Table of Contents

PREFACE 8 INTRODUCTION 10 PART I: THE ELEMENTS Chapter I: The Rational Context 15 Chapter II: The Origins 17 Chapter III: Humans 22 Chapter IV: We 31 Chapter V: Ourselves 34 Chapter VI: Ourselves and our circumstances 39 Chapter VII: The human world 45 Chapter VIII: Our individual world 49 Chapter IX: Staying alert 54 Chapter X: The fearsome society 61 PART II: SEARCHING FOR ORIENTING CUES Chapter I: The system we are in 71 Chapter II: The laws of nature 77 Chapter III: A few more things about natural systems 81 Chapter IV: The human cycles 87 Chapter V: Social cycles 90 Chapter VI: The meaning of ecological and social cycles 94 Chapter VII: Social cycles considered as natural cycles 99 Chapter VIII: The multiple cultural realities 104 PART III: LOOKING AHEAD Chapter I: The need for a global view 111 Chapter II: Learning 119 Chapter III: Progressing 124 Chapter IV: The structural and functional basis of natural systems 128 Chapter V: Searching for further guiding cues 134 Chapter VI: Human minds at work 137 Chapter VII: The important things 141 PART IV: FOCUSING THE WAY FORWARD Chapter I: The silent "voice' of our mother 147 Chapter II: Cultures 149 SUMMING-UP 154 CONCLUSIONS 158 REFERENCES 160 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 166

About the Author

Jorge Domingo Savio is a lucky person. He was born among aboriginals, creoles, and various sorts of poor, mostly uneducated, European immigrants in Reduccion, a small town built on the remains of an ancient Jesuit mission in the Argentinian pampas. His immigrant Italian family had ended up there after becoming bankrupt and having no option but to descend to the bottom of the social scale. Reduccion was home to a large number of underprivileged individuals and was considered by the people around as 'the arse of the world'. Despite being rather blond at that time, when he was child, Jorge wished he was black, or dark skinned, like most of his friends. Jorge's mother, Emma, never had the chance to go to school; his dad, Domenico,had to stop in second grade to start working for food. Yet, despite being desperately poor, forgotten, and underprivileged, Reduccion, indeed, was an extremely rich environment from a human point of view. The school was very basic; that was a fact. Indeed, more than a place for learning it was a place for making 'official' illiteracy unjustifiable. Nevertheless, it allowed a lot of time for wandering, looking around, and playing almost all day. But, lucky as he always was, Jorge was also luckily 'chosen' by the priest of the town, Monsignor Lino Verri, who was a professor of Philosophy and History at a nearby Catholic Seminary, who helped and guided him as much as he could. Thereafter, Jorge continued being very lucky. He graduated as a Veterinarian, did his Ph.D at UCD, in Dublin, Ireland, and his Post-Doc at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, Florida, USA. He also spent two years in Brookline (Boston), where his wife, Maria Rosa, was working at the Harvard School of Public Health, as Statistician, before moving to Brussels. In Boston he took full advantage not only of the extremely stimulating intellectual environment, but also the multiple opportunities that the large array of schools operating in the area provides. Now, he works at the European Commission, which is the executive branch of the fascinating cultural project that is the European Union.