The Malthusian principle (1798) related growth of populations
(geometric) to food supply increases (arithmetic): "Population,
when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence
increases only in an arithmetical ratio." The weakness of the
principle is probably its failure to acknowledge that the
equation of mankind has more than the two variables it
considers: population and food supply. The experience of
extensive use of natural resources, in particular through
farming, is only one among an increasing number of experiences.
Human beings constitute their own reality not only as one of
biological needs, but also of cultural expectations, growing
demands, and creativity. These eventually affect changes in what
were believed to be primary needs and instincts. In many ways, a
great deal of previously acknowledged sources of protein are
exhausted. But in an ever more impressive proportion, the
acceptable realm of sources of nutrition-proteins included-has
been expanded so as to include the artificial. Hunting and
gathering wild plants (not to mention scavenging, which seems to
predate hunting) were appropriate when linear, sequential
strategies of survival defined human behavior; so were herding
and agriculture, a continuation of foraging under circumstances
of changed subsistence strategies.
Language was formed, and then stabilized, in connection to this
linear form of praxis. Linearity simply reflects the fact that
one person is less effective than two, but also that one's needs
are smaller than those of several. The experience of self-
constitution in language preserves linearity. This preservation
of linearity extends as long as the scale of the community and
its needs and wants allowed for proportional interaction among
its individuals and the environment of their existence.
Industrial society is probably the climax of this optimization
effort.
If the issue were only to feed mankind, the population census
(over five billion people on record as of the moment these pages
are being written, though less than four billion when I started)
and the measure of resources would not yet indicate a new scale.
But the issue is to accommodate geometrically growing populations
and exponentially (i.e., non-linearly) diversifying
expectations. Such expectations relate to a human being
celebrating higher average ages, and an extended period of active
life. We change anatomically, not necessarily for the better: we
see and hear less well and have lower physical abilities. Our
cognitive behavior and our patterns of social interaction change,
too. These changes reflect, among other things, the transition
from direct interaction and co-presence to indirect, mediated
forms of the practical self-constitution of the human being.
The sequential nature of language, in particular its embodiment
in literacy, no longer suits human praxis as its universal
measure. The strategies of linearization introduced through the
experience of literacy were acceptable when the resulting
efficiency accommodated lower and less differentiated
expectations. They are now replaced by more efficient,
intrinsically non-linear strategies made possible by literacies
structurally different from those rooted in the practice of
so-called natural language. Accordingly, literacy loses its
primacy. New literacies emerge. Instead of a stable center and
limited choice, a distributed and variable configuration of
centers and wide choice connect and disconnect areas of common
or disjoint interest. There are still national ambitions, huge
factories to be built, cities to be erected and others to be
expanded, highways to be widened in order to accommodate more
intercity traffic, and airports to be constructed so that more
airplanes can be used for national and international travel.
The inertia of past pragmatics has not yet been annihilated by
the dynamics of a fundamental change of direction. Still, an
integrated, yet decentralized, universe of work and living has
been taking shape and will continue to do so. Interconnection
made possible by digital technology, first of all, opens a wide
range of possibilities for reshaping social life, political
institutions, and our ability to design and produce goods. Our
own ability to mediate, to integrate parts and services
resulting from specialized activities is supported by machines
that enhance our cognitive characteristics.