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Biosynergy And The Future Of Humankind

Introduction by Richard Farson

It is a special pleasure to introduce Anthony Rose to this group. Tony is an old friend, and former staff member at WBSI in the sixties when he was a post-doctoral fellow working with Carl Rogers, having just completed his Ph.D. in psychology at UCLA. While a student there, he taught the first lab course given in animal behavior, and that interest has stayed with him all these years. As a social psychologist, the primates he is most interested in, of course, are humans, in particular how and why we continue to endanger ourselves and the rest of life on this planet, and what we might do about it. As head of the Biosynergy Institute he has studied people and primates in Africa, Central America and Asia. His inquiries into the bushmeat crisis have focused on commercial hunting and conservation values in west and central Africa. He's written three books and scores of articles. In short, he's done his homework, and we are very fortunate to have him help us think through the human dimensions of wildlife and wilderness conservation. Welcome, Tony.

Anthony L. Rose
Thank you for your introduction, Dick, and for kicking off this ground-breaking conference. My hope is that we will engage members of the ILF in an inspiring, enlightening, and practical examination and interchange about the future of humankind and the natural world, during the next few weeks. This conference ought to be a keeper.

If I have my way we will address, reconstruct, synthesize, and eventually answer a set of critical questions which I have prepared under the conference title -- Biosynergy and the Future of Humankind. The URL for a one page exposition of the questions which I am posing is attached to this entry. Please read it at your leisure. I hope to discuss it in another day or two.

First, I must digress briefly to put into practice a lesson I began learning with Dick Farson and friends at WBSI in 1967 -- that our visionary theories, our empirical inquiries, and our clinical practices are filtered, selected and constructed through and from the more profound and distinctive of our personal life experiences. In other words, there can be no pure objectivity -- only a consensus emerging from an amalgam of convergent subjective perceptions which reflect our varied biases, values, and truths in ways that we all can affirm as contributory to the enlightenment of overlapping realities. (When you have some time, skim through: Rose,A.L. Orangutan, Science, and Collective Reality, a chapter in an anthology published in 1996 -- URL attached.)

And so -- if Tony Rose is going to initiate and influence this conversation, then you need a few paragraphs on Tony Rose - the person/professional. It may help you to see the grounds for my biases.

I remember WBSI in 1967-8 -- a life-changing time, to say the least. Coming out of five years as a fellow at the UCLA Brain Research Institute, steeped in Skinnerian psychology and caged in laboratory animal studies in psychopharmacology & behavior, I was ripe for escape and transformation.

The opportunity to explore the world in new ways that was encouraged by you, Dick, and the staff at WBSI literally set me free. From facilitating encounter groups with Catholic nuns and priests to immersion in the radical Hippie subculture at Drop City, Colorado, to teaching Drug Abuse Prevention aboard the USS Hancock aircraft carrier as it crossed the China Sea heading for Tonkin Bay -- this boy was liberated from the lab and flung head, body, soul and heart first into a fantastic array of real worlds.

I did settle down a bit, into a couple of decades as an organizational consultant, program designer, team builder, and strategic planner. But I remained an explorer, with each contract treated as a chance to uncover new realities, new truths, and to create new organizational processes and structures. After a decade on my own, I took a position with Kaiser-Permanente to experience working inside a big organization. The next decade was spent learning to sidestep and high jump corporate ladders so my clients and I could design and implement innovations that would increase organizational effectiveness. I became pretty good at it.

Then in the early eighties another liberating force dared me to follow her into the rain forest - to test my metal as a global explorer. In order to marry Dr. Ann Marie Morris, I had to take a leave from consulting and spend three months trekking through the jungles of Sumatra and exploring the cultures of Indonesia. It was in the Gunung Leuser reserve in the far north of Sumatra that I first experienced the profound process which I eventually labeled "biosynergy" (more on that later.) At the end of our journey, Annie was ready to return to her medical practice, while I wanted to stay in my sarong and sandals wandering across the other 12,000 + islands of the archapelago. I had more than passed her test.

