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    Restoring the Place of Imagination in Education: How to escape the trap of rationality-based realism
    Reuter, T (Index Copernicus, 2022-06-30)
    Henri Corbin accorded the imagination its own unique and important noetic or cognitive function, giving us access to an ontological sphere that without imagination remains closed and forbidden to us. Meanwhile, for rationalist science philosophy, as Corbin notes, the imagination has long been understood as nothing but the unreal, the mythic, the marvellous, the fictive and fanciful. In this paper I argue that rationalist modernism, along with mass education in keeping with this modernist ‘spirit of the times’ has led to a collective imprisonment within the real, the concrete, and robbed us of the capacity to reflect and transform ourselves and our relationship to the world. This state of affairs will ensure humanity’s rapid demise given the challenges we now face, that is, unless we can reinstate the faculty of imagination within scientific epistemology and in education, and thus escape our entrapment.
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    Aktualne ulohy akademii a Akademie
    Reuter, T ; Momir, D ; Engelbrecht, J (Intercedu, 2022)
    The present article is written as an issue paper on academies for the GL-211 Project. It traces activities of academies and their associations in the present information-rich society. The state-of-the-art of the academic world is briefly described. This permits to focus on general trends in knowledge management in general and the role of academies. The successful strategies and interdependencies form the framework of activities, where one should also understand the possible obstacles. The impact of these activities together with ideas for more social responsibility and cooperation are examined. The unique position of World Academy of Arts and Sciences in organising a network for social progress is underlined.
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    Civil Society and Youth Leadership for Transformation
    Reuter, T ; Marien, M ; Harries, D (Risk Institute, Trieste- Geneva, 2020)
    This discussion paper looks at the current historical momentum and potential future development of civil society and youth leadership for a systemic transformation to a sustainable new civilization. It identifies emerging challenges, obstacles, and some of the innovative new leadership strategies that have been developed to overcome them. Civil society is central in the process of transformation in a dual sense: As the target of transformation — it is civil society at large together with governments and the private sector that must shift to sustainable practices in our daily lives, — and as an instigator of change—individuals, informal networks or organized groups of citizens specifically dedicated to promoting this transformation. This boundary between recipients and agents in society is fluid, as more and more people take action or join organized efforts to elicit a purposeful transformation.
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    Current Tasks of Academies and Academia
    Reuter, T ; Engelbrecht, J ; Djurovic, M (Risk Institute Trieste, 2020)
    The present article is written as an issue paper on academies for the GL-21 Project. It traces activities of academies and their associations in the present information-rich society. The state-of-the-art of the academic world is briefly described. This permits to focus on general trends in knowledge management in general and the role of academies. The successful strategies and interdependencies form the framework of activities, where one should also understand the possible obstacles. The impact of these activities together with ideas for more social responsibility and cooperation are examined. The unique position of WAAS in organizing a network for social progress is underlined.
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    Imagining a future civilization: a new utopianism founded in the here and now
    Reuter, T (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-01-01)
    Are we able to imagine and create a new civilization, a better world, in a collective act of imagination and will? Active imagination is in essence a process of reflection on possible futures that already lie dormant within the present, and a decision to pursue the most desirable option. Active imagination thus may be expected to increase the probability that a positive, chosen future will actually become manifest reality. Evidently, however, the extent of our ‘futuring’ ability is limited. We therefore need to ask, what causes these constraints and how can they be overcome? Drawing on some recent literature in the tradition of Perennial Philosophy, this paper argues that more conscious ‘futuring’ is indeed possible under certain conditions. It examines the obstacles to be overcome and the preconditions that would need to be met in order to enable us consciously to imagine and create a just and sustainable future civilization.
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    Endangered Food Systems: Agriculture, Nutrition and Cultural Heritage in Bali, Indonesia
    Reuter, TA (Universitas Islam Indonesia (Islamic University of Indonesia), 2022)
    The long-established, traditional food systems maintained by indigenous and local communities in developing countries have witnessed rapid changes in production, trade, and consumption patterns in recent decades. These changes tend to be detrimental to ecological and human health. The central highlands and northeastern coast of the island of Bali, Indonesia, are illustrative examples of such a regional food system, with centuries of documented history and subject to a longitudinal ethnographic study by the author. This paper describes the recent decline in local biodiversity, ecological sustainability, social resilience, nutrition, and food security in this food system in the wake of agricultural ‘modernization.’ Greater attention to the culturally modulated dimensions of food systems, it is argued, will contribute to creating a rural development model for (re-)creating moral economies that support ecologically and socially responsible food systems.
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    Making Sustainability Happen: The Jena Declaration
    Reuter, T (Risk Institute, 2021-11-01)
    The Jena Declaration, introduced below, argues that the SDGs cannot be achieved simply by intensifying the use of established methods and strategies. For a comprehensive transformation to sustainability a fundamental change in strategy is necessary, an approach that builds on the power of millions of citizens and local communities throughout the world and the integrative perspective of the social sciences and arts.
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    Achieving Global Justice, Security and Sustainability: Compassion as a Transformative Method
    Reuter, T (Risk Institute, 2021-11)
    This paper first examines the geopolitical trends of the post-Cold War era. The main features of this period are an escalating crisis of democratic institutions, extreme economic inequality with a concomitant lack of justice and compassion, and a rising sense of disenchantment with politics. This in turn has increased the appeal of nativist populism, especially among downwardly mobile middle classes. This crisis of political economy coincides with a severe and rapidly escalating global ecological crisis. In response, the author calls for a new paradigm of international cooperation wherein principles of justice and compassion are applied as a practical method to solve the key challenges of our times in an effective and inclusive manner, arguing that business-as-usual is not a viable alternative for survival.
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    The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Systemic Stress Test: Who is most vulnerable to food insecurity and other risks in a crisis and why?
    Reuter, T (Risk Institute, 2021-06)
    The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that in a global systemic crisis, differences in impact are not confined to immediate threat, in this case virus infection and mortality rates. Indirect impacts such as reduced affordability of food due to income loss can be and often are more severe. Economic inequality thus acts as a massive amplifier of disaster impact. Inequality literally kills disadvantaged people under crisis conditions. Already the number of people subject to severe food insecurity and poverty has risen dramatically in the wake of COVID-19 and other crises, such as climate change, are adding to this unfolding tragedy. Conversely, policy designed to lower inequality is the best preparation for any crisis, and should accompany all measures for disaster risk reduction and impact mitigation.