TY  - JOUR
T1  - The Original Nature of Contemporary Society: Three Diagrams on Social Transformation to Sustainability
AU  - Kalton, Michael C. 
JO  - Academia Koreana
PY  - 2010
DA  - 2010/1/1
DO  - 10.18399/acta.2010.13.2.003
KW  - Capitalism
KW  - China
KW  - Co-evolution
KW  - Confucianism
KW  - Dynamics
KW  - Environment
KW  - Individualism
KW  - Nature
KW  - Neo-Confucianism
KW  - Organization
KW  - Pragmatism
KW  - Self-cultivation
KW  - Supreme
KW  - Ultimate
KW  - Sustainability
KW  - Systems
KW  - Technology
KW  - United States
KW  - Values
KW  - Western
AB  - This article investigates two levels of society. The first is the contemporary, contingent, de facto condition of society, as evident especially in the American version of free-market capitalism. The second is a deeper structural condition that is both real (because that is the nature of the structure) and unreal because the contingent state of reality may reflect it poorly. This two-fold approach is inspired by the Neo-Confucian handling of this systemic tension between contingent conditions and deep structure in terms of a “physical nature,” and an “original nature.” I find the model a rich source of insight for considering virtually any level of living systems, including the entire social-environmental system. Thus I frame this paper as an inquiry into the Original Nature of Contemporary Society. In the end my objective is similar to the heritage of thought surrounding the “original nature”: to clarify what is distorted and the sources of the distortion, and to consider strategies of rectification. In contemporary terms, this is a Neo-Confucian reflection on the systemic tensions at the core of the contemporary sustainability crisis and on directions towards their remedy.