ABSTRACT
Development education conceived of as information about Third World issues conceptually speaking already belong to prehistory – although a fair amount of such information is of course part of the new package. Development education does not take place in a vacuum; it is part of what one can call a certain mental climate. Ultra-rapid change is but one element of the contemporary mental climate; we will examine the others in a moment. This mental climate is probably the most important factor influencing people's perception of the world and hence, their behaviour. Another very important element of the mental climate of today is the utterly gloomy picture of the world presented by the media. The West, an important and disturbing result of the mental climate is a deepening sense of powerlessness amongst most people. People feel totally lost, victims of and manipulated by huge impersonal organizations, be they anonymous bureaucracies, governmental, medical, or tentacular multinationals and industrial-military complexes.
