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Joy in the Present
      

1980

Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory

a critique of the Club of Rome Report: No Limits to Learning

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Introductory report of Panel III on Utilisation of international documentation of the Second World Symposium on International Documentation (Brussels, 1980). Published in International Documents for the 80’s: their role and use (Unifo Publishers, 1982 in an incomplete version), edited by Th. Dimitrov). Presented to the meeting of the Forms of Presentation sub-project of the United Nations University project on Goals, Process and Indicators of Development (Geneva, June 1980). Extracts published in Transnational Associations, 36, 1984, 2, pp 83-93 with the sub-title: role of international organizations in combatting global amnesia.

A. Introduction

B. Social learning and the world problematique

C. Information usage

D. User limitations: limits to learning E. Fragmentation and erosion of collective memory F. Relevance of international documentation system to innovative learning

G. Review of issues raised in panel papers

H. Implications and recommendations I. Conclusion

References
Annex 1: Collective Memory Personified: an analogy
Annex 2: Pointers to the Pathology of Collective Memory 

A. Introduction

Given the current period of budgetary crisis in the international organisation community and elsewhere, it may well be asked whether consideration of "the utilisation of international documentation" at this time can lead to significant conclusions. The report of the 1972 Symposium indicates a range of user problems which remain valid (1). Budgets have however been contracted rather than expanded since then. Further the hopes for major inter-agency information exchanges, particularly at the computer level, have been largely abandoned or focused on narrowly specialised domains. Those who earlier expressed concern are now resigned to the fragmentation of international documentation. Relations between potential collaborators in any such exchanges have been eroded by priority attention to basic programme concerns within each agency. In many cases where there has been a real cross-system need this has been met by external services possibly established by a commercial enterprise at the national level. Given this level of activity, the recommendations of the 1972 Symposium still stand as a minimal adequate guideline.

On the other hand the period since 1972 has witnessed the advent of the pocket computer which has changed peoples' perception of the credibility of the "computer revolution". There have been many studies of the "information society" now and to come. Computer terminals are creeping into offices and the "paper-free office" is announced for the immediate future. In homes such devices are used for education and amusement (attached to television). International and national agencies are now experimenting with such devices-each in their own way in support of their own system. The pressure to do so is great because of the rapid spread of international satellite-linked data networks and the multitude of data bases now available via them.

The boundless optimism of those associated with the information society revolution is far from being matched by those concerned with the world problematique. Crisis has been heaped on crisis and international agencies are increasingly perceived as helpless observers of these worsening conditions. Loss of confidence in them, as reflected in their budgets, is part of the general loss of confidence in established institutions.

In this context it would seem to be shortsighted, if not simply foolish, to attempt any conventional inward-looking evaluation of the problems of "utilization of international documentation". The dramatic times in which we live would seem to call for a new look at the context within which the objectives of "international documentation" are defined and perceived by the user, whether actual or potential. Not to do so would simply beg the well-known management quip: "Having lost sight of their objectives, they redoubled their efforts".

The danger in the emerging information society is that many traditional library dreams of total computerisation and in-depth cataloguing may too easily become a reality. The question is not whether this is worthwhile, especially to the user. In this transition period a major concern should be with whether such innovations are assessed within a broad enough framework in the light of needs during social crisis and upheaval. The latter concern is of course a special responsibility of international documentation services. Are the right questions being asked -- are there better questions to ask? It is the search for such a framework, to stimulate better questions about utilisation, which is the prime thrust of this report.

B. Social learning and the world problematique

Given the continuing insistence of international agencies on the complexity and urgency of the world crisis situation, it is unnecessary to summarise this point here (2). In response to recognition of this world problematique a new generation of perceptive studies is now emerging. What is surprising is that they stress similar points which are relevant to the objectives of any international documentation system.