Love prevailed, we both returned, married, and took a 2 month honeymoon in East and Central Africa. Thereafter I began phasing out of corporate consulting and phasing into a life devoted to family -- my family, the human family, and our extended family of kindred animals and their precious ecosystems.

That lands me here, bringing that Earth-Family devotion to my dear friend Dick Farson, and to his friends in the leadership forum -- you.

I must rush off now to other callings, so will leave you with this description of my own path, a page describing the BIG questions I hope we will address, and a chapter which exposes how Tony Rose defines science in the world of wildlife conservation.

When I return to the world-wide-web tomorrow morning, I hope to hear from you -- your reactions, your passions, your past and present experiences and views on these issues and meta-issues that drive and define our Future.

Anthony L. Rose
Since Dick and I have both been unable to access the URLs which I posted with my first contribution to the "biosynergy conference" I am going to paste below the text of the Questions that I hope to address. This will make them available at once for your review and reaction.

--------- Questions for ILF -----------

BIOSYNERGY AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANKIND

Questions for World Leaders

Anthony L. Rose, Ph.D.

The Biosynergy Institute

Rancho Palos Verdes, California

As I see it, the burning questions at this point in history have to do with the destiny of humankind as a force in this biosphere.

Are we simply a talking high-tech chimpanzee hell-bent on making love, making war, and making the earth into a massive habitat for the expression of human power and pleasure?

Is there a fundamental and overarching biosynergy in this planet's Life-Force that will correct the exploding human hegemony, head off the pending crash of ecosystems and extinction of species, and restore harmony among Earth's vast and mysterious life-forms?

Or is it up to the visionary leaders among us to find the source of our own humane benevolence, and to subdue the unnecessary and insatiable hungers that drive us to consume all of nature and control all of life for our private, corporate, and national gain?

We must address these questions with sensitivity and courage, with wisdom and love, with humility and reverence. Our answers and our actions will determine the fate of life on earth.

Definition --- bi•o•syn•er•gy n.

1. The interaction of two or more biological agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. 2. Cooperative interaction among species, especially among the individuals and groups in an ecosystem, that creates an enhanced combined effect. 3. The theory that organisms cooperate with passage of time in the same ecosystem, mainly as a result of natural Biophilia, so that biosocial structure and dynamics change to assure the vigor of all life forms. [Greek, from bios, life. From Greek sunergia, cooperation, from sunergos, working together..)

Participant
Tony, in Michael Crichton's keynote addresss to our ILF annual meeting in 2002, he argued strongly against speculation of all sorts, particularly about coming disasters. He cited Paul Erlich as a prime example of failed projections. Michael wants facts only, no speculaton. On the other hand, there are many experts who believe that the 21st century will be the last in which we have a chance to preserve anything like our present civilization--some giving us a window of only fifty years, maybe even only twenty-five.

Where do you stand on that subject?

Anthony L. Rose
Dick - I would not take the stance that Michael Crichton appears to have taken. Part of what makes us special primates is the expanse of our speculation, and the elaborate foundations of evidence we construct to build and support our projections. My belief, akin to Carl Jung's I think, is that we dare not hide or sublimate our intuitive and analytical projections, lest they come around and drive our perceptions and behavior subconsciously, and sabatoge us. So I favor calling a speculation a speculation - openly.

Maybe you or another ILF member can fill me in on the particulars, but I suspect Erlich's problem was in falling prey to the journalistic demand for numbers, and a definitive deadline. There are too many variables and interactions unmeasured, mismeasured, and unmeasurable for us to set dates. I am comfortable giving the evidence, the trends, the speculations about alternative futures, and offering the personal bias regarding what will likely happen and how we can avoid adverse outcomes and turn in a "better" direction.

