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'3-D' View of History: Significant Details, Sense of Storyline, and Healthy Spirit of Study ('Detalye, Daloy at Diwa');

 Critique of memorization-oriented and fragmented presentations in current teaching of history.

Constructive and liberative view of time continuum and collective journey

Holistic Collective conscious- ness on Holistic collective experience

Concept and challenge of consensus-building and synergy-building for a collective sense of mission as humankind and as a nation; and on this basis, the consolidation of synergies in nationhood and in humanity.

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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Liberation and Development:
Cumulative Processes*

By Gustavo Gutierrez

At 30, Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru was ordained a priest in 1959 and his graduate studies were in theology and psychology, and became one of the major proponents of Theology of Liberation in Latin America.

The article below is excerpted from the second chapter of his book, The New Man (In a New Society and the Church): TheologicalReflections From Latin America (New York: Orbis Books, 1973, (excerpts here cover pp. 21-27, and pp. 36-37.)

THE WORLD TODAY is experiencing a profound and rapid socio-cultural transformation. But the changes do not occur at a uniform pace, and the discrepancies in the change process have differentiated the the various countries and regions of out planet.

Contemporary man has become clearly aware of this unequal process of transformation, of its economic causes, and of the basic relationships which combine to determine conditions and approaches. He examines his own circumstances and compares them to those of others; since he lives in a world where communication is fast and efficient, the conditions in which others live are no longer distant and unknown. But man goes beyond the limited expectations which such a comparison might create. He sees the progress of transformation as a quest to satisfy the most fundamental human aspirations – liberty, dignity, the possibility of personal fulfillment for all. Or at least he would like the process to be moving toward these goals. He feels that the satisfaction of these aspirations should be the purpose of all organization and social activity. He knows also that all his plans are possible, able to be at least partially implemented.

Finally, history demonstrates that the achievements of humanity are cumulative; the effects and the collective experience of the generations open new perspectives and allow for even greater achievements in the generations yet to come.
The phenomenon of the awareness of differences among countries characterizes our era, due to the burgeoning of communication media; it is particularly acute in those countries less favored by the evolution of the world economy – the poor countries where the vast majority of people live. The inhabitants of these countries are aware of the unacceptable living conditions of most of their countrymen. They confirm the explanation that these inequalities are caused by a type of relationship which often has been imposed upon them. For these reasons, the efforts for social change these areas are characterized both by a great urgency and by conflicts stemming from differences of expectations, degrees of pressure, and existing systems of relationships and power. It is well to clarify, on the one hand, that the current (and very recent) level of expectations of the poor countries goes far beyond a mere imitation of the rich countries and is of necessity somewhat indistinct and imprecise.

On the other hand, both the internal heterogeneity and the presence of external determinants in these societies contribute to defining different needs in different groups. All of this causes a dynamics of action which is inevitably conflictual.

The poor countries are not interested in modeling themselves after the rich countries, among other reasons because they are increasingly convinced that the status of the latter is the fruit of injustice and coercion. It is true that the poor countries are are attempting to overcome material insufficiency and misery, but it is in order to achieve a more human society.

The Concept of Development

The term development seems tentatively to have synthesized the aspirations of people today for more human living conditions. The term itself is not new, but its current usage in the social sciences is new, or it responds to a different set of issues which has emerged only recently. Indeed, the old wealth-poverty antimony no longer expresses all the problems and contemporary aspirations of mankind.

Origin

For some, the origin of the term development is, in a sense, negative. They consider it to have appeared in opposition to the term underdevelopment, which expressed the situation – and anguish – of the poor countries compared with the rich countries.¹

It would perhaps be helpful to recall some of the more important trends which helped clarify the concept of development. First of all, there is the work of Joseph A. Schumpeter,² the first economist after the English classics and Marx to concern himself with long-term processes. Schumpeter studied a capitalism characterized by a “circular flow,” that is, a system which repeats itself from one period to the next and does not suffer appreciable structural change. The element which breaks this equilibrium and introduces a new dynamism us an innovation. Innovations are on the one hand techno-economic, since they are supposed to have originated in these areas; but they are simultaneously politico-social, because they imply contradicting and overcoming the prevailing system. Schumpeter calls this process Entwicklung, which today is translated as “development,” although earlier renderings were “evolution”³ or “unfolding.”⁴

The work of the Australian economist Colin Clark represents another important contribution.⁵ Clark affirms that the objective of economic activity is not wealth but well-being, a term understood to mean the satisfaction derived from the resources at one’s disposal. He proposes to measure well-being by making comparisons in time and space. The differences among countries are shown by various indicators. His calculations show that the highest levels of well-being are found in the industrialized countries. Clark designated the road toward industrialization which poor countries are to follow as “progress” (not development).