As a first example, in 1978 Ambassador Soedjatmoko of Indonesia (Appointed Rector of the UN University in 1980)stressed the importance of the "learning capacity of nations":

    "The capacity of a nation-- not just of its government, but of society as a whole-- to adjust to rapidly changing techno-economic, socio-cultural and political changes, on a scale which makes it possible to speak of social transformation, very much depends on its collective capacity to generate, to ingest, to reach out for, and to utilise a vast amount of new and relevant information. This capacity for creative and innovative response to changing conditions and new challenges I would like to call the learning capacity of a nation. This capacity is obviously not limited to the cognitive level, but includes the attitudinal, institutional and organisational levels of society as well" (3).
These remarks are very much in sympathy with those in the Presidential Address of Professor Helmut Arntz on the 80th Anniversary of the International Federation for Documentation in 1975. He stressed that:
    "... l'information... est le seul moyen de garder suffisament le control de l'évolution pour que l'humanité... conserve toujours une avance sur la menace qui peut mener à la catastrophe... la survie de l'homme dépend de l'obtention et de l'utilisation de l'information..." (4)
In 1979, the most recent report to the Club of Rome was published (5). It argues:
    "Whoever chronicles the history of the 1970s will see clearly what we perceive only dimly now. Not only is a critical element still missing from most discussions on global problems, but the most striking analyses of the world problematique are diverting attention from a fundamental issue. What has been missing is the human element, and what is at issue is what we call the human gap. The human gap is the distance between growing complexity and our capacity to cope with it...

    This report examines how learning can help to bridge the human gap. Learning as we shall use the term, has to be understood in a broad sense that goes beyond what conventional terms like education and schooling imply. For us, learning means an approach, both to knowledge and to life, that emphasises human initiative. It encompasses the acquisition and practice of new methodologies, new skills, new attitudes, and new values necessary to live in a world of change. Learning is the process of preparing to deal with new situations.

    Distinguishing this notion of learning from schooling does not mean that this report will ignore education which is a fundamental way and a formal means to enhance learning... Further, we shall contend that not only individuals but also groups of people learn, that organisations learn, and that even societies can be said to learn. The concept of "societal learning" is relatively new and stirs some controversy. Some contend that it is merely a metaphor that distorts the meaning of learning. Doubtless the concept of societal learning has limits, but we nonetheless shall maintain that societies can and do learn, and we shall not hesitate to cite evidence of learning processes at work in societies.

    The fact that inadequate contemporary learning contributes to the deteriorating human condition and a widening of the human gap cannot be ignored. Learning processes are lagging appallingly behind and are leaving both individuals and societies unprepared to meet the challenges posed by global issues. This failure of learning means that human preparedness remains underdeveloped on a worldwide scale. Learning is in this sense far more than just another global problem: its failure represents, in a fundamental way, the issue of issues in that it limits our capacity to deal with every other issue in the global problematique. These limitations are neither fixed nor absolute. Human potential is being artificially constrained and vastly underutilised -- so much so that for all practical purposes there appear to be virtually no limits to learning." (5, pp. 6-9)

In 1980, Alvin Toffler (author of "Future Shock") produced a book (6) reviewing the positive factors associated with the current period of crisis. In it he stresses the importance of "social memory" and how it is being revolutionized by the changes in the "info-sphere". (pp 192-193). He points out:
    "Our remarkable ability to file and retrieve shared memories is the secret of our species' evolutionary success. And anything that significantly alters the way we construct, store, or use social memory therefore touches on the wellsprings of destiny. Twice before in history humankind has revolutionised its social memory. Today, in constructing a new info-sphere, we are poised on the brink of another such transformation...

    What makes the leap to a Third Wave info-sphere so historically exciting is that it not only vastly expands social memory again, bur resurrects it from the dead.

    The computer, because it processes the data it stores, creates an historically unprecedented situation: it makes social memory both extensive and active. And this combination will prove to be propulsive". (6, pp 192-193)

Unlike earlier hopes for a "world brain", a functioning information infrastructure (7) is emerging very rapidly which will accomplish more than was desired by those who first reflected on the future of information. (Recent years have nevertheless seen the rebirth of a World Mind Group (8)).

