Cultural Achievements
Throughout history mankind has a gained cultural achievements which characterize modern life. These achievements have precise origins in history.
We name some of them here.
1
The ladder of potentialities for progress and emancipation is shown in the following list:
| CENTURY | LIBERTIES | PROTECTING PRINCIPLE | CORRESPONDING INSTITUTION |
| 20th | Freedom for growth, health | Public character of labour | (?Perhaps: adult education, decentralization of industry?) |
| 19th | Freedom for talent, thought, genius, speech, creativeness to compete | Public character of private ideas | Copyright, patents, a written constitution |
| 17th | Freedom of endowment | Public character of wills | An independent Judiciary |
| 16th | Free choice of profession, no vows for children | Public character of education | Public schools |
| 13th | Freedom of competition between teachers | Public character of the sciences | Universities |
| 11th | Freedom of movement for the men in the professions | Public character of civil life (truce of God) | Judges of the peace, public prosecution of crime |
taken from: Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy: Out of Reveolution, p. 32
2
Kroesen, Ravesteijn: Radical sustainable change: a case for communicative sustainability and civil society as enabling environment for engineering
Oualities engineers have:
- Future-orientedness: technology aims at a better future.
Other human qualities, likewise essential to engineering, include
- universality,
- civility,
- conscientiousness,
- teamspirit,
- rational inventiveness,
- large-scale planning and
- social responsibility.
3
Otto Kroesen: SUCCESSFUL CONTEXTUAL TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND DETERMINANTS OF CULTURE
and Een rode draad door de tijd
Tribal Culture Qualities:
- chief in the lead: external institution (chiefdom)
- internalized values (tradition and authority)
- family and incest taboe
- openness to other tribes for exchange of women (avoiding inbreeding)
Imperial Culture Qualities:
- hierarchy
- labor division
Jewish (OT) Qualities:
- humans are made in the image of God (first step toward individuals?)
- dethrone the gods or the cosmic order, representing traditional authority and hierarchy
- claim divine power beyond the visible powers, a divine power which is sensitive to the sufferings of ordinary human beings or which is not a divine power at all
- future oriented human achievements and qualities: prophetic calling
- religious relation is not determined by ancestors but for each generation anew (Abraham - Isaac)
- secure provisioning of food is not of ultimate value (Moses)
- established (political) structure can be criticized (David)
- humans are not captured by the tragedy of this cosmos, but can have personal relationship to God, who is beyond the cosmos (Job)
Ancient Greek Culture Qualities
- empathy: seeing the other as oneself beyond the social group
- reflective activities: science, theater, philosophy, sports
Christian / Western Culture Qualities:
- man is allowed to switch between the once exclusive cultural qualities of the tribe, the empire, Israel and ancient Greece. These qualities become aspects of a fuller set of qualities.
- social death is not the end of life, but man can be resurrected to a new life
- “engineers qualities above”