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If the 20th Century was the century of physics, the 21st Century is the century of cybernetics, biology and ecology. Technological advance has both crossed new frontiers and discovered old limits.Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine broke new ground with his understanding that nature, including its human component, seeks to establish order out of chaos by "self‐organizing," not only according to pre‐determined laws, but through random creative choices as well that are responsible for the endless novelty and potentiality of being.The technologically‐armed purposive role of humans in the Anthropocentric Age thus takes on a new significance: "What we do today depends on our image of the future rather than the future depending on what we do today" as Prigogine puts it. "The equations of the future are written in our actions as well as in nature. Time becomes construction."Nowhere is this truer than in the new science of genomics, which touches the soul, and in the effort to preserve the ecological balance that has enabled humanity to flourish within the narrow band of earth's livable climate.In this section we bring together leading thinkers, scientists and technologists of our age to address these issues of mankind's fate.

Rudolf Bahro Once a loyal supporter of the East German Communist Party, Rudolf Bahro was arrested in 1977 after the publication of his book, The Alternative in Eastern Europe, in which he called for a Gorbachev-style perestroika a decade too early. Released from prison in 1979 as a result of public- opinion pressure in the West, Bahro emigrated to West Germany where he became a founding theorist of the Green Party. His most recent book is entitled The Logic of Salvation. NPQ Editor Nathan Gardels recently spoke with Bahro in the Eifel Mountain hamlet of Niederstadtfeldt where Bahro now makes his home.

In diesem Beitrag entwickelt der Autor zehn Thesen über die Richtung der sozialen Alternative. Ausgangspunkt für die Notwendigkeit der Entwicklung einer Alternative sieht er nicht darin, daß das bestehende System schlecht funktioniert, sondern darin, daß es funktioniert. Die Alternative sieht er in der Lebensweise einer Kommune, die er als soziale Grundform für eine neue, haushälterische Lebensweise begreift. Ihr Zweck soll nicht die Produktion von Existenzmitteln sein, sondern die Reproduktion der kommunitären Gemeinschaft. Die wirtschaftliche Effizienz wird dabei nicht verneint, aber den ökologischen Erfordernissen und vor allem der Entwicklung der sozialen Beziehungen und der Selbstentfaltung und -veränderung der Individuen untergeordnet. Die eigentliche Alternative, die die Kommune dem industriellen System entgegensetzen soll, ist nicht wirtschaftlicher, sondern kultureller Natur. Es geht dem Autor um ein für das moderne Europa neues und auch dem mittelalterlich-christlichen Europa gegenüber modifiziertes Wertsystem. (GF)