But Toffler makes the point that:

    "Unless we incinerate the planet and our social memory with it, we shall before long have the closest thing to a civilisation with total recall" (6, p 193).
This optimistic argument conceals a basic problem to which the Club of Rome report (above) is more sensitive. For whilst technically it may well be possible to recall any item of information, the problem lies with how the user is to use such a facility given the limited processing capacity of the brain.

And, more specifically, how is he to learn from it and to what extent will it facilitate social learning in relation to the world problematique?

This basic constraint emerges more clearly in the Dakar Declaration (1979) of Informatique pour le Tiers Monde (9):

    "The key element of human communications -- the ordering and transmission of information -- is tending to become a source of mix-communication. The scientific and technological breakthroughs which have led to the informatics revolution are way ahead of the learning process of human society. This cultural lag is the most serious challenge to a comprehensive view of the implications of informatics. It is a matter of values, of organisational capacity and transformation in mental structures".

This statement, however, itself fails to distinguish between the collective and the individual dimensions of the problem. These are explored in the following sections.

C. Information usage

1. User specialisation

It is unnecessary to comment here on the large amount of information now available or on the rate at which this is increasing in every field of knowledge -- including those of interest to international organisations. It has long been an accepted truism that nobody can be expected to "master" every field of knowledge, and few can be expected to master one unless it is narrowly specialised. This does not raise major problems in the world of documentation. Users are expected to have specific concerns and are guided, more or less effectively to the information services and tools best able to respond to those concerns.

If at the end of his search the user is faced with a selection of 65 documents (or more) corresponding to his concern, it is the user's problem to decide on how to proceed. If he complains about the quantity, it is considered appropriate that he should be asked to specify his requirements more narrowly. He may even be assisted in this by allowing him to scan abstracts. If finally he complains that he "does not have time" to scan all the relevant abstracts or selected documents, this is not a matter of concern to the documentation service, especially if he has been informed of the documents as a subscriber to a selective dissemination of information (SDI) system on the basis of his user profile.

2. Usage contexts

Expressed in this way, the user problems lie outside the information service. But the nature of those problems is such as to raise questions -in the light of the remarks of the previous section -- about the value of the information systems now available and envisaged. In order to clarify these problems it is necessary to be more precise about the "usage contexts" with which information systems may be concerned. These may be ordered as follows:

    1. Automatic, namely information movement not requiring human decision, as typified by computer controlled manufacturing processes -- the computer is the "user

    2. Procedural, namely information selected and transformed under well-defined procedures, as typified by computerized reservation systems and many aspects of bibliographic control

    3. Programme-oriented, namely selection of information governed by a pre-defined set of criteria based on research or learning programme, as typified by the major uses to which documentation systems are put

    4. Open-ended exploration, namely dialogue with an information system to determine more valid ways of formulat ing a research or learning programme, as typified by the needs of those attempting to determine the thrust of an as yet un-categorized policy concern.

The first two are of no concern here. Increasingly it is expected that these should exist and that they should function satisfactorily. The third is of major importance to international documentation services but its user problems are largely covered by the 1972 Symposium report (1). Existing and envisaged systems are satisfactory for users who are content with their ability to specify their information requirement.

3. Maintenance/shock learning

The first three usage contexts correspond to the requirements of what the Club of Rome report (5) calls "maintenance learning"

    "Maintenance learning is the acquisition of fixed outlooks, methods, and rules for dealing with known recurring situations. It enhances our problem-solving ability for problems that are given. It is the type of learning designed to maintain an existing system or an established way of life. Maintenance learning is, and will continue to be, indispensable to the functioning and stability of every society". (5, p.10)
Maintenance learning reinforces existing categories and paradigms, the disciplines to which they give rise, and the professional and institutional division of labour of which they are the basis. Funding for the associated information systems is governed by maintenance priorities.

