The Changing Shapes of Lives

 Mary Catherine Bateson, October 30, 2008

4:30pm - McConomy Auditorium, UC 

Just as an extended childhood made possible the human pattern of learning and transmitted knowledge and tradition, extended longevity suggests profound changes for our species.

Some of these changes can be recognized in the study of individual lives that are often longer and more diverse than in the past and that depend on continuing learning.

We will need to rethink education from the earliest years and to restructure the relations between generations.  At the same time, we need to think differently about time, to prepare for surprises, and to fashion a new rhetoric of hope and responsibility.

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