Hardback–300
pages
August, 2002, DOUBLEDAY
Dimensions (in inches): 1 x 8.5 x 5.75
by Philip S. Wenz, Editor/Publisher
For decades, advocates of sustainable development have recognized
that we need to redesign our systems to be compatible with natural
ecosystems. But what is it about nature that we actually want to
emulate? How can we apply the operating principles by which life
has sustained itself for the past 3.6 billion years to the design
of human systems?
While implementing and testing the answers to these questions will
be an ongoing process lasting generations, it is critical that in
our time we at least establish a firm theoretical basis, a firm
understanding of what we are trying to do. No one has laid a better
groundwork for sustainability than Fritjof Capra.
In a sense, Capra’s entire body of work must be considered
as a whole. His critique of reductionist science developed in the
Tao of Physics (1975) and The Turning Point (1986)
set the stage for his foray into holism, systems theory and, ultimately,
sustainability. But his work, as a guide to creating a sustainable
future, at least, reaches its fullest development in his two most
recent books, the Web of Life (1996) and The Hidden Connections
(2002).
Though published separately, and a few years apart, the two books
constitute a continuum of thought–Volume One and Two of the
same work, as it were. When I say that the Hidden Connections
is essential reading for, no, actually, fundamental to the education
of anyone concerned with sustainability in all of its manifold aspects,
I am also saying that of its predecessor. If you read the current
work, and you must, you will inevitably want and need to read the
Web of Life.
While the Web of Life gives us an overview of the most recent
developments in systems theory–chaos, complexity and self-organization–as
applied, primarily, to biology, The Hidden Connections extends
these ideas into the realm of human culture. The importance of understanding
the recent breakthroughs in biological systems theory is that they
explain how living systems are able to create and sustain themselves–how
they manage energy so they can maintain their structures and activities
and also evolve at the edge of entropic chaos. If we are to design
human systems modeled on natural systems, we need to base those
designs on that knowledge.
That is precisely Capra’s breakthrough in The Hidden Connections.
He integrates the new biology with an even newer "science of
sustainability," rooted in that biology. He shows how our cognitive
and social functions are embedded in our biological reality and
how we can use many of the same tools or perspectives to understand
both.
Just as living systems generate their own structures regulated
by a variety of physical laws, social systems generate structures
based on common intentions and regulated by meaning. Socially generated
structures might be material, cities for example, or they might
be cultural or intellectual structures such as bodies of law. But
for any socially generated structure to be sustainable, it must
be based on the same operative principles that make biological systems
sustainable–networking, diversification, nutrient recycling,
and homeostasis (exact wording mine).
The second half of The Hidden Connections is devoted to
applying Capra’s new perspectives to a variety of pressing
contemporary issues from globalization to biotechnology. He also
discusses the concepts of ecoliteracy and ecodesign and puts forth
a number of concrete proposals for "changing the game."
So The Hidden Connections indeed does connect–theoretical
constructs with practical proposals.
My only criticism of Capra’s present work is that some of
his theories are not developed enough. Even a reader who is well
versed in contemporary systems theory and it’s ramifications
for sustainable design and development may want fuller explanations
of some of his concepts. Following some of his arguments, lucidly
presented though they are, will be difficult for those who are new
to the field.
In a sense then, The Hidden Connections is truly seminal.
It is the germ rather than the fully developed organism. This underdeveloped
effect has its merits however. The reader is given an valuable infusion
of ideas that are systematically, if somewhat sketchily tied together
and with which he or she has the freedom to run in any number of
directions. And Capra himself has his next work, should he choose
to pursue it, cut out for him.
In spite of the the minimalist nature of its discussion, however,
Capra’s book is such a marvelous synthesis, so far in advance
of any work along similar lines, that it will set the standard for
the the development of sustainable thought for some time to come.
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