But, as the Club of Rome report points out:

    "Traditionally societies and individuals have adopted a pattern of continuous maintenance learning interrupted by short periods of innovation stimulated largely by the shock of external events... Even up to the present moment, humanity continues to wait for events and crises that would catalyze or impose this primitive learning by shock. But the global problematique introduces at least one new risk -- that the shock could be fatal. This possibility, however remote, reveals most clearly the crisis of conventional learning: primary reliance on maintenance learning not only is blocking the emergence of innovative learning, but it renders humanity increasingly vulnerable to shock; and under conditions of global uncertainty, learning by shock is a formula for disaster". (5, p. 10)
It is shock learning that has established new programmes, new institutions, and the need for new kinds of information services crossing previous categories (e.g. the environment or energy crises). But the report stresses:
    "The conventional pattern of maintenance/shock learning is inadequate to cope with global complexity and is likely, if unchecked, to lead to one or more of the following consequences:
(a) The loss of control over events and crises will lead to extremely costly shocks, one of which could possibly be fatal

(b) The long lag times of maintenance learning virtually guarantee the sacrificing of options needed to avert a whole series of recurring crises

(c) The reliance on expertise and short time periods intrinsic to learning by shock will marginalize and alienate more and more people

(d) The incapacity quickly to reconcile value conflicts under crisis conditions will lead to the loss of human dignity and of individual fulfillment". (5, pp 11-12)

 4. Innovative learning

Having reached this conclusion the report asserts as its central thrust that "innovative learning is a necessary means of preparing individuals and societies to act in concert in situations, especially those that have been, and continue to be, created by humanity itself". (5, p. 12) Conscious anticipation is considered to be a primary feature of innovative learning in contrast to the unconscious adaptation characteristic of maintenance learning. Anticipation is conceived as necessarily tied to participation as a second feature. For without it anticipation becomes futile. And participation without anticipation can be counter-productive or misguided, leading to paralysis or to counteraction. The report stresses that it is not enough that only elites or decision-makers are anticipatory when the resolution of global issues depends on the broad-based support of groups of every kind. (5, pp. 13-14)

Clearly innovative learning corresponds to "open-ended exploration" as the fourth usage context noted above. Given the importance attached to it, it is clearly appropriate to ask to what extent international documentation systems respond to the need for anticipatory learning as a participative process.

D. User limitations: limits to learning

1. Specialized user

The previous section noted the widespread condition of user specialization. This is characteristic of a programme-oriented usage context associated with the adaptive processes of maintenance learning. In such a context the user cannot really be said to have limitations because whenever any limitations are encountered it is simply accepted that greater specialisation is necessary. Through specialising, limitations in the user are circumvented (in effect by imposing limitations on the user). Specialization is here taken to include avoidance of any subject matter which is too complex. In other words the user focuses on that material which he believes meets his needs and abilities (whether as a schoolchild or a postgraduate).(Any relative operational "incompetence" of a user-learner can be considered as a limitation society effectively imposes on him; the educational level of documentation he is capable of absorbing define a form of specialisation).

2. Limits to learning

The Club of Rome report optimistically concludes that: "Human potential is being artificially constrained and vastly under-utilized -- so much so that for all practical purposes there appear to be virtually no limits to learning" (5, p. 9 - the added emphasis being the actual title of the report). The subtitle of the report, "bridging the human gap", arises from a recognition that "the human gap is the distance between growing complexity and our capacity to cope with it". (5, p. 6)

This "gap", in the case of the individual user, appears in the form of one or more limits. Only by considering the nature of these limits (listed below) is it possible to determine the form of learning which is "unlimited". (The report itself is necessarily vague, if not ambiguous, in the way in which these limits are neglected in its more general focus on unlimited learning possibilities).

