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In this ambitious book Roderic Gorney attempts to outline the evolution and the future of human development, correlating his ideas with those of Darwin, Marx, Freud, Lorenz, and McLuhan. His thesis is that coöperation, not competition, is the central law of life. Gorney asserts that man's creation of value systems is a specifically human invention for survival. That which works to help man survive becomes a 'value' and is gradually integrated into complex adaptations called value systems. Value systems then develop momentum of their own and either enhance or impair our ability to adapt to new conditions.
The Human Agenda is an exploration of the evolution of human values which are seen as man's special tool for adaptation and survival. Early man sought safety by magic revelation and to this day human beings continue to be weighted down by resultant dogma about such things as war, economic systems, and life after death. The next step on the agenda, according to Gorney, is to learn to live with uncertainty rather than try to escape from it into dogma. Humanity is now in the midst of its most momentous evolutionary leap into the era of possible universal abundance. For the first time in human history love, work, and play could be made to shift from their social function in the service of adaptive survival to the crucial psychological function of promoting optimum growth of human potentials. The hopeful tone of Gorney's book is summarized by its opening statement: 'This is the most marvelous moment of man in which to be alive'.
Because man has come far in his agenda within the past few generations, we should have confidence in the future. During the transition from brutish past to beautiful future, however, modern