The Golden Relationship: Book 1, Universal Patterns by Martha Boles, Rochele Newman (review)

my formal education ended in degrees in science and engineering have now become disturbing paradoxes . Can I achieve a 'resonance' interplay in love/family, power/politics, money/economy, truth/science, religion/education? Does it lead me to a rationality of ecological communication ? Not on Luhmann's terms, and I think most readers will agree with me. The book is important to scholars and students in sociology, religion, law, science and politics. It demands an extensive background knowledge from its readers in English , because most of Luhmann's work is in German. As Luhmann concludes, "it is in ecological communication that society places itself in question, and we cannot see how ethics can dispense with this and remain available as something that can be relied on.... As long as such an ethics does not exist, ecological communication will have to respect its distance from morality. Ethics is to be understood as a reflection theory of morality." In Luhmann's thought, human beings form part of the environment, while social systems consist only of communications. Insignificant changes in any functional system can trigger an effect explosion in another. Insignificant scientific discoveries have agonizing medical results . Payments of money to a politician can become a political scandal. Pharmaceutical decisions can have economic and legal consequences. Luhmann advises us to proceed cautiously in dealing with the morality of ecological problems. Luhmann's discussions of social operation in communication, involving binary coding, criteria programs, and the functions of economy, law, science, politics and religion, are vital in understanding the functional differentiation. There are vital chapters on anxiety, morality and theory leading toward a rationality of ecological communication. "It makes sense to be guided by the Utopia ofrationality : to see whether and how individual systems can be used to provide solutions to problems that are more rational and include further environments .... It is our of ecological difference of system and environment where the rationality of a distinction arises." This is an important book, though not a book everybody should read. THE GOLDEN RELATIONSHIP: BOOK 1, UNIVERSAL PATTERNS by Martha Boles and Rochele Newman . Pythagorean Press, Bradford, MA, U.S.A., 1987.345 pp., illus. Paper, $24.95. ISBN: 0-9614504-1-X. Reviewed byLeo Narodny, The Princeton Club ofNew York, 15 w: 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036, U.S.A. This book is dedicated to children and adults from 6 to 60 years old who don't like mathematics. The contents and constructions are simple and explicit and avoid any use of a computer . Starting with basic constructions using a compass and a straight edge, we are shown how to construct perpendiculars and bisect lines. This is followed by a demonstration of the unique proportions of the human body, utilizing the Golden Mean, which shows that alb = (a +b) / a, and the Golden Ratio -I = 1/