The exploration of the nature of an appropriate answer must take into account a most important phenomenon. That is that few groups, projects, or schools of thought have difficulty in discovering and promulgating an answer. The difficulty for society as a whole arises from the conflictual relationship between such answers, or their denial of each other as irrelevant, out-of-date, erroneous, or unworthy of consideration. In the words of Jacques Attali (Special adviser to Francois Mitterrand) concerning remedial ideas about the current crisis:

The many initiatives in response to the global problematique are in most cases stimulated by a need to determine guidelines for action. The question to which an answer is sought at all levels is some variant of "what can be usefully done?"

The answers to this question have taken a range of well-known forms which include the following:

Many "answers" have been produced in response to the current crisis. This paper is a response to the mind-set which is focused on answer production but fails to recognise the significance of the continuing emergence of alternative answers.

Prepared (1982) for United Nations University: GPID Project (Integrative Working Group B) Colombo, 25 July - 4 August 1982. An alternative version was distributed as Developing through Complexity using Policy Alternation (1982).

Sections of this Article (accessed via the links on the right)

Contents of this section are in a separate article entitled Development Through Alternation.

Many "answers" have been produced in response to the current crisis, however it is perceived. In the first paper, on Development through Alternation it is argued that it is this focus on "answer production" which itself obscures both the significance of the lack of fruitful integration between existing answers and the manner in which such answers undermine each other's significance. This mind-set also fails to recognize the positive significance of the continuing disruptive emergence of new "alternative" answers.

Collection of papers arising from work in connection with the Goals, Processes and Indicators of Development (GPID) project of the United Nations University (UNU). Published under that title by the Union of International Associations (Brussels, 1984). Aspects of the points discussed in this volume are treated in the other four volumes of papers in the series: Patterns of Conceptual Integration (1984), Forms of Presentation and the Future of Comprehension (1984), From Networking to Tensegrity Organization (1984), and Transformative Conferencing (1984).

Collection of papers arising from work in connection with the Goals, Processes and Indicators of Development (GPID) project of the United Nations University (UNU). Published under that title by the Union of International Associations (Brussels, 1984). Aspects of the points discussed in this volume are treated in the other four volumes of papers in the series: Patterns of Conceptual Integration (1984), Forms of Presentation and the Future of Comprehension (1984), From Networking to Tensegrity Organization (1984), and Transformative Conferencing (1984).