Herman, Louis G.
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Dr. Louis G. Herman is a professor of political science at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu. Born in an orthodox Jewish community in apartheid South Africa, Herman’s earliest memories were of “wilderness rapture”— intoxication with the rugged beauty of the South African bushveld and beach. At age twelve his family moved to England, where he went on to study at Cambridge University, receiving degrees in medical sciences and the history and philosophy of science. Disillusioned with academia he gave up a medical career, sought out his “tribal” roots, moved to an Israeli kibbutz and volunteered for military service in a combat infantry unit. His wartime experience confronted him with two hard realities. One was the long ignored, obvious fact that Arabs were also indigenous to the land; the other was the absurdity of war as a long-term solution to political conflict. He felt compelled to go back to the beginning of politics, to ask the Socratic question: How should we best live?
After studying political philosophy at the Hebrew University and completing his PhD at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, he found the two tracks of his search, the personal and the political, led him back to southern Africa, the birthplace of modern humanity. Connections became revelations, converging increasingly with the wisdom of the oldest culture on earth, the San Bushmen. Future Primal represents the culmination of this search.
For the past twenty years at UH West O‘ahu, Herman has developed a political science curriculum and pedagogy based on the principles of the primal truth quest. Future Primal is also the scholarly foundation for an in-development feature film.