Description

Preface to ‘The World Today’

In December 1993, the center for interdisciplinary research in the Sciences and Humanities of the National University of Mexico organized a seminar entitled “The World Today: Situation and Alternatives.” Its task was to examine the central concerns and problems facing humanity in the final stage of the 20th century, beginning with the certainty that as the “world order” that arose out of World War II disintegrates and we enter a new phase, which is barely taking shape, the irrational paradoxes and tendencies of the modern era require analysis and discovery of a “new Reason.” With the goal of inviting diagnosis, and as far as possible, explanations and prognoses as a basis for proposing alternatives to the current global, regional, and national junctures in a period of crisis and transition like the present, the participants contributing to this volume were encouraged to provide the most powerful explanations available to the social sciences. Our goal was not only to describe the “world situation,” but also to identify and evaluate options and obstacles to the establishment of a humanist agenda for the 21st century.

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 23, Nos. 1-2 (1996): 1-4