned with understanding the human world. For the humanities, this is sufficient.  For the social sciences, however, understanding extends to control of the human world, i.e. social engineering. HSS knowledge corresponds, roughly, with secondary knowledge of qualities in the traditional model.  HSS also involves assessment of the interaction of the physical and human universes, i.e. HSS searches for reconciliation between objective and subjective truth.

In NSE, three basic disciplines form the bedrock upon which knowledge is built up. In the past, philosophy and sociology pretended to leading roles in the humanities and social sciences, respectively.  Today, however, there is no 'queen' or principal discipline in HSS.

Within HSS there are sets of disciplines.  A discipline can be considered a generalized theory akin to a language.  A theory, i.e. a supposition or system of ideas explaining a phenomenon, is generally couched in certain words and concepts which, when numerous enough, elevate it to the rank of discipline.  Hence economics is a language of thought that possesses, like all languages, a vocabulary and rules of syntax.  Rules of syntax differ, to some degree, between the disciplines because most pride themselves on methodologies made-to-measure for problems encountered (Valaskakis 1975: 452-3).

The humanities are a complex of disciplines concerned with modes of expression and interpretation of human thought, emotion and experience.  The social sciences are a another complex of disciplines concerned with the behaviour and interactions of people, nature and social institutions (OECD 1979: 12).  Together the social sciences and humanities share a common interest in the human dimension of reality.  Both are concerned with actual and potential goals and values for the individual and human communities.

Generation of HSS knowledge is achieved through 'research'.  The results of HSS research take the form of ideas and insights disseminated through scholarly, and then popular publications.  Humanities research involves critical study, interpretation or inquiry using generally accepted practices of modes of expression and interpretation of human thought, emotion and experience.

Social science research involves investigation using established rules for performing observation and testing the soundness of conclusions regarding behaviour and interactions of people and social institutions.  Unlike the humanities, quantitative methods, i.e. statistics, play a significant role in the social sciences.

Nonetheless, the social sciences must apply a significantly modified scientific method because even basic tenets of the social sciences cannot be quantitatively tested.  Quite simply, the technology of social observation and measurement is inadequate.

An example is the theory of revealed preference in economics.  Essentially, the theory says behaviour reveals preferences.  However, to test this theory with respect to consumer behaviour would require all purchases made through time would be monitored and all changes in family income and general situation were held constant.  While the theory appears reasonable, and accepted within economics, it cannot be tested in the real world (Sen 1973: 241-259).  Accordingly, testing in HSS tends to be a mixture of scientific method, normative values and `believability'.

Furthermore, unlike NSE, HSS research results are relative to time and space, i.e. HSS knowledge is not value-free (OECD 1979: 18).  Value relativity is also reflected in the conservation of existing intellectual capital (Keynes 1936: 383-4).  Controversy also exists regarding the relevance of research about one culture conducted by social scientists or humanists of another (Myrdal 1966; Streeten 1974: 12901300).

Progressiveness in HSS is not vertical. New knowledge does not necessary displace old.  The insights of Plato and Aristotle concerning the human condition are as relevant today as centuries ago.  In fact, progress in HSS is more like a spiral on which ascent is preceded by descent back into the past (Washburn 1990).

Progress in HSS is also characterized by an increasing tolerance of difference.  All things being equal, the more one studies the ways of different cultures, genders, races and times, the more tolerant of difference becomes the observer.

The relativity and permeability of knowledge is especially evident in the social sciences which draw upon the concepts of the natural science and the precepts, i.e. normative values, of the arts and humanities.  This dependency upon precepts is most evident in ideology, and in the difficulty of reaching consensus concerning the validity of social scientific knowledge and utilization of its insights for social improvement (Mayer 1978).

The Arts

If natural science is the study of the outer, material world; then art is the study of the inner, subjective world.  If the sciences involve the search for objective truth, then the arts involve the search for subjective truth.  If science has a 'pure' research or 'knowledge-for-knowledge's-sake' sector that is 'value free', then art has a corresponding 'art-for-art's-sake' sector which is 'value laden'.  If science improves our physical comfort and well-being; then art improves our inner well-being including interpersonal and intercultural relationships

If science, excluding the so-called human sciences, breaks down into three basic disciplines biology, chemistry and physics; then art breaks down into four basic media of expression - the literary, media, performing and visual arts. Each uses a distinct medium of expression: the written word, the mechanically recorded sound and image, the live stage and the visual image.  Each medium is, in turn, composed of many sub-disciplines and schools based upon differences in style, technique and interpretation.  In fact, each artistic medium breaks down into as many varied and subtle branches of expression as any of the physical sciences.

