Civilization and Central Projects
In a couple of recent posts, Scientific Civilization: The Economic Perspective and Scientific Civilization: The Central Project, I used the phrase “central project” without elaborating on this. I initially found the term “central project” in Frank White’s The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution (p. 5 in the first edition; p. 3 in the 3rd edition), where he references Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights by Willis Harman. Dr. Harman is affiliated with the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which was founded by Edgar Mitchell, who founded the institute in 1973 as a consequence of his personal insights experienced as an astronaut.
In his book Dr. Harman says of central projects:
“These projects, although involving visible material artifacts, were actually the vehicles for more abstract social and psychological aims. The great cathedrals, besides serving as highly visible central projects to attract the best and most adventurous minds of the age, also served to educate the consciousness of the larger population... Central projects, in this sense, are means of focusing the energies of a population during an evolutionary transition to a higher level of culture.” (pp. 174-175)
Harman here is not making central projects definitive of civilization, but suggesting that central projects emerge during evolutionary transitions of civilizations, almost as a kind of self-directed occupational therapy to engage the energies of a civilization as it focuses on attaining a higher level of culture. While I like the phrase “central projects” enough that I have started using it myself, I see it much more as descriptive of the nature of a certain kind of civilization.
Most settled agricultural civilizations have had some kind of great central project, usually religious in conception, that has involved monumental building projects, or great works of art, and it is the synthesis of aesthetic and intellectual conception and the concrete details of construction that knit together a society into an organic whole of the sort that we have come to think of as paradigmatic of civilization.
I have several times previously quoted a famous passage from J. M. Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, relevant to the above, as follows:
“Ancient Egypt was doubly fortunate, and doubtless owed to this its fabled wealth, in that it possessed two activities, namely, pyramid-building as well as the search for the precious metals, the fruits of which, since they could not serve the needs of man by being consumed, did not stale with abundance. The Middle Ages built cathedrals and sang dirges. Two pyramids, two masses for the dead, are twice as good as one; but not so two railways from London to York.”
The two examples that Keynes offers -- pyramid building and masses for the dead -- are nicely symbolic of the central projects of two civilizations, the civilization of ancient Egypt and the civilization of medieval Europe.
Harman notes that, “Perhaps the most recent central project was the Apollo project that culminated in Neil Armstrong’s famous footstep on the moon.” In a related vein, Frank White wrote, “I have come to see space exploration as part of a long tradition of central projects.” Note that Harman focuses on a great event (and a singular event) while White formulates the conception in terms of an ongoing tradition.
Thus one distinction we can make in the conception of central projects is between moments that mark a transition, and an ongoing effort that shapes the overall direction of resources in a civilization. Another distinction that can be made is between central projects as descriptive and central projects as prescriptive or aspirational. This latter distinction is at least partially a function of how a central project is formulated. It is descriptive that the central project of the European Middle Ages involved building cathedrals and singing masses for the dead; it is prescriptive or aspirational that the central project of the European Middle Ages was Christian salvation, i.e., the preparation of the soul in this vale of tears for its true life, the life everlasting.
These two distinctions can be applied to the idea of space exploration as a central project of industrialized civilization. Harman views space exploration as a central project that culminated in the Apollo moon landings -- and presumably helped us to transition to a higher form of culture. I think that this view is not unusual, and indeed I think part of the post-Apollo malaise (only part, not all) was due to the fact that humanity had made this great accomplishment, but we were not changed by it, and no higher form of culture or consciousness emerged from this great effort. White sees space exploration as an ongoing effort, and from this point of view we could argue that the change in consciousness is only slowly dawning for our species as the overview effect sinks in gradually.
If we take the other distinction, we can understand space exploration as descriptive or prescriptive. I think that this means, in this context, that we can look as space exploration as the actual sequence of heroic events by which human beings have pushed knowledge and human presence beyond Earth, or as part of a much longer and larger arc of the quest for scientific knowledge, which can ultimately only be justified as an end in itself. As Keynes would have said, since scientific knowledge cannot serve the needs of man by being consumed, it does not stale with abundance.
Another distinction that might be a fruitful lens with which to examine our civilization is that between a civilization with and a civilization without a central project. Central projects give meaning, value, and purpose both to the individual human life and to social wholes pursuing the goals of central projects. Civilizations without central projects are civilizations adrift, lacking in meaning, value, and purpose. Again, this is at least in part a matter of formulation. I am sure that you could find individuals today who felt fully invested in contemporary civilization and who take is purposes as their own, and you could find other individuals who feel adrift and who would argue that civilization also is adrift, without meaning or value.
More distinctions could be made in order to give a more fine-grained account of central projects, their definition, and their scope. How much of a society must be involved in an effort for it to be a central project of a civilization? Were there Egyptians who looked at the construction of the pyramids as folly, and the mere expression of Pharaonic hubris? Did Egyptian society include those who had no part in, or even who felt no part of, the central project? When can a central project be said to be well and truly over? The La Sagrada Familia cathedral is still under construction today, but we assume that the central projects of the European Middle Ages, including the construction of great cathedrals, is over, and the civilization for which this was the central project now defunct.
Many more like questions could be pursued; the investigation of central projects could be a source of many insights for a science of civilization.
