undercurrents manifesto

8/14/2019 Undercurrents Manifesto

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Undercurrents Manifesto 1973 Page 1

UC Manifesto: page 1

Science with a Human FaceUNDERCURRENTShas been started by some people who believe thatradical views on scientic and technological subjects need a mediumin which they can be aired.Science, we feel, has largely abandoned its original 'quest for truth' --- if thephrase sounds naive today, it is a measure of that abandonment. Nowadays, asignicantly new scientic theory has to ght against a massive weight of bureaucratic orthodoxy and entrenched academic reputations if it even to begiven a hearing. And scientic theories are only listened to if they emanatefrom 'senior academics' or 'respected researchers', men who, almost bydenition, have cast their minds in an orthodox mould.Technology, too, while still masquerading as mankind's great emancipator, isincreasingly becoming the instrument of our enslavement. Though it continuesto be regarded as simply the application of scientic rationalism to thesatisfaction of human needs, technology in practice is the means whereby the

unjust economy and power structure of our industrial civilisation is kept intactand entrenched. Technology no longer concerns itself with the satisfaction of individual human needs, but with the churning-out of cheaper and ever-more-sophisticated products which the masses can be persuaded they need,brainwashed as they are by the propaganda of advertising and the mass media.Keeping the wheels of industry turning in this way produces an ever-increasingnational and international 'cake', extra slices of which can be thrownoccasionally to the poor in case they become too discontented, provided of course that the overall distribution of wealth stays the same (the top one-fth of

Britain's population still controls three-quarters of the individual wealth of thecountry). More fundamentally, the supremacy in our civilisation of thescientic world view has come under heavy re in recent years. Critics likeTheodore Roszak have led assaults on the 'myth of objective consciousness'and have charged that the scientist. whose "habitual mode of contact with theworld is a cool curiosity untouched by love, tenderness or passionate wonder",has arrogated to himself an excessively dominant say in the way the world isrun and viewed by its inhabitants.The scientist has been pilloried, too, by such bodies as the British Society forSocial Responsibility in Science, for remaining too aloof from the uses towhich scientic knowledge can be, and is being, put. And as pollution,


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industrialisation, standardisation, the depletion of natural resources, and theother concomitants of the industrial way of life begin to bite increasingly intopeople's awareness, the man in the street is beginning to wonder if thetechnological game is worth the environmental' candle. Nobody says much

about the 'white-hot technological revolution any more.But do science and technology intrinsically contain the seeds of humanity'sundoing? Must we believe that science has irrevocably fallen from its positionas the expression of one of man's highest drives the urge to understand theworld and our own place in it? And must technology remain no more thanman's self-issued license to rape nature, rather than a means whereby we canlive in sympathy and harmony with the natural world, understanding its lawsand using them cooperatively for the simultaneous advantage of human beingsand of the ecosphere?Undercurrents believes it is possible to evolve a 'sadder but a wiser' science, ascience that is aware of its limitations as well as its strengths, which will searchthe hitherto ignored areas of human experience for clues to a more meaningfuland relevant synthesis than is dreamt of in our present philosophies. We alsobelieve that technology can be reoriented to serve not economies andgovernments but individual human beings -- to provide small-scale sources of basics like energy, food, shelter, clothing and tools; to provide unfetteredcommunications between the smaller, more human communities that our

world must create if it is to avoid overpopulation, alienation, violence and allthe attendant evils of the mass society; and less importantly perhaps to providesimple data processing and automation facilities in a way that genuinelyrelieves human beings of boredom and drudgery without enslaving them tomachines or to their owners.Not that Undercurrents believes that decentralisation should -- or could .. becarried to extremes. It is unnecessary and undesirable for humanity to regressinto a disconnected series of isolated cultures. The cross fertilisation of ideasand genes that has been so vital to the evolution of our race should continue

in a decentralised society ,as is perfectly feasible given intelligent use of modern techniques of transportation and communication. In Undercurrents itself we have tried to implement the notions of variety and decentralisation,that we advocate in wider spheres. The polythene bag format is no accident. Itpermits an extreme exibility of format, as we hope the contents show.Many of the items in this issue have been produced by individuals working inrelative isolation; and we'd like to see this trend continue and develop. If you've got something to say, within the general context of the Undercurrents editorial line, you can do one of several things. You can send us an article ornews item in the normal way -- and we really want to hear from you. Or youcan typeset it yourself, paste it up and send it to us -- which cuts our costs and


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ensures that what you want to say is said your way; or you can send us 1,000prints of your piece (our circulation is only 1,000 copies at present) as theeditor of Resurgence' has done for us in this issue . (Though be sure to checkwith us before sending pasteups or prints: we'll try to include as much as we

can, but we may not have room for them)In this rst issue of Undercurrents we've broken new ground in a large numberof ways. Not all the experiments will be successful: in particular, the printquality isn't all we'd hoped for, mainly because we're printing most of thematerial ourselves and we're still learning. Undercurrents , incidentally, wouldcost us at least three times as much if it were printed professionally. You paysyour money and you takes your choice.This rst edition is unlikely to set the world on re. But it's better, they say, tolight a candle than to curse the darkness.GB [UC01 : 1973]

Please Do Not Ask For CreditIn Undercurrents No. 1 , Anna Bowman put the glorious golden reviewssection together, while " Eddies" was (were?) whipped up by Ant Stoll, whohandled the publicity and did numerous us other odd things, as did NormanBeddington. The administrative genius of Mike Hutchinson kept us out of debt,we hope, and out of court, we hope even more. John Cima, footballer andpart-time Leonardo Da Vinci, did the cover and the poster and the lovelypictures and lots of other things, while the indefatigable Pat Coyne amazed usall by agreeing to do most of the printing for no apparent reason (madness, wefear). David Gardiner, poet philosopher and gentleman, tried to turn us all intoanarchists -- or was it syndicalists? And maybe he succeeded. AII the goodtypesetting was done by the ever meticulous Maria-Zena Leitao, and all thebad setting was done by the rest of us.A number of editorial circulations were boosted by Linda Lee and Mary Boyd,

who hope to do the same for Undercurrents when it goes on sale. The wholeproject would have been impossible without our fairy godmother fromPeckham, Ann Ward, and her manic Multilith. But the blame for it all lies withGodfrey Boyle , who dreamt it up, and who coordinated things (or tried to),and who sometimes wishes he hadn't bothered.Undercurrents, the magazine of alternative science and technology , is published andprinted quarterly by the Undercurrents Syndicate, 34 Cholmley Gardens, London,England. Price per copy, 25p (60 cents); annual subscription (surface mail 1.20($3.00) All original Undercurrents material may be freely reproduced without

permission, provided that acknowledgment to Undercurrents is made. Undercurrents staff are unpaid and the magazine is produced at cost, using voluntary helpers.

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