| Abstract: |
Problems of difficult settlement or solution in the world cannot be solved by
segmented academic formats, market-place interests or mass-media headlines;
instead of dealing with taken for granted issues (the apparent “bubbles” in
the surface), public policies, research and teaching programmes should detect
the issues and deal with them deep inside the boiling pot. Policy discussions
and policy making require new paradigms of growth, power, wealth, work and
freedom embedded into the cultural, social, political and economical
institutions (more critical than individual motives and morals). Urban
planning cannot be subordinated to the interests of business corporations,
cities cannot remain as privileged centers for profit and capital
accumulation, transforming citizens in mere users and consumers, but must
preserve and develop mankind heritage, encompassing history, values,
architecture, landscapes, the arts, the letters. Being-in-the-world is more
than living on it, it demands an ecosystemic approach, the construction of a
new social fabric, as new structures emerge in the socio-cultural learning
niches and develop critical capacities to operate changes in the system.
Problem solving implies dynamic and complex configurations intertwining four
dimensions of being-in-the-world, as they combine, as donors and recipients,
to induce the events (deficits and assets), cope with consequences (desired or
undesired) and contribute for change (diagnosis and prognosis): intimate
(subject’s cognitive and affective processes), interactive (groups’ mutual
support and values), social (political, economical and cultural systems) and
biophysical (biological endowment, natural and man-made environments). An
integrated ecosystemic approach to education, culture, environment, health,
politics, economics and quality of life should develop the connections and
seal the ruptures between the different dimensions of being-in-the-world, in
view of their mutual support and dynamic equilibrium. |