Judith Bessant - The Great Transformation: History for a Techno-Human Future

Judith Bessant addresses a crucially important question for our time: might the turbulent period we live in be reconceived as a second Axial Age, driven by technological change? As the question itself implies, this requires an open-minded and fearless exploration of ideas from many disciplines. And the author delivers, with a stimulating synthesis. If we are going to understand what is happening to our species as we try to cope with artificial intelligence, we need more of this kind of broad scholarship.

Merlin Donald, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, Queens University,Canada

The Great Transformation ambitiously weaves together much-needed historical, sociological, scientific, and philosophical insights into our present techno-social condition, and how we might wisely steer its trajectory towards a better future. Pushing beyond simplistic utopian and dystopian metaphors, and rejecting tired and fatalistic theories of technological determinism, Bessant identifies new practices and principles of social thinking, learning, and designing that can help us rescue the endangered promise of technology for human flourishing.

Shannon Vallor, William J. Rewak S.J. Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University, USA, and author of Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting

Bessant puts the high-tech revolution of today in perspective of the great technological revolutions of human history. But because society and technology co-evolve, this look into the future highlights the freedom we can exercise to ensure everyone benefits.

Randall Collins, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA, and co-author of Does Capitalism Have a Future?

While artificial intelligence (AI), robots, bio-technologies and digital media are transforming work, culture, and social life, there is little understanding of or agreement about the scope and significance of this change. This new interpretation of the great transformation uses history and evolutionary theory to highlight the momentous shift in human consciousness taking place. Only by learning from recent crises and rejecting technological determinism will governments and communities redesign social arrangements that ensure we all benefit from the new and emerging technologies.

The book documents the transformations under way in financial markets, entertainment, and medicine, affecting all aspects of work and social life. It draws on historical sociology and co-evolutionary theory arguing that the radical evolution of human consciousness and social life now under way is comparable with, if not greater than, the agrarian revolution (10000 BCE ), the explosion of science, philosophy, and religion in the Axial Age (600 BCE ), and the recent Industrial Revolution. Turning to recent major socio-economic crises, and asking what can be learned from them, the answer is we cannot afford this time around to repeat the failures of elites and theoretical systems such as economics to attend appropriately to radical change. We need to think beyond the constraints of determinist and reductionist explanations and embrace the idea of deep freedom.

This book will appeal to educators, social scientists, policy-makers, business leaders, and students. It concludes with social design principles that can inform deliberative processes and new social arrangements that ensure everyone benefits from the affordances of the new and emerging technologies.

Judith Bessant is a Professor at RMIT University, Melbourne, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. She is widely published and her research interests include policy, sociology, politics, youth studies, media-technology studies, and history. She has also worked as an advisor for governments and non-government organizations. In 2017 she was awarded an Order of Australia (AM) for her significant service to education as a social scientist, advocate and academic specializing in youth studies research.

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The Great Transformation

History for a Techno-Human Future

Judith Bessant

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History for a Techno-Human Future

Judith Bessant

First published 2018

by Routledge

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2018 Judith Bessant

The right of Judith Bessant to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bessant, Judith, author.

Title: The great transformation: history for a techno-human future / Judith Bessant.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. |

Series: The criminalization of political dissent | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018004599 | ISBN 9781138186903 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315643533 (ebook: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: TechnologySocial aspects. | Technological innovationsSocial aspects. | Technology and civilization.

Classification: LCC T14.5.B484 2018 | DDC 303.48/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004599

ISBN: 978-1-138-18690-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-64353-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Goudy

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For Rob

When I started thinking about and drafting the design for this book, in my naivety and enthusiasm I thought it would be a fairly straightforward project. I thought then it would involve asking what we might learn from earlier periods of socio-economic crisis to help us navigate our way through the great transformation we are now undertaking. It turned out to be far more than that. The years spent on this project have opened entire vistas and aspects of worlds I knew only at a great distance.