[10947] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Shifting out of chaos toward wisdom
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vigdor Schreibman - FINS)
Mon Jan 6 21:18:20 1997
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 17:31:59 -0600 (CST)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol V, Issue No. 1 (162 lines) January 6, 1997
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Shifting out of chaos toward wisdom
By Vigdor Schreibman
In the Republican form of Government guaranteed by the
United States to every State in the Union, under US CONST.
art. IV, sec. 4, the Supreme Court has ruled, "all power
derives from the people," _City of Eastlake v. Forest City_,
426 US 668, 672 (1976). Through this scheme of government,
citizens have two basic alternatives of focus for their power:
(1) they can delegate it to representative instruments which
they create, risking defeat of democracy at the hands of the
people's representatives, who violate their responsibilities
with impunity; or (2) they can reserve to themselves power to
deal directly with legislative matters, risking domination of
the crowd without guide or will or plan. These nasty realities
compel strenuous pursuit of a better strategy for democracy.
Despite the claim that all men are born free, "In real
life," writes Benjamin R. Barber, the Walt Whitman Professor
of Political Science at Rutgers University, "children are born
fragile, born needy, born ignorant, born unformed, born weak,
born foolish, born dependent--born in chains." Continuing, in
Harper's Magazine (Nov 1993), Barber writes:
We acquire our freedom over time, if at all. Embedded in
families, clans, communities, and nations, we must learn
to be free. We may be natural consumers and born
narcissists, but citizens have to be made.
The promise of democracy is limited not solely by a lack of
adequate democratic education. Four classifications of
constraints, which limit human achievement, have been
described by Warfield (1994). These include:
* species constraints (e.g., limited personal perspective
and understanding of individuals, and their limited
short-term ability to process information);
* situational constraints (e.g., communications channels
that offer state-created advantages to business
corporations, which disregards essential public goods);
* methodological constraints (e.g., philosophy of past-
futures planning, unilateral control over information);
* personal constraints (e.g., inadequate health care,
housing, and education; unemployment; and poverty).
Nevertheless, "By focusing specifically on means to weaken
or eliminate aspects of these constraints, the opportunity for
human achievement can be enhanced, often substantially,"
Warfield states in, "A Science of Generic Design" 42-43 (Iowa
State University Press, 1994). The existing situation should
not be viewed as an insurmountable barrier to progress but as
an opportunity for human achievement carried out peacefully.
This opportunity is not to be found, however, in the advocacy
of interests, working the crowd by prejudice and hypnotism.
A call-to-action on, "A people science" (PS), seeking to
overcome the constraints on human achievement, was recently
issued by AN Christakis, a well regarded nuclear physicist and
"Interactive Management" (IM) consultant [Fins-PS-01]. This
proposal is founded on two decades of research development and
testing in a variety of communities around the world, and now
comprises a dynamic body of knowledge and experience based on
a process of group organization and management to sustain the
democratic mission. A PS--strategy for democracy--was first
anticipated by Mary P. Follett [Fins-PS-03], an organizational
theorist of early 20th-century, recognized in the Harvard
Business School classics as a "Prophet of Management" (1995).
What is special about PS is the systemic support, which is
provided a community of citizens to improve their capacity in
coping with two strongly coupled dimensions of the problematic
existing situation, which must be confronted. This includes:
(a) overcoming the substantive complexity of the target of
investigation; and (b) shifting out of the inherent weakness
of chaotic individual self-expression toward interpersonal
communications in harmony with other members of the community.
Many individuals, governed by narrow individualism, may
resist shifting to a collective mode of communications. For
example, a body of opinion arising from the broadly
perpetrated fiction of an "independent" theory of law and
economics, holds that the strength of the Internet lies in its
chaos, and similarly, that "the strength of our liberty
depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech
the First Amendment protects," _ACLU v. Reno_, 929 F.Supp 824,
865, 883 (D EDPa, 1996) (Dalzell, J., plurality opinion).
Freedom of expression, long constrained by the propaganda
model of mass media (despite First Amendment prohibition of
censorship by the State), clearly has exploded into unbridled
chaos over the Net guided by narrow individualism. However,
the lack of disciplined communications by society is brewing
"an intellectual and cultural disaster," Yale Professor of
Computer Sciences, David Gelernter, stated in an interview in
"Electric Minds," Nov 11, 1996. Meanwhile, rejecting chaos,
the methodical use of computers by science has "outstripped
our wildest dreams," Gelernter added [Fins-NC4-24]. Similarly,
collective learning is increasingly the style of prosperous
business corporations [See e.g., Ackoff, 1994; Senge, 1990].
The Internet (previously in the United States called the
National Research and Education Network (NREN) program), was
clearly not intended to be built as a tower of babble. The
primary purpose was to, "dramatically enhance the ability to
collaborate among members of the research and education
community," according to D. Allan Bromley, White House science
advisor in the Bush administration [Fins-II-02, pp. 7-8]. Now
drawing on the research of Pattakos (1995) and Banathy (1996),
Christakis shows that communication of information between
individuals cannot itself enable the people to exercise their
democratic powers during a time of escalating complexity.
Spiritual dialogue between a community of stakeholders is
necessary, a process that results in "collective learning."
The Christakis call-to-action, envisions PS as an instrument
to uncover the "wisdom of the people," which in the Greek
language is called "demosophia." Moreover, it is suggested
that the trend toward demosophia "is inevitable." This is due
to the inexorable pressure for social action to overcome, "the
inability of organizations and society as a whole to deal with
the acute problems of today." Responding to that pressure the
Cyberspace Society carried out an experiment in collective
inquiry during Oct to Dec 1996 [Fins-VT-01 to 47; Fins-CSP-01
to 59]. This brief inquiry confirmed that willing netizens
can readily shift out of chaotic self-expression toward more
harmonious interpersonal communications.
FINS intends to support PS with a new subscription policy,
dedicating a part of the price paid, to a "People Science
Fund." A panel of sensitive and eminent trustees have been
recruited to advise on use of the PS Fund for advancement of
demosophia [Fins-PS-02]. Voluntary organizations, virtual
community leaders, and public journalism, among others, will
be enabled, thereby, to collaborate in managing the process of
collective learning. This project can help build a democratic
Global Information Infrastructure (dGII) [Fins-CS-06].
Efforts to fill the Information Age with more fatuous glitz
are unlikely to make useful the mammoth new capacity of global
information systems. An alternative civil enterprise should be
created, instead, to defeat social chaos with PS, and utilize
cyberspace better to uphold the sovereign power of the people.
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