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This paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist.

This paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos.

Status quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible.

Some current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue.

The purpose of this paper is to re‐examine the views of Freud in his Civilization and its Discontents and compare his idea of civilization with that of other scholars in order to determine if we will ever be able to create a society which will endure in these days of nuclear power. The dangers to humanity are great, the solution difficult to see. Freud emphasized self‐interest and aggressiveness as the failings in man which would lead to the collapse of civilization, summed up in the Latin tag: homo homine lupus. Freud rejected out of hand religion as a remedy for man’s aggressiveness. This view of civilization is compared with that of Albert Schweitzer in his The Philosophy of Civilization. Schweitzer sees the enduring society as one in which man has become ethical and thereby dedicated himself to the good of society and in so doing shows a reverence for life. This study then examines the view of Ortega y Gasset, who finds in The Revolt of the Masses the success of society to lie in the efforts of men of talent, select men who have dedicated themselves to the advancement of society in accordance with the old adage, noblesse oblige. Finally we examine the Civilisation of Kenneth Clark, which is concerned with man’s development in the arts as he removes himself farther and farther from the state of the savage. The views of Arnold Toynbee on civilization are examined. Toynbee finds that our civilization, Western Christendom, will play an ever decreasing role in the global society. Toynbee also fears the coming of a nuclear holocaust but is confident there will be survivors. The possibility of a nuclear war attests the aggressiveness of man. Finally, to illustrate the evil effects of nuclear power, a brief glance is taken at the horrors that overtook the citizens of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they were the targets of the atomic bomb in 1945. The only feasible solution to this grave problem appears to be a nuclear‐weapon‐free world. Even then the world is not safe from the aggressive nature of some rogue nation which seeks to take advantage of such a situation and dominate the world. This contingency is commonly referred to as the genie is out of the bottle. The number of genies increased when North Korea, India and Pakistan claimed the addition of nuclear weapons to their arsenal. Man has to control his fellow man’s urge to advance his self‐interest at any cost, if we are to endure. As Freud in his perspicacity put it: homo homine lupus.

This paper aims to expand on the findings of the SOPIFF project by identifying eight futures schools of thought, and then analyze and critique these through the integral futures (IF) framework. This paper, Part I, also aims to focus on the upper quadrants of the IF framework.

The paper adapts Wilber's integral theory to clarify various philosophical orientations towards the future. It also adapts Polak's approach to futures as a matter of “social critique and reconstruction”; however, here the approach is global, civilizational, and integral, so it proposes civilizational critique and integral reconstruction as a method for evaluating futures schools of thought.

The IF framework has proved to be a valuable theoretical and analytical tool since it clarifies not only orientations to the future but also demonstrates the dynamic lines of development and interactions throughout all four quadrants, illustrating how the four‐quadrant approach is an effective framework for understanding the crisis of civilization and the response needed at this time in history to bring about a preferred future.

The paper draws and expands upon the findings of the SOPIFF project as a way to better understand the “global problematique.” Thus, this paper suggests some implications of that research and proposes the integral futures framework as a way to interpret research findings. Future research should attempt to develop and apply the IF framework similarly in order to realize a sustainable, integrally‐informed image of the future of human civilization.

An integrally‐informed approach to futures and foresight studies should help develop and improve futures methodology/practices in general. The IF framework helps to understand philosophical orientations underlying practices and applications.

This application of the IF framework to various mainstream futures schools of thought is original. It should help futurists to see and interpret the bigger picture regarding images of the future in a civilizational context by revealing the “crack” in the modern image of the future, how it relates to the current world crisis, and what is needed to heal the crack so that a new, more integrally‐informed, sustainable image of the future can emerge.

International conflicts and violence are similar in nature to domestic conflicts and violence which are also similar to those taking place between individuals. Only difference between them is that of magnitude that increases as one moves from individual to societal national level and finally to international level of conflicts. The fundamental question at issue here is that of self‐interest with respect to social and political authority and economic power. The conflicts become most intense and violence gets widest and most cruel at the international level. There are two broad methods in dealing with this problem – use of force to coerce and subjugate or application of the power of persuasion to win the hearts and minds of the people. The former is the conventional secular materialistic method but often used invoking the name of religion and the latter is that of true spiritual humanistic practices and applications in preserving and promoting the cause of all of humanity.While the first does not require the system to be fair and just, the latter predicates them. The foundation of the first is “us” vs. “them” as it divides humanity into many nation states, but that of the second is “us” vs. “us” since it recognizes and practices universality of humanity. More importantly, the former grants unfettered authority to the leaders of the society in the form of sovereignty of the “nation state”, the latter subjugates the authority of the leaders to that of a higher supreme Authority.