The Bandung Conference of 1955 also played an important role in the evolution of the term, although on a different level. A large number of countries met there, especially Asian and African countries. They recognized their common membership in a Third World – underdeveloped and facing two developed worlds, the capitalist and the socialist. This conference marked the beginning of a policywhich was supposed to lead out of this state of affairs. Although the deeds that followed did not always correspond to the expectations aroused, Bandung nevertheless signalled a deepened awareness of the fact of underdevelopment and a proclamation of its unacceptability.⁶

Approaches

The concept of development has no clear definition;⁷ there are a variety of ways to regard it. Rather tan reviewing them all at length, we will recall briefly the general areas involved.

Development can be regarded as purely economic, and in that sense it would be synonymous with economic growth.

The degree of development of a country could be measured, for example, by comparing its gross national product or its per capita income with those of the country regarded as highly developed. It is also possible to refine this gauge and make it more complex, but the presuppositions would still be the same: development consists above all in increased wealth or, at most, a higher level of well-being.

Historically, this is the meaning that appears first. What led to this point of view is was perhaps the consideration of the process in England, the first country to develop and, understandably enough, the first to be studied by economists. This viewpoint was later reinforced by the mirage which the well-being of the rich nations produced.

Those who champion this view today, at least explicitly, are few in number.⁸ Currently, its value lies in serving as a yardstick to measure more integral notions. However, this focus continues to exist in a more or less subtle form in the capitalistic view of development.

The deficiencies of the above-mentioned view have led to another more important and more frequently held one. According to it development is a total social process, which includes economic, social, political and cultural aspects. This notion stresses the interdependence of the different factors. Advances in one area imply advances in all of them and, conversely, the stagnation of one retards the growth of the rest.⁹
A consideration of development as as a total process leads one to consider also all the external and internal factors which affect the economic evolution of a nation as well as to evaluate the distribution of goods and services and the system of relationships among the agents of its economic life. This had been carefully worked out by social scientists concerned with so-called Third World countries. They have reached the conclusion that the dynamics of world economics leads simultaneously to the creation of greater wealth for the few and greater poverty for the many.¹⁰
From all this flows a strategy of development which, taking into account the different factors, will allow a country to advance both totally and harmoniously and to avoid dangerous setbacks.

To view development as a total social process, necessarily implies for some an ethical dimension, which presupposed a concern for human values. The step toward an elaboration of a humanistic perspective of development is thus taken unconsciously, and it promotes the former point of view without contradicting it.

Francois Perroux worked consistently along these lines. Development for him means “the combination of mental and social changes of a people which enable them to increase, cumulatively and permanently, their total real production.” Going even further, he says, “Development is achieved fully in the measure that, by reciprocity of services, it prepares the way for reciprocity of consciousness.”¹¹

It would be a mistake to think that this point of view, which is concerned with human values, is theexclusive preserve of scholars of a Christian inspiration. Converging viewpoints are found in Marxist-inspired positions.¹²

This humanistic approach attempts to place the notion of development in a wider context: a historical vision in which mankind assumes control of its own destiny.¹³ But this leads precisely to a change of perspective which – after certain additions and corrections – we would prefer to call liberation. We shall attempt to clarify this below.

THE PROCESS OF LIBERATION
From the Critique of Developmentism to Social Revolution.

The term development has synthesized the aspirations of poor peoples during the last few decades. Recently, however, it has become the object of severe criticism due both to the deficiencies of the development policies proposed to the poor countries to lead them out of their underdevelopment and also to the lack of concrete achievements of the interested governments. This is the reason why developmentism (desarrolismo), a term derived from development (desarrollo), is now used in a pejorative sense sense, especially in Latin America.¹⁴

Much has been said in recent times about development. Poor countries competed for the help of the rich countries. There were even attempts to create a certain development mystique. Support for development was intense in Latin America in the ‘50s, producing high expectations. But since the supporters of development did not attack the roots of the evil, they failed and caused instead confusion and frustration.¹⁵

One of the most important reasons for this turn of events is that development – approached from an economic and modernizing point of view – has been frequently promoted by international organizations closely linked to groups and governments which control the world economy.¹⁶ The changes encouraged were to be achieved within the formal structure of the existing institutions without challenging them. Great care was exercised, therefore, not to attack the interests of large international economic powers nor those of their natural allies, the ruling domestic interest groups. Furthermore, the so-called changes were often nothing more than new and underhanded ways of increasing the power of strong economic groups.