    a. Quantitative limit: As noted previously, no user is expected to master the quantity of information in every domain of knowledge. A user is limited in that he can only process a fraction of that amount in any given period (even a lifetime). It may be argued that a total access system gives him unlimited "finger-tip mastery" through the ability to access any item of information. But it is important to distinguish between his unlimited power of access and the limited number of accesses he can usefully make in any given period of time. In this respect his learning capacity is limited.

    b. Limit to perception of connectedness: Learning is not simply the commitment of isolated elements of information to memory. These elements must be interlinked in a web of comprehended relationships. Such relevance networks extend around every item of information. There are clearly limits to the extent of any such network which an individual can "bear in mind", or tolerate as relevant, particularly as a user of an information system. Even if the task of remembering them is delegated to the system (and there are budgetary limitations), there are limits to the density of connectedness which the user can comprehend as a pattern. Abandoning such comprehension in favour of a linear sequence of accesses imposes a different limit. This is analogous to the case of a traveller on an unmapped subway system who has only lists of stations as a guide -- there is no limitation to his travels but, as in a maze, there is a limit to the complexity of the pattern he could finally comprehend.

    c. Limit to comprehension span: A standard response to the two previous limits is to encode information into some category scheme which provides a better grasp for learning purposes. A user-learner can only tolerate a relatively limited range of categories. This may be as low as 3, or it may extend into the hundreds if only a low degree of overall comprehension is demanded (10). This need for categorisation is a user limitation which arbitrarily distorts his comprehension of the continuum of knowledge.

    d. Limit to comprehension depth: The previous limit necessitates the use of nested sub-categories in order that at each level the number of categories should not exceed an acceptable span. But the number of levels of any such nesting is limited by problems of comprehension if it becomes too "deep". Hierarchical nestings seldom have more than about 7 levels for the same reasons as above (10). The need to restrict the number of levels actively borne in mind by the user is another user limitation which affects his learning capacity in the face of complexity.

    e. Pre-logical limitations: Learning is strongly influenced by pre-logical (possibly culturally determined) biases governing which kinds of information are preferred. A user will unconsciously select information which is in sympathy with his position on each of the following axes, for example: order/disorder, static/dynamic, continuity/discreteness, spontaneity/process, etc. (II). Such preferences impose a limit on the learning capacity of the user, concealing blindspots and giving rise to irrational antipathies for certain forms of information which are significant to others. The situation is further limited because the biases may also determine the media (e.g. text, image, speech) through which information is preferred and via which learning is facilitated. Some information may only be communicable via certain media (e.g. music, space-structures).

    f. Attention span limit: As noted above a user is normally only prepared to devote a limited amount of time to any learning process through an information system. The amount is frequently less than the time required to access information from the system. But even if a document is distributed to the user automatically, his available attention time for absorbing the contents (through whatever medium) is often such that the information is effectively rejected. A third aspect is that even if he allocates the necessary time to the learning process, there are limits to his power of concentration in the presence of whatever distractions he accepts in his environment. Given that some phenomena require a significant amount of attention before they can be comprehended (at least by a given user), it is clear that users are limited in their ability to comprehend those requiring more attention than they are prepared to give.

    g. Memory limit: A number of the above limits could be circumvented if user-learners were unlimited in their effective memory capacity. This is clearly not the case. Poor or "patchy" memory is a widespread phenomenon. In an information society this situation is complicated as Toffler notes:

    "On a personal level, we are all besieged and blitzed by fragments of imagery, contradictory or unrelated, that shake up our old ideas and come shooting at us in the form of broken or disembodied "blips". We live, in fact, in a "blip culture"... Instead of receiving long, related "strings" of ideas, organised or synthesised for us, we are increasingly exposed to short, modular blips of information -- ads, commands, theories, shreds of news, truncated bits and blobs that refuse to fit neatly into our pre-existing mental files". (6, pp. 181-182)