I think Paul Erlich's Population Bomb is still ticking. But it is not merely population growth that endangers the biosphere -- it is the quality and location of that growth, and migration. If global consumerism continues to grow and international exploiters continue to invade and destroy the most vital natural ecosystems, then we can have a leveling or even reduction in total human population and still precipitate local, regional, and global disasters.

About the 25 to 50 year window ... if the US, Russia, EU and China join the Jihad and resume military competition to match their consumeristic-economic competition, we will likely see some severe havoc that will leave our children and grandchildren with a tragic legacy of social chaos and irreversible ecological degradation and disaster.

I don’t believe the biosphere has life systems to support very many more decades of destruction.

I do believe we must keep trying to change direction.

Those are my biased speculations.

I'ld love to consider some other points of view.

Participant
Tony, is it your thought that globalization, free market economy, privatization, market oriented systems encourage the exploiters? Are other political and economic systems friendlier to the environment?

Anthony L. Rose
That's a good one, Dick.

Yes, in my experience in rain forest conservation those political-economic systems do encourage the exploiters to expand into areas where they have little or no provenance. Most global exploiters lack historic, cultural, psychosocial, or personal connection to the places they invade. They are driven by narrow business values focused on private/corporate profit and power. Furthermore, the foreign exploiters' wealth and influence attract and command the support of the elite of the territories they invade. Thus begins the corruption of local cultures, dismantling of civil societies, and destruction of natural heritage for short term gain that leaves too many countries, economies and ecosystems in ruins.

Is this devastation a necessary outcome of exploitation that grows out of globalization, free market economies, privatization, etc? No -- I dont belive it is necessary. The third in my list of burning questions for this forum is --

"Or is it up to the visionary leaders among us to find the source of our own humane benevolence, and to subdue the unnecessary and insatiable hungers that drive us to consume all of nature and control all of life for our private, corporate, and national gain?"

My own answer to that question is Yes! I believe that the fastest way to stop the destruction and to redirect the course of human expansion will be to develop, test, and implement transformative solutions directly with the visionary leaders and drivers who are active and influential at the core of the worlds power/politic/finance systems.

But I am a child of idealistic free enterprise. And a lifelong social change agent. What do I know?

Maybe there is some other, more feasible set of solutions.

Maybe someone out there can describe, imagine, or design a less corruptable, more environmentally friendly, more benevolent and more socially and economically successful political system?

Or is there no solution -- is humankind incorrigable?

Or will the biosynergy of lifesystems on this planet force us to make the corrections required to keep humans and nature alive, no matter how blind and driven we are?

Tough questions.

Need answers.

Soon.

Participant
Like a tsunami of thoughts. Now to find my board,,

First, isn't it true that we have much more to fear from what the globe will do to us than us to the globe? It is in our interest to get smarter about how our own presence hurts us.

The problem is, as a species we have been very "successful", thus creating self limiting conditions. All organisms, left to multiply, will eat out their home if the home is bounded, and collapse. Can we be smarter than to use such mindless feedback?

So, what strikes me next, as I am still trying to get up on my board for this wave, is Tony when you write ""Or is it up to the visionary leaders among us to find the source of our own humane benevolence, and to subdue the unnecessary and insatiable hungers that drive us to consume all of nature and control all of life for our private, corporate, and national gain?"

The implication here seems very reductionistic. That our benevolence has *A* source, and our "insatiable hungers" likewise our single source? This model suggests lobotomy or Prozac. What if its wrong?

That is, both our ability to act well and our ability to be terrible, are dependent on extremely complex situational analysis - analysis carried out by us in making the decisions about how to act. That is, we are reacting with all our talents to everything we can experience - nothing less.

If this is true it leads to the idea that we need to think design for living rather than greed reduction and benevolence enhancement.

That is, we need to study human nature in its fullness, and situations in their cultural, historical and aesthetic complexities - without avoiding issues of energy, economics and political power.

And there might not be answers, but better ways to muddle through.