15. How To Perpetuate Confl Icts

The nature of the true, the good, and the beautiful have been of continued interest to reflective thought at least since the birth of dialectical reasoning in ancient Greece. This chapter examines the role that the experience and idea of time have played in the creation, maintenance, and revision of values. The framework for the inquiry is the hierarchical theory of time. The need for human values is seen as arising from the necessity to control the unbounded imaginative powers of the mind. The purpose of the chapter is to defend the thesis that the role of human values in the development of civilizations has not been one of leveling. On the contrary, human values have helped generate and keep alive those unresolvable conflicts of the mind and of society which have been responsible for the stunning creativity and frightening destructiveness of the species.Keywords: ancient Greece; civilizations; hierarchical theory of time; human values; unresolvable creative conflicts