The Ascent of Man: 50 years later.

-PART I-
EDITORIAL Primer Poder AC – Board of Directors

"The Human Being, unlike other living species, is not only part of the environment, but is the
only one who has modified it for his benefit. " - Jacob Bronowski /The Ascent of Man (1973)

The Ascent of Man was writen by Jacob Bronowski, a scientist who used his skills
to expound his point of view on humankind's evolution. By 1973, the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) decided to adapt the book to a TV series that
reached rating records inside and beyond British boundaries.

Evolution comes from development and leads to modernity.

AsThe Ascent of Man says: “ … we must always remember that the real content
of evolution (biological as well as cultural) is the elaboration of new behaviour. ”

Antiquity or elapsed time does not mean expertise, as the latter is related to
new knowledge acquired through practice within a period. In the same line of
contrasts, society's evolution does not mean modernity. One thing is the human
inner quality improvements, and another is the material ones. Evolution includes
modernity, but not the opposite.

Quoting Bronowski: “Civilisation is not a collection of finished artefacts, it is the

elaboration of processes.”

Children with new toys may represent modernity, even when creating the
illusion of behaving like adults. A child with a new toy has an inner condition
that still is controlled by primitive patterns. Such a phenomenon is similar to
those societies wealthy enough to buy new "toys" but not to educate people
capable of becoming the creators of massive improvements. Such cases are
labeled as primitive societies with modern artifacts. Non-educated people are
primitive, with or without modernity.
Human evolution means the personal skills development that builds a behavior
that improves interdependent relationships within different environments.

Civilizations prevail in time through massive behavior, not because of the

temporary improvements resulting from qualified elites' eventual existence.
Under such statements, Democracy will prevail upon Autocracy if the first one
educates people to defend it permanently and massively, never because of some
temporary improvements originated by the qualified elites' eventual existence.

The ‘70s …

The ‘70s was a decade that set the end of the Post-War era when optimism
drove many bright minds to believe in a better humankind future. At such
moment Jacob Bronowski and the BBC thought it was suitable to speak about
many positive human assets as a starting point for human development to
guarantee a global evolution. Were they right? Were they heard?

Never a clock nor a calendar are responsible for human events, but they can
show passed periods through human events that generate new trends.

From many points of view, the ‘70s decade was a breakthrough period. New
processes generated new behaviors and new products. Post-II World War
expanded Free Will Rights to half the planet, so humankind began to reach its
best moment in history, even when the other half remained in the ancient dark
era.

The democratic expansion reshaped the global economic order as industrial

powers recovered and expanded their offer capacity to satisfy new markets with
new trends. Such competition sets a new plural satisfaction model that
generates new management and marketing processes and products. Human life
quality improved, along with human value awareness. Indeed, such was one of
the most significant moments of human evolution.

Many positive lessons from the ‘70s are still operating in the 21st century.
However, when this era suggests being the basis of the following progress, most
of its achievements were the product of previous political strategies set at the
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end of World War II. Were those leaders more evolutive than the current ones?

What has changed in 50 years?

As science and technology have improved our living quality in many ways, we
must never place their value upon ours, as these are human-quality products,
not the inverse.

A suitable summary of Professor Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man would be that it

highlights human quality as the essential power of evolution.

After five decades, Have we defended human quality against the materialistic
one? Has global Democracy expanded to new territories and massively
improved human quality? Has democratic education trained people to become
evolution creators or not?

End of Part I.