Liberal education should consist of a healthy dynamic of mastering and transcending received traditions. This paper aims to discuss this point.

This article discusses the inherent tension between the concepts of “liberal” and “education,” where “education” involves imparting conventional knowledge and “liberal” involves freeing the mind from it.

With the rise of the social sciences and the maturation of the baby-boomers, higher education in the twentieth century gained a general bias against traditional knowledge. This bias is reflected in higher education becoming more jobs oriented, more ideological, and relativistic in values.

Higher education should consist of greater integration of historical aspects of education pushed aside in the twentieth-century while continuing its transformation through new scientific research, making twenty-first century education more genuinely liberal.

The required transformation will be difficult for many baby-boomers now in positions of authority in higher education who rejected conventional knowledge in the 1960s.

The fast depletion of natural resources that has resulted in the scarcity of resources and degradation of environment and the subsequent conflict over resources within and among the states have given rise to a growing concern for environmental security all over the world. It may be pointed out here that since the beginning of human civilization, humans have been relying on the environment for their needs and demands. Therefore, the concern of human beings to the environment has been always and obvious. But now with the depletion of natural resources, the concern for environmental security is being advocated. The purpose of this paper is to analyze environmental issues in the context of South Asia. It may also be added here that in a situation as stated above, any stress on the environment can cause conflicts involving violence within the state as well as between the nation states. Moreover, this paper will look into other issues related to the environment degradation in India and Bangladesh.

The first approach confines environment to the nature and the problems and constraints related to it. It can be termed as ecological approach. This approach is too narrow in its scope, as nature alone is not responsible for many types of hazards. How it is being exploited and protected is equally important. The other approach has been termed as the maximize approach and it includes both the ecology and its human domains. This approach takes into consideration the interaction between the two. It believes that the excessive dependence of human beings affects the environment. Also, the depletion and degradation of the environment affect human beings. The environmental security has to include both the domains and understand their inter-linkages. In fact, the uses of environment and its proper maintenance are related to the human domains.

The environment-related problems and their implications are more similar in both countries. It is true that there is a growing awareness on environmental issues in almost all the countries in the last few years and the individual countries have persuaded environment-friendly policies in certain sectors. Apart from this regional level, a common approach to securing the environment may involve the following aspects: sharing of knowledge and expertise regarding population control measures, policies and programs; cooperation for development and poverty eradication; regularization of inter-state migrations, evolving a regional framework for controlling, repatriation and rehabilitation of refugees; establishment of a system of disaster management and disaster preparedness at the regional level; exchange of knowledge and research works on seismic tremors, earthquakes, and landslides, their causes and possibilities; evolving common flood control measures and development of a regional flood warning system; common measures can be taken up for increased agriculture productivity, treatment of salinity, development of cyclone warning system, reforestation, development of water resources, air pollution control system, etc.

This research will not only be useful for India and Bangladesh but also for other South Asian countries and developing countries as well.

The purpose of this paper is to bring the concept of a “hierarchy of action”, as it is currently being used in other fields, into library and information science (LIS).

Hierarchy theory is adopted to describe three hierarchies of action, which include the human processes of semantic and social innovation, as well as a system of biological interpretence, from which human processes are thought to have evolved as a development of biosemiosis in nature. By way of example, it is argued that a text is a complex achievement, and hierarchy theory shows how to account for this complexity; the everyday definition of “text” is augmented with accounts from different levels of observation.

The concept of a hierarchy of action enables a person to account for a text as a meaning/symbolic product; include in that account the processes whereby texts are produced and used; and say why these processes are important to the health of the biosphere that is called home.

“Hierarchy of action” has been developed as a concept in biology and ecology; it belongs to a way of thinking whereby human reality, like nature, is construed as dynamical processes operating in symbiotic relationship with each other; it has not yet been adopted in LIS with reference to hierarchy theory and its potential is yet to be explored.