Artistic knowledge, however, is unlike scientific knowledge in a number of ways.  First, this difference is exhibited by the differing pattern of education in art and science.  There is, in fact, a well recognized gap between graduation from university (high in theory, low in practice) and attainment of professionalism in the arts: art is learned by doing; it is experiential.  Thus old craft methods of apprenticeship and master classes survived the Industrial Revolution and remain the most effective method of professional training in the arts.  Science, by contrast, is learned by studying and applying a body of systematized knowledge and method.

Second, scientific knowledge tends to depreciate through time, e.g. Greek deductive science has been displaced by modern experimental science. In art, however, knowledge tends to appreciate through time.  King Tut, Shakespeare and Bach still speak, still sell.  In the media arts, Hollywood film libraries are now multi-million dollar assets.  Maintaining classical repertoire, of all forms, provides continuing inspiration to contemporary creators; it establishes standards of excellence against which new work is judged.

This 'religio' or linking back is embodied in the 'heritage arts' which conserve and preserve past and current artistic creation for subsequent generations.  However, heritage art also imposes 'the deadening hand of the past'.  Contemporary creators must compete not just with domestic and foreign contemporaries, but also with creative spirits of the past.  Their works have been tried and tested through time; they enjoy advantages over contemporary creators who must push against the flood tide of history.

We have also forgotten that kosmos, in Greek, means the right placing of the multiple things of the world; not an abstract, impersonal universe out there where no one has gone before.  This right placing of things is beauty - the comely coming together of parts.  And the means by which a right order is brought into the universe is art.  In fact, the equivalent word today for this Greek sense of kosmos is cosmetic, a gift of the Goddess Aphrodite.

The success of the Greeks in attaining aesthetic order is a great living legacy of the ancient world, and to the Greeks, beauty had a moral imperative - kalon kagathon - the beautiful and the good.  From this, the poet went on:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn, Stanza 2.

This sense of wholeness, of rightness is aesthetic knowledge:

That is, the activity of perception or sensation in Greek is aisthesis which means at root "taking in" and "breathing in" - a "gasp", that primary aesthetic response.

What is it to `take in' or breathe in the world? ... it means aspiring and inspiring the literal presentation of things by gasping. The transfiguration of matter occurs through wonder. This aesthetic reaction which precedes intellectual wonder inspires the given beyond itself, letting each thing reveal its particular aspiration within a cosmic arrangement (Hillman 1981: 31-2).

Finally, it is only in art that imagination comes fully into its own.  It is in art that imagination is seen to be that grasp of wholeness in all its qualitative relationships, which is the essence of a sense of beauty. It is a way of seeing and feeling things as they compose an integral whole.  The whole person also is involved, for imagination is what happens when varied materials of sense quality, emotion, and meaning come together in a union that makes a new birth in the world (Sloane 1991: 38).  Or, as Griffin said: "Creativity is that process or activity by which 'the many become one, and are increased by one"' (Griffin 1991: 10).

Cohesion

Metaphorically, the spiral ladder is held together by interactions of the three knowledge sources.  Each plays a role in defining a culture.  NSE forms the hard rungs of the ladder permitting reality testing of values and beliefs, e.g. food taboos tend to fade fast in the face of famine.  NSE provides a culture with the 'how to' change the material world.

HSS, on the other hand, generates knowledge of `what' is worth doing according to it's value set.  In this way, HSS contextualize NSE knowledge.  Thus while natural science may be able to genetically engineer a 'super-race' this does not mean that society will allow it.

Similarly, art contextualizes NSE and HSS providing them with emotional valuation, in the form of aesthetic knowledge, of a gestalt of wholeness or, of rightness.  For example, science says trees regrow when cut down, but an aesthetic response to 'clear cutting' old growth' forest may be so overwhelming that scientific reason is swept aside to avoid 'ugliness'.

Implications - Post-Modern

While in the West, democratic and egalitarian values may constrain some natural science knowledge, in parts of the Islamic world, faith still segregates the sexes and limits artistic expression, e.g the general prohibition against images of the human body - the temple of God, and the ongoing Iranian contract on the life of Simon Rushdie.  But Islam and the West are but two of many competing cultures, e.g. China, Columbia, India, Indonesia, etc.

Each culture has its own nonscientific `truths' that limit short-term and long-term competitiveness.  Does short-term resistance lead to long run competitive failure?  Or, can short term resistance promote long term competitiveness?  For example, are short term costs of integrating new knowledge, e.g. women's or ecological knowledge, offset by long term benefits flowing from social and political stability?