Howard T. Odum - General Systems Theory

General Systems Theory

Odum has been described as a "technocratic optimist". His approach was significantly influenced by his father who was also an advocate of viewing the social world through the various lenses of physical science. Within the processes on earth, H.T.Odum (1989) viewed humans as playing a central role: He said that the "human is the biosphere's programmatic and pragmatic information processor for maximum performance".

Read more about this topic:  Howard T. Odum

Famous quotes containing the words general, systems and/or theory:

    There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air- conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.
    Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)

    A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.
    Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)