{"article":{"id":11124,"heading":"CIVILIZATIONS OF OPPORTUNISM","author":"Vigdor Schreibman","created":"2001-10-02 17:53:44","modified":"2015-12-18 10:15:28","last_modified":"Fri, 18 Dec 2015 17:15:28","article":"\n

CIVILIZATIUONS OF OPPORTUNISM\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n \r\n\r\nCIVILIZATIONS OF OPPORTUNISM\r\n\r\nIntroduction and summary\r\n\r\n The civilizations of opportunism \r\nadvanced by irresponsible government and big business, bring catastrophic \r\ndestruction and dispair to the Planet Earth. Democratic powers alone can make governments \r\nand business responsible institutions. These words hope to explore the terrible barriers \r\nand pragmatic possibilities for achiving a wise democracy in a technological \r\ncivilization.\r\n\r\n\r\nExercising democratic powers\r\n\r\nIt is\r\nnow widely recognized that the institution of democratic values\r\nand distribution of power that control such matters are crucial\r\nto relations between government, management, professional, and\r\nthose who are governed, managed, or represented. [See e.g.,\r\nAckoff, 2000; Christakis, 1996; Drucker, 1993; Flexner, 1989;\r\nFollett, 1918]. There is great tension in these political\r\nrelationships derived from various democratic values and\r\ntheories-of-action such as: \"consent of the governed\"\r\n\"Representative government\" \"ballot-box democracy\" or \"direct\r\ngovernment,\" as explained by Mary\r\nParker Follett, the early 20th-century philosopher of\r\ndemocracy. The preferred alternative is based on political\r\ndemocracy conceived as a \"genuine union of true individuals\" --\r\nan expression of the will\r\nof the whole.\r\n\r\nFollett\r\nis the \r\nProphet of Management whose work was celebrated in the late\r\n1990s by leading scholars of the management profession. She\r\nanticipated that her democratic ideal required a \"technique of\r\ndemocracy.\" During the closing decades of the 20th-century, just\r\nsuch a \"technique\" was developed by design science to facilitate\r\nmeaningful\r\ndialogue that can support true democracy. A number of\r\nbarriers that distort the purposes and context for the\r\napplication of this \"technique,\" now bring that goal into\r\nquestion. I describe here how this \"technique\" works, how its\r\nunique promise is now being severely undermined, and how it may yet \r\nfulfill that promise.\r\n\r\nIn\r\ncontrast with group encounters where an initial euphoria is\r\ndrained away in linguistic Babel \"meaningful dialogue\" can\r\nadvance further dialogue that clarifies, surfaces values, and\r\ngenerates enhancement patterns. The results of this process,\r\nproduced through a technology supported discipline of focused and\r\nopen dialogue described as \"technologue\" [Christakis and Bausch,\r\n2001], are these: \"emancipation of the stakeholders, individual\r\nand collective learning, integration of diverse viewpoints,\r\ndiscernment of salient priorities of design, and the emergence of\r\na situation-specific consensual linguistic domain that enables\r\nunderstanding and meaningful action.\"\r\n\r\nReal-world applications of this technology in a large\r\nvariety of designs in many diverse fields, particularly during\r\nthe past 15-years, have confirmed the reliability of those\r\nclaims. This includes, for example:\r\n\r\n<\/p>

\r\nJeffrey, Disarmament and Demobilization<\/i>,\r\n(Interactive Management Workshop hosted by the European\r\nCommission, Monrovia, Liberia 1996) (design of a plan of\r\ndisarmament and demobilization by the \"Warlords and Warriors\"\r\nengaged in a civil war in Liberia).\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nAlberts, Redesigning the Defense Acquisition\r\nSystem<\/i> (Interactive Management process applied by the Defense\r\nSystems Management College 1986-91, to design a functional\r\ndefense acquisition process).\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nCenter\r\nfor Interactive Management, George Mason University, Report on\r\nthe Issues Identification and Structuring Session of the Alliance\r\nfor Nursing Organizations<\/i> (1986) (Interactive Management\r\nseminar to identify significant issues in Nursing in Virginia in\r\nthe next 5 years, organize these issues for appropriate action,\r\nand develop preliminary strategies for the Alliance in addressing\r\nthese issues).\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nChristakis, The National Forum on Nonindustrial\r\nPrivate Forest Lands<\/i>, 2 SYSTEMS RESEARCH 189 (1985)\r\n(Interactive Management forum sponsored by the US Department of\r\nAgriculture 1984, examining national issues, options, and\r\nresponsibilities faced by representative national assembly of\r\nstakeholders)\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\nThe\r\nconsequence of these events is that a scientific revolution in\r\nthe process of dialogue has occurred, one that could compel a\r\nparadigm shift away from pursuit of the \"power of the people\"\r\ntoward pursuit of the \"wisdom of the people.\" This shift was\r\npremised on the discovery that the wisdom of the people obtained\r\nthrough \"meaningful dialogue\" is necessary to enable the people\r\nto exercise their sovereign democratic powers.\r\n\r\nThis\r\nnew democratic process grounds its legitimacy on an ethic\r\nsupporting participation by individuals in decisions of public or\r\nprivate organizations that affect their lives. The democratic\r\nethic is consistent with an expression of the \"will of the whole\"\r\nanticipated by Follett. In the most important issues of our time, \r\nwise policies can be found in the \"will of the whole\" and not in \r\nthe technical cleverness of the few [Yankelovich & Harman,\r\nStarting With The People<\/i> 8, 13 (1988)]. These conclusions\r\nare also consistent with the current view of science, the \"third \r\nphase science,\" as articulated by Professor de Zeeuw (1996), \r\nfollowed in the \"technologue\" of Christakis and Bausch, in which \r\nstakeholders are engaged as \"expert observers\" of the situation \r\nin which they are embedded. \"They are the ones who should decide \r\nhow to take action in their situation, since they are those most \r\naffected by the existing situation and its evolution.\"\r\n\r\nIndividuals do not need\r\nto engage in political revolution in order to realize this new ethical process. \r\nInstead, one can build on the recognized origin of all political power, which is \r\nderived not from any dominant sector of society (e.g., government or private\r\nindustry) but from the people-at-large, which is the sine qua\r\nnon<\/i> of the \"republican\" form of government guaranteed by the\r\nConstitution of the United States [US CONST art. IV, § 4;\r\nCity of Eastlake v. Forest City Enterprises, Inc<\/i>., 426 US\r\n668, 672 (1976), citing The Federalist<\/i> No. 39 (J.\r\nMadison)].\r\n\r\nBarriers to democratic design strategies\r\n\r\nAncient\r\nbands and tribes were able to obtain \"meaningful dialogue\" by an\r\n\r\negalitarian leadership organization but this does not arise\r\nin a centralized technological civilization either by natural\r\nconditions, custom, or culture. On the contrary interactive\r\nstrategies are essential to human and organizational competence\r\nin an age of increasing complexity and uncertainty. The danger is\r\nnow threatened, however, that only the elite will be positioned\r\nto master these strategies, thereby, blocking the democratic\r\nparticipation of an estimated population\r\nof 7.6 billion individuals who are expected to inhabit the\r\nPlanet Earth by the year 2020, who are likely to be robbed of\r\ntheir minds and their lives by the elite unless they are allowed\r\nto participate fairly if not perfectly in the structures of\r\ndecisions that affect their lives.\r\n\r\nMore\r\nthan a decade ago Nolan Bowie called attention to the gap that\r\nexisted between the information rich and the information poor\r\n[Bowie, Equity and Access to Information Technology<\/i> , in\r\nANNUAL REVIEW OF INSTITUTE FOR INFOORