Kurt Lewin's Heritage: A Possible Breakthrough?
Authors: Wennberg Bengt-Åke , Hane Monica 
Published: February 2018

In our competitive world, dominated by fights for markets and power, it can appear untoward to speak about cooperation and humanitarianism. Such words easily turn into empty phrases. Still, the greatest potential for welfare lies in the transformation of societal cooperation patterns in the direction of cooperation and humanitarianism. Our work in Sweden has shown us that new participative forms of cooperation are not only a moral issue, but a necessity for high productivity, the creation of economic wealth, and quality of life.

Kurt Lewin was both a moralist and a scientist. He was deeply concerned about the state of the world. Being a Jew, he had fled to the United States and experienced two world wars and two depressions. As a German, he was bewildered by the antidemocratic processes that had happened in his own country. How could ordinary human beings engage in persecution, terror, and systematic extermination of other human beings? In his new home, the United States, he found a vital democracy, but also the same dark strands as he had experienced in Germany. To Kurt Lewin, the moralist, it was important to take a stand against these destructive forces (Marrow, 1977).

As a scientist, however, he could also recognize that the moral position could not be everything. The destructive patterns were not laws of nature—they were created by Man and could be changed by Man. They were mostly self-destructive. Why should people participate in activities that obviously were not in their own interest and that produced suffering for themselves, their relatives, their country, and the survival of mankind? He anticipated that many of these destructive patterns were not caused by a lack of morality, but rather by a lack of knowledge. To him, the destructive processes he recognized were the natural consequences of unrealistic fears, prejudices, and false perceptions (Lewin, 1944; 1948; 1959).

We share Lewin's opinion on this point. We think that moral discussions are overemphasized. We think that developing and spreading more knowledge of social processes and better ways to manage day-to-day social life have a much greater potential for societies than even the expansion of information technology. Progress in research that can deliver these skills and knowledge to the public will lead to important changes in the economy and in the functioning of democracy: It will help with the constructive utilization of technology and resources; it will result in new and more efficient management; it probably will reduce the use of violence as a way to resolve conflicts; it will enhance productivity and create more effective work; it will prevent crime and different kinds of abuse; it will result in better ways of improving the environment; and it will raise the quality of human life. In short, it can produce new hope for a better future, something greatly needed now.

After we provide this overview of the potential of the heritage of Kurt Lewin, we will try to leave the normative and moral aspect aside and focus solely on scientific reasoning related to how knowledge and knowing can be developed and spread, and how research processes such as the ones Kurt Lewin suggested have the potential to change our lives.