    Toffler argues that the "computer is one antidote to the blip culture" (p. 191):

    "It can sift vast masses of data to find subtle patterns. It can help assemble "blips" into larger, more meaningful wholes". (p. 190)

    Whilst this may be a future possibility, most users are attempting more or less unsuccessfully to navigate through a whirl of blips rapidly forced into oblivion by the emergence of others. Computers have done little to assist memory to organise them, even in sophisticated computer conferencing data base-linked environments (7). And even if assistance was effective, the computer dependence it created for the user could be construed as a major limitation -- a handicap accentuated by the effectiveness of the crutch. Such dependence, without critical renewal of categorisation, could well lead to a computerized version of the "railway hammer civilisation".

    This is illustrated by an anecdote cited in the Club of Rome report (p. 22): "An old British story tells of an elderly railway man who, at his retirement after thirty years of irreproachable service, asks his colleagues gathered for the celebration, why it was that he had to hit the wheels with a hammer each time the train was stationed. No one knew the answer. Current sociology is now concerned with the possible emergence of a "railway hammer civilisation" in which people are repeating patterns and forms of behavior without any hint of the reasons, laws, and purposes behind them".

 3. Integrative comprehension

It is possible that in arguing that there were "no limits to learning", the Club of Rome report was really implying the lack of limitations on a mass of people each pursuing overlapping or complementary concerns. The question of the limits to societal learning will therefore be considered in the next section.

Given the above constraints, however, it is important to recognise the challenge to the individual user and to the information system serving him. The report notes:

    "While some societies have gingerly experimented with inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary studies, the modern trend toward fragmentation continues... Nowhere is the impact of over-specialization so keenly felt as in the context of global issues. It is simply not possible to analyse and formulate policies for global issues from any exclusive disciplinary perspective. The economic approach, the legal approach, the social or political approach are each, by themselves, insufficient for dealing with problems that require an integrated and holistic understanding. Such specialisation virtually guarantees irrelevance". (5. p. 70)
International information systems have been significantly weak in facilitating interdisciplinary approaches. For example, an overview and extensive bibliography of such approaches appears under the title "Integrative, Unitary and Transdisciplinary Concepts" (Section K of ref. 2). The library of the intergovernmental agency with ongoing programmes on interdisciplinarity, failed to register this in its computerised system although it possessed the volume. (Possibly because it only uses "interdisciplinarity" as a category for the few items it processes on this approach). Little is known about how an individual user-learner can build up an integrative understanding, as recommended by the Club of Rome report (5, p. 98). Some suggestions concerning this are made in separate papers (12,13).

It is within this integrative perspective that the problem of innovative learning (discussed earlier) must be raised again. How are international information systems with heavy financial, intellectual and personal commitments to fixed category thesauri to respond to the integrative needs of future users? :

