Mending the World

by Kenneth E. Boulding

Overview

Mending the World comes out of two major strands in Kenneth Boulding�s busy life; a deep commitment to the teaching and example of Jesus, especially as exemplified in the Society of Friends, and deep commitment also to the ethic and methods of the scientific community, especially as applied to The World as a Total System and to Human Betterment (the titles of his two latest books). The constant interweaving of these two strands has produced a certain amount of Creative Tension (the title of the biography of Kenneth Boulding published by Cynthia Kerman). How do we combine the commitment to the will to do, and be, good, which is the core of the spiritual life, with the knowledge of how to do good, which requires constant study and learning about the nature of the real world by all the methods by which knowledge is advanced? The reader will not end up with any simple answers. But if the reader ends up with creative tension, the pamphlet will not have been in vain.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149179503
Publisher:	Pendle Hill Publications
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Series:	Pendle Hill Pamphlets , #266
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	30
File size:	91 KB

About the Author

Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993) was born in Liverpool, England. Raised a Methodist, he was attracted to the Society of Friends first by the peace testimony, then by the Meeting for Worship, and joined Friends when an undergraduate at Oxford. Starting as a chemist, he became an economist, came to America as a graduate student to the University of Chicago in 1932, and emigrated in 1937. He has taught in many universities, has published about 35 books, has been president of the American Economic Association, the International Studies Association, the Society for General Systems Research, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is known as a Quaker poet through the Nayler Sonnets (There Is a Spirit) and Sonnets From the Interior Life. He married Elise Biorn-Hansen in 1941; they have five children and thirteen grandchildren, and have both been active from the beginning in the peace research movement, and in many Friends meetings and organizations.

Mending the World comes out of two major strands in Kenneth Boulding�s busy life; a deep commitment to the teaching and example of Jesus, especially as exemplified in the Society of Friends, and deep commitment also to the ethic and methods of the scientific community, especially as applied to The World as a Total System and to Human Betterment (the titles of his two latest books). The constant interweaving of these two strands has produced a certain amount of Creative Tension (the title of the biography of Kenneth Boulding published by Cynthia Kerman). How do we combine the commitment to the will to do, and be, good, which is the core of the spiritual life, with the knowledge of how to do good, which requires constant study and learning about the nature of the real world by all the methods by which knowledge is advanced? The reader will not end up with any simple answers. But if the reader ends up with creative tension, the pamphlet will not have been in vain.