Image of man

This may be considered to be the set of assumptions held about the human being's origin, nature, abilities and characteristics, relationships with others, and place in the universe. Such a coherent image may be held by any individual or group, a political system, a religious group, a culture, or a civilization. It may consist of beliefs as to whether individuals are basically good or evil, whether the individual will is free or determined by external forces, whether he is cooperative or competitive, whether individuals are essentially physical or spiritual in nature, and whether men and women are essentially equal. It includes both what man is currently conceived to be and what it is considered that he ought to be. It is therefore a Gestalt perception of humankind, both individual and collective, in relation to the self, others and the cosmos. Such images are held with varying degrees of awareness by persons and societies, although in most cases such assumptions are held subconsciously.

A particular image of man may be appropriate for one phase in the development of a society, but once that stage is completed, the use of the image as a continuing guide to action may well create more problems than it solves. Man is now believed to stand at the end of the industrial era, and that the images of man that dominated the last two centuries will be inadequate to the post-industrial period. In response to this situation, a new image (or possibly images) of man is believed to be emerging. This emerging image reinstates the transcendental, spiritual side of man, which has received little attention from modern science.

From the nature of contemporary societal problems, studies of plausible alternative futures, and the role of any dominant image of man in society, characteristics that a new image must possess if it is to become dominant and effective in the future may be specified. One such set of characteristics requires that the image would need to: convey a holistic sense of perspective or understanding of life; entail an ecological ethic, emphasizing the total community of life-nature and the oneness of the human race; entail a self-realization ethic, placing the highest value on development of selfhood and declaring that an appropriate function of all social institutions is the fostering of human development; be multi-faceted, and integrative, accommodating various culture and personality types; involve the balancing and coordination of satisfactions along many dimensions rather than the maximizing of concerns along one narrowly defined dimension; and be experimental, open-ended and evolutionary.