ABSTRACT
In the pre-modern cases the stable coordination of large-scale social systems benefits from the presence of an administrative bureaucracy staffed by a scholar-gentry class held loyal to the leadership. Modern forms of social system that entail very complex coordination of scientific know-how, human skills, finance, system order, and organising capacity, will only work competitively when education spreads to the whole population. All complex adaptive systems that include large numbers of human beings, whether families, tribes, or societies, face the same fundamental kinds of threat. A condition of adapting to an increasingly complex set of circumstances is that the society has the capacity to think through how to change while remaining cohesive. At the other end of the spectrum in the Arts and Humanities, much may be taught that stimulates the graduate to be a critical thinker about his or her society.
