Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Jane Jacobs; Merkmale für gesunde biologische u. ökonomische Systeme 1; Entwicklung; schemes of recurrence

Kurzinhalt: acobs initially characterizes all kinds of developments as the interplay of two principles: differentiations emerging from within generalities; and differentiations becoming new generalities from which further differentiations then emerge ...

Textausschnitt: (1) Development

"Where do new things come from? ... An animal, a plant, a [river] delta, a legal code, an improved shoe sole-they all depend on the same underlying process for development" (2000, 15-16). (Fs)

8a Jacobs initially characterizes all kinds of developments as the interplay of two principles: differentiations emerging from within generalities; and differentiations becoming new generalities from which further differentiations then emerge (16-17). (This closely parallels Lonergan's schemes of recurrence emerging from prior, conditioning schemes.) By her imaginative and strategic use of illustrations, Jacobs makes a persuasive case that both natural and human developments all follow the same patterns. Examples: (a) An originally generic, undifferentiated cosmic cloud differentiated into a star (our sun) and nine very different sorts of planetary climate systems. One of those (our earthly system) became in turn the new "generality" within which diverse ecosystems and life forms differentiated. (b) In mammalian evolution, successive sequences of differentiations of vertebrate forelimbs have produced hoofs, paws, hands, flippers, and wings. (c) In embryogenesis, the generically indistinguishable cells of a zygote differentiate into ectodermic, mesodermic, endodermic cellular layers, which become new generalities, which in turn differentiate into the multifacited tissues and systems of an adult mammal. (d) The first crude wheel, whatever its origin, has been modified, and its modifications modified, over and again into such differentiations as rimmed spoked wheels and "rimless spoked wheels such as: water mill-wheels, windmills, fans, paddle wheels, propellers, food blenders," solid wheels like "the potter's wheel ... circular saws, rotating dials, phonograph turntables, movie projectors," and so on (25). (Fs)

8b To the interplay of these two principles, Jacobs adds a third: all development depends upon co-development (2000, 19). Jacobs insists that it is a great mistake to think of development linearly, as is suggested in biology textbooks by evolutionary trees that trace lines of descent. Such "trees" are too abstract. They prescind from the real fact that concretely, evolution operates not linearly, but "as a web of interdependent co-developments" (19). In other words, any newly differentiated innovation needs a habitat, and habitats consist of intricately interconnected differentations, each of which itself had to have been developed. This is evident in the intricacies of evolved natural ecologies. It is no less evident in human economies, Jacobs argues. In this way Jacobs contextualizes and relativizes competition and survival: "Competiton for feeding and breeding take place in an area. That area is a [co-developed] habitat" (21). (Fs)