Developmentism thus came to be synonymous with reformism and modernization, that is to say, synonymous with timid measures, really ineffective in the long run and counterproductive in achieving a real transformation. The poor countries are becoming ever more clearly aware that their underdevelopment is only the by-product of the development of other countries, because of the kind of relationship which exists between the rich and the poor countries. Moreover, they are realizing that their own development will come out only with a struggle to break the domination of the rich countries.

This perception sees the conflict implicit in the process. Development must attack the root causes of the problems and among them the deepest economic, social, political and cultural dependence of some countries upon others – an expression of the domination of some social classes over others. Attempts to bring about changes within the existing order have proven futile. This analysis of the situation is at the level of scientific rationality. Only a radical break from the status quo, that is, a profound transformation of the private property system, access to power of the exploited classes, and a social revolution that would break this dependence would allow for the change to a new society, a socialist society – or at least allow that such a society might be possible.¹⁷

In this light, to speak about the process of liberation begins to appear more appropriate and richer in human content. Liberation in fact expresses the inescapable moment of radical change which is foreign to the ordinary use of the term development. Only in the context of such a process can a policy of development be effectively implemented, have any real meaning, and avoid misleading formulations.

*   *   *

SUMMARIZING..., we can distinguish three reciprocally interpenetrating levels of meaning of the term liberation, or in other words, three approaches to the process of liberation.

In the first place, liberation expresses the aspirations of oppressed peoples and social classes, emphasizing the conflictual aspect of the economic, social and political process which puts them at odds with wealthy nations and oppressive classes.  In contrast, the word development, and above all the policies characterized as developmentalist [desarrollista], appear somewhat septic, giving a false picture of a tragic and conflictual reality.  The issue of development does in fact find its true place in the more universal, profound, and radical perspective of liberation.  It is only within this framework that development finds its true meaning and possibilities of accomplishing something worthwhile.

At a deeper level, liberation can be applied to an understanding of history.  Man is seen as assuming conscious responsibility for his own destiny.  This understanding provides a dynamic context and broadens the horizons of the desired social changes.  In this perspective the unfolding of all of man's dimensions is demanded -- a man who makes himself throughout his life and throughout history.  The gradual conquest of true freedom leads to the creation of a new man and a qualitatively different society.  This vision provides, therefore,  better understanding of what is in fact at stake in our times.

Finally, the word development to a certain extent limits and obscures the theological problems implied in the process designated by this term.⁵²  On the contrary the word liberation allows for another approach leading to the sources which inspire the presence and action of man in history.  In the Bible, Christ is the one who brings us liberation.  Christ the Savior liberates man from Sin, which is the ultimate root of all disruption of friendship and of all injustice and oppression. Christ makes man truly free, that is to say, he enables man to live in communion with him; and this is the basis of all human brotherhood.

This is not a matter of three parallel or chronologically successive processes, however.  There are three levels of meaning of a single, complex process, which finds its deepest sense and its full realization in the saving work of Christ.  These levels of meaning, therefore, are interdependent.  A comprehensive view of the matter presupposes that all that all three aspects can be considered together.  In this way two pitfalls will be avoided: first, idealist or spiritualist approaches, which are nothing but ways of evading a harsh and demanding reality, and second, shallow analyses and programs of short-term effect initiated under the pretext of meeting immediate needs.⁵³

__________

NOTES:

¹See Thomas Suavet, "Développement," in Dictionnaire économique at social, 2nd ed. (Paris: Économie et Humanisme, Les Éditiones Ouvières, 1962). For L.J. Lebret, "the idea of development originates in 1945" (Dynamique concrète du développement [Paris: Les Éditiones Ouvières, 1967], but he does not indicate the source of this information. See also thesystematic study of Jacques Freyssinet, Le concept du sousdéveloppement (Paris:  Mouton, 1966).

