Introduction

Open and Closed
"How can we interpret the meaning of the terms "open" and "closed", especially if they pertain to a person or a society? ... Antonyms like these have often been expressed in symbols, ... such as the Uroboros which, biting into its own tail, symbolizes the dual presence of the creative force and the demon of destruction, ... epitomizing the cohesive force that lies between antonyms."

Symbol

Window - Gate
"Open to light and air the window symbolizes a readiness for acceptance. If the window is round acceptance is that of the eyes and the conscience, while if it is square it pertains to the worldly acceptance of divine goods." "The gate or door symbolizes the passage between two conditions or worlds, between the known and unknown, light and dark, affluence and poverty. The gate is the opening which makes this passage from one area to another, in its symbolic interpretation most often the passage between profanity and sacredness, possible." (Source: Dictionnaire des Symboles /Dictionary of Symbols/ by Jean Chevalier-Alain Gheerbrant. Paris, 1973-74.)

Society and Openness

Jenő Király: World Society Assigned to the Mental Hospital, or: Global Paranoia in the Garden of Pleasures
We have crossed the century of hatred to arrive to the garden of pleasures. So who feels good? Who has no anxieties? The beginning of the century is steeped in blood, while the end is righteously cynical, burned out and has no outlook. The common denominator of both is hatred.

Lajos Eff: Open Questions on an Open Society. Pieces of a Social Puzzle
"What's important is that the coexistence of small or large communities of individuals in which the self-definition of both individual and group identity is a natural, general right of freedom intending to prevent all other damages to the identity, develops in a non-violent way and makes use of comparative social advantages." ... "The concept of an open society is therefore both minority- friendly and majority-democrat."

Katalin Ferber: Rationality and Reality. The Nature of Japanese Beurocratic Direction According to the Japanese diagnosis modernization is a direct result of the national identity's unique institutionalized process of self-defense. On page 39: book review of W. D. O'Flaherty's "Other People's Myths The Cave of Echoes".

Dániel Antal - Vagyim Kemény - Orsolya Németh - Balázs Sonnevend: The Way Out.
Four students of the Budapest University of Economics wrote a sociological study on one of the unique phenomenon's of consumer society entitled "Amway". Here we publish excerpts of this study which won the Scientific Students' Circle first prize in 1996.

József Zelnik: 77 Questions on the Possibilities and Impossibilities of Hungarian Culture
A selection of questions and thoughts written for the Hungarian Cultural Association on the relationship between culture and politics, culture and economics, culture and foreign policy, culture and society, culture and philosophy, education, culture and the mass media, culture and identity, and culture and the ecology.

Richard E. Sclove: The Democratization of Technology
Not only does technology produce profits for the consumer; it is a part of society's political infrastructure.

Gyula (S) Sipos: Finding the "No Gate"
"The Gate is open, and I can only be open within it. Everything else closes me in." The author introduces how humanity searched for intellectual self-definition in the world of "being open", how it was found, and how it was lost. Today openness means being open to conflicting opinions and new concepts, and tolerant towards different ideas. Compared to its one-time original meaning of an individual, or state of, being open to completeness and incorporating completeness, this meaning is but partial. On page 77: book review of David Vital's "The Future of the Jews. A People at the Crossroads?".

Environment and Openness

Sándor Kopátsy: Modern Man and Nature
"Science and urbanization brought about such a stormy economic change in the life of humanity, that its digestion may be one of the biggest problems of the upcoming centuries."

GAIA, the "Supercreature".
(Life on Earth from a Different Perspective) Text of the ecological television program entitled "Gaia", aired in September, 1996. Edited by László Hollós. On page 95: book review of John D Barrow's "The Artful Universe".

Capra Fritjof: Web of Life
Capra Fritjof's new book, "Web of Life", was published by HarperCollins in October, 1996. This article is the Hungarian translation of the author's own review of his book which originally appeared in the journal Resurgence, 1996, vol. 178.

Open Economy

Gabriella Józsa: Overture of the Turn of the Millennium? or Will We Somehow "Communicate Into" the Developed World?
"Economic indicators unanimously show that we are in the vestibule of a social organizational era principled by communication, in which information science and electronics reigns." ... "Maybe we'll have a generation worth's time in the society of information presently under development to make up for our century of disadvantage compared to the developed regions of the world."

At Last!
The Fourth World Review, journal of the alternative world, published a special edition on globalization and the International Forum on Globalization. Here we publish excerpts from articles published in this special edition.

József Kindler: The Economic Disease
"...We are living in the age of economy and suffering from the illness it inflicts. Those who wish to terminate the symptoms of this illness are one and the same with those, who are the virulent maintainers and propagators of the disease's survival - the neoliberal economists." On page 124: book review of David C. Korten's "The World Reign of Capitalist Society".

Ways and Ways Out

Thomas Hardling: The Press Campaign Of "A SEED"
(A SEED = Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment & Development) "Our long term goal is to form a network of activists throughout Europe who are able to help others get into mass communication."

Attila Ertsey: Autonomous House
The Autonomous House, a completely self-sufficient house for living in, was introduced at the Nature Expo in the summer of 1996. "The technologies used in the house can be used for building family homes, self-sufficient institutions, and even self-supporting communities."

Miklós Okrutay: A Hundred Haylofts
Notes, descriptions and diary excerpts from a survey of peasant houses, haylofts and other farm buildings in the village of Vállaj. On page 141: book review of Klára Fogarasi ed.: "The Old Times in the Village. Photographs of the Decades Following the Turn of the Century."

The Scenes of Our Lives

Zen-View
How can we assure the best view? The solution lies not in the rooms and windows of a building, but in the transitory spaces.

Masters and Workshops

László Hollós: Red
Interview with Lajos György, a leading figure of the Hungarian ecological movement.

A Decade of Reflex
László Hollós's interview with András Lányi on the Reflex Environmentalist Association celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.

EcoLibrary

The article includes book reviews on a selection of books from the library's material. The library of the Cultural Innovation Foundation, founded in 1985, collects literature mainly dealing with ecology and its effects on culture, the economy and society, but works on alternative energy utilization, environmental education handbooks, and books on bio-agriculture and alternative lifestyles can be found as well. A third of the library's material is in a foreign language, mainly English and German. The complete stock of the library can be found on a Micro ISIS base computer database. Videotapes can be viewed on the premises or borrowed for educational purposes. Books and other documents can be read in the library or photocopied upon request.

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