    "Innovative learning is problem formulating and clustering. Its main attributes are integration, synthesis, and the broadening of horizons. It operates in open situations or open systems. Its meaning derives from dissonance among contexts [On this point see ref. 14]. It leads to critical questioning of conventional assumptions behind traditional thoughts and actions, focusing on necessary changes. Its values are not constant, but rather shifting. Innovative learning advances our thinking by reconstructing wholes, not by fragmenting reality".
Is the international documentation system relevant to the challenge of innovative learning? Or is its progressive computerisation the object of criticism such as the following:
    "It is lamentable that innovative technologies introduced into maintenance learning structures have been diverted to performing maintenance tasks, such as rapid presentation of fixed facts that was characteristic of early attempts at programmed instruction". (5, p. 32)
The question is how to help the user-learner reformulate the category scheme he is using into one which is more innovatively relevant.
    "But even if all items in the total body of literature were identifiable and available at low cost (which is the aim of those who favour this approach), there still remains the problem of how to improve the relevance of the questions asked to the problem complex faced by the policy-making process. Retrieval is not the problem, it is merely aggravated by this more fundamental problem. Retrieval systems focus queries in the light of the user's existing knowledge and biases. They do not orient the policy-oriented user to knowledge and issues with which he should also be concerned in relation to his current preoccupations (in the light of qualified or alternative opinions). They do not bring to his attention where his preoccupation may fit in relation to other preoccupations. He is given no sense of scale, proportion or orientation -- he merely gets what he asked for however much difficulty he has in formulating his question in appropriate words". (15)
The quotation above was made in a report to the Commonwealth Secretariat on the possibility of using mapping techniques to provide users with a better sense of context than is provided by the arbitrary category divisions of thesauri insensitive to the functional relationships between the phenomena categorised. (Nature and society are no more subdivided on the basis of such categories than they are on the basis of university faculties).
    "We submit that many of the difficulties of learning today stem from the neglect of contexts... Innovative learning cannot be the mere digestion of an input, resulting in an output; nor can it be a simple additive process of connecting values to things. In order to enhance the human capacity to act in new situations and to deal with unfamiliar events, innovative learning requires the absorption of vast collections of contexts. When contexts are restricted, the probability of shock learning increases, for shock may be conceived as a sudden event that occurs outside the known contexts. Hence one task of innovative learning is to enhance the individual's ability to find, absorb, and create new contexts - in short, to enrich the supply of contexts. If the existing supply cannot offer the required analogy to deal with new or unexpected events, then we must develop the capacity to construct suitable alternative mental frameworks". (5, pp 23-24)
This brings the argument back to a point made by the Rector-select of the UN University. Ambassador Soedjatmoko:
    "Part of our incapacity to comprehend fully what is happening to us in the changing conditions of the world, despite the plethora of available information, lies in the operational inadequacies of present conceptual frameworks. We almost need a new language and we certainly need new concepts which will enable us to select, synthesise and conceptualise the full implications and the human significance of the challenges we face, of the changes we are going through, and of the means we will choose to meet these problems". (3)
Hence his concern with the learning capacity of nations.

E. Fragmentation and erosion of collective memory

1. Nature of collective memory

Learning implies memory, whether in the case of the individual or of society.

    "That experiences influence subsequent behaviour is evidence of an obvious but nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering. Learning could not occur without the function popularly called memory... So-called intelligent behaviour demands memory, remembering being prerequisite to reasoning. The ability to solve any problem or even to recognize that a problem exists depends on memory" (17).
What then is societal memory? How is it related to the international documentation system?

In the past, as Toffler notes (6, p. 192), "social memory" was stored in the minds of individuals as "history, myth, lore and legend and transmitted... to their children through speech, song, chant and example... all the accumulated experience of the group was stored in the neurons and glia and synapses of human beings". This is still the case in many countries and sectors of society. But anthropologists do not appear to have studied "folk memory" or "cultural memory" as such. They focus on traditions as "values, beliefs, rules, and behavior patterns that are shared by a group and passed on from generation to generation as part of the socialisation process" (16). This verbal tradition has largely been replaced by one based on texts.

Biologists on the other hand have tentatively recognised a "noosphere". The age of ecological enlightenment has brought with it a new term, the ecosphere, which implies a responsible stewardship of Earth. Beyond and superimposed on these spheres lies another dimensional sphere, the noosphere, a figurative envelope of conceptual thought, or reflective impulses produced by the human intellect..."It is not scientifically measurable, of course, but its presence is strongly felt and its influence is all-pervading" (17). The concept was first formulated by Vladimir Verdansky and elaborated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This approach has not focused on memory. As one biologist remarks, however:

    "Although we are by all odds the most social of all social animals - more interdependent, more attached to each other, more inseparable in our behaviour than bees - we do not often feel our conjoined intelligence. Perhaps, however, we are linked in circuits for the storage, processing, and retrieval of information since this appears to be the most basic and universal of all human enterprises". (17a, p. 14)
Classical Greek philosophy developed a concept of the world soul which was related to memory. Little attention has however been given to recent philosophical investigations of social minds, as "syntheses of individual minds into wholes with new minds" (18). This is also the case for the group mind as applied to national mind and character (19). Psychologists may refer to "culturally shared knowledge... though... This is merely an idealisation... not to be confused with reality". (60, p. 9). Scientists may, however, refer to "the store of human knowledge... achieves a corporate, collective power that is far greater than one individual can exert". (20)

The concept of group mind was examined and discarded by sociologists in connection with public opinion. This is a collection of individual opinions on an issue of public interest. It is considered to have characteristics that make it something more than the sum of individual opinions on an issue. Its function as social memory does not appear to have been explored. The concept of collective consciousness was developed by Emile Durkheim as a derivative of Rousseau's general will and Comte's consensus. But again there is little concern with memory, although Jung's concept of archetypes of the collective unconsciousness is closely related to it. The distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness may not be important in relation to memory.

Claude Levi-Strauss (Structural Anthropology. London, Allen Lane, 1968.) notes:

    "A structural model may be conscious or unconscious without this difference affecting its nature. It can only be said that when the structure of a certain type of phenomena does not lie at a great depth, it is more likely that some kind of model, standing as a screen to hide it, will exist in the collective consciousness. For conscious models, which are usually known as "germs" are by definition very poor ones, since they are not intended to explain phenomena but to perpetuate them".
Educators, at least in the light of the Encyclopedia of Education (20) do not appear to have any interest in social memory, or even social learning as such. Programmes in support of international understanding,such as Unesco's, do not clarify any aspect of social memory even if they ensure the dissemination of cultural traditions. The new Unesco programme on cultural heritage also has no explicit concern with memory. Recent use of the term planetary consciousness by many alternative groups (29) is not related to any memory function.

It is to be expected that a social memory concern would emerge more explicitly in the development of the classification of knowledge from Aristotle through Juan Huarte, Francis Bacon, Diderot, to Dewey and Otlet and their successors (22, 23). But whilst such initiatives are effectively attempts to impose some organisation on social memory, their proponents do not appear to be concerned with its nature. Thus although there is a study of classifications in their social context (24), there is little to be found on the social impact of classification schemes. A discipline such as the history of ideas is not concerned with the nature of collective memory. The power of such impacts, is, however, illustrated by Jacques Attali in terms of styles of music as coding systems reflecting social structures and presaging new structures (25). But he does not consider any memory function.

Clearly social memory is an elusive and poorly explored phenomenon. Instead of attempting to clarify its nature as a psycho-social phenomenon, the search can be switched to the repositories of social memories. This switch necessarily abandons the preoccupation with how societies internalise recorded knowledge and focuses instead on how knowledge can be physically recorded and disseminated. Societal learning is not, however, achieved by simply recording and disseminating knowledge. It must be "absorbed" by society. How societal learning (or group learning) takes place remains unclear, as the Club of Rome report stresses.

Before commenting on modern systems it is important to note the role of encyclopaedias as repositories. Initially these were often conceived as "mirrors" of the knowledge of mankind -- which reinforces the distinction noted above. Even in recent years national or ethnic encyclopaedias have been deliberately created to orient social consciousness. Deliberate efforts have also been made to move beyond the traditionally passive role of the library and museum,as with Paul Otlet's Mundaneum which assembled 17 million items (26). The social significance of such initiatives was given its most eloquent form in the H.G. Wells proposal for a "world brain" (27). With the advent of computers, the concept has been refined under the stimulus of information scientists such as Manfred Kochen (28), Harry Schwarzlander (29) and D. Soergel (30), who are linked through the World Mind Group (8).

The reality today is however represented by a multiplicity of information systems, whether national or international, specialised or general, computerized or not, and whatever the degree of interlinkage via data networks (31, 32). In this context the above concern with social memory is r