²See Theorie der Wirtschaflichen Entwicklung (Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot, Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle, trans. Redvers Opie (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934).

³Theorie de l'évolution économique [French translation] (Paris: Dalloz, 1935).

⁴Theorie del desenvolvimiento económico [Spansh translation]  (Mexico, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1944).

⁵The Conditions of Economic Progress (London: Macmillan and Co., 1940),

⁶See in this recard Odette Guitard, Bandoeng et el réveil  des ansiens peuples colonisés (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961).

⁷"The world development has not been in use long enough for its meaning to have become absolutely determined" (Suavet, "Développement").

⁸Among them is a work which due to special circumstances and carefully planned methods of distribution became widely known in the underdeveloped countries: Walt W. Rostow's The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1960).

⁹"Development is a total social process, and not only for methodological convenience or in a partial sense can one speak of economic, political, cultural and social development." (Helio Jaguaribe. Economic & Political Development: A Theoretical Approach & a Brazilian Case Study [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968], p. 4).  See also Giorgio Ceriani Sebregondi, Sullo sviluppo delia società  italiana (Turin: Boringhieri, 1965); Raymond Barre, Le Développement économique: Analyse et politique (Paris: Cahiers de l'Institute de Science Économique Apliquée, 1958).

¹⁰See Chapter 6.  ("The Process of Liberation in Latin America")

¹¹"La notion de développement," in L'économie de XXe siècle, 2nd ed., enl., (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), pp. 155 and 171.  Perroux had already addressed himself to this perspective in "From the Avarice of Nations to an Economy for Mankind," Cross Currents 3, no. 3 (Spring 1953): 193-207.  "Development for us," writes Lebret, "is the object itself of human economics....This is the discipline of the transition...from a less human to a more human condition as fast and as cheaply as possible, bearing in mind the solidarity among the sub-populations and populations..." (Dynamique concrète, p. 28).  The same idea is expressed in another definition of development by the same author: "To have more in order to be more"  As is well known, both these expressions were used in the encyclical Populorum Progressio.  See also Luis Velaochage, Concepción integral del desarrollo,  pamphlet (Lima: Universidad Católica, 1967).

¹²See the themes of the "new man" and the "whole man" of communist society.  In it, according to an early text of Karl Marx, man will be defined not by what he has but by what he is: "...The positive transcendence of private property ...should not be conceived merely in the sense of immediate, one-sided gratification -- merely in the sense of possession, of having. Man appropriates his total essence in a total manner, that is to say, as a whole man" (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, ed. Dirk J. Struik, trans. Martin Millign [New York: International Publishers, 1964], p. 138; the finalitalics are ours.)  See also Garaudy, Perspectives,  pp. 347-51; Henri Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism, trans. John Sturrock (London: Jonathan Cape, 1968), pp. 148-66; Karel Kosik, Dialectica de lo concerto (Mexico, D.F.: Grijalbo, 1963), translated from the Czech, especially pp. 235-69.

¹³An example of this inevitable progression to a wider context is the following paragraph of Vincent Cosmao: "We are therefore led beyond the integration of social development with economic development, or in other words of the non -economic factors with economic development, to a vision of history in which mankind collectively takes hold of its collective destiny, humanizing it for the benefit of the whole man and of all men" ("Les exigences du développement au service de l'ho  e," Parole et Mission 10, no. 39 [October 15, 1967]: 581).

¹⁴See the antholology Del desarrollo al desarrollismo (Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1969), especially the article by Juan Pablo Franco, "Relexiones criticas en torno as desarrollismo."

¹⁵See Chapter 6.

¹⁶As regards Latin America, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD), the Alliance for Progress, and on another level the EconomicCommission for Latin America (ECLA), especially in the first period.

¹⁷Related articles of this problems they apply specifically to Latin America, are dealt with in Chapter 6.

⁵²See Laurentin, Liberation, Development, and Salvation, p. 63 and also p. 39.

⁵³An old comparison unexpectedly presented by St. Augustine of Hippo in his own inimitable style is related to the intimate relationship of the different levels of meaning of the of the term liberation: the soul under the control of the sin, he says, resembles a country subdued by the enemy.  See his commentary on Psalm 9, no. 8, quoted by Congar in Christianisme et liberation de l'homme," Masses Ouvrières  (Paris), no. 258, (December 1969), p. 3.

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