ABSTRACT
Eric Trist insisted that the socio-ecological perspective is essential for changes in the post-industrial society and asserted that competition and dominance must give over to cooperation and nurturance as the driving values of the new industrial order. Trist was always ready to encourage colleagues, associates, and others who sought his help or kept him informed of their work. Among the efforts to manage the disturbing unhappiness and morbidity that he felt, Trist was drawn to literature, writing poetry, meditation, and attending classes in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida in Gainesville. On Denman Island, British Colombia, they could not finish the corrections as intended, and Trist was feeling poorly when they took the local ferry to Alaska. Trist said that late in life he had doubts as to whether human civilization was going to make it. Often his feelings centered on himself, and he would then discuss the world situation, and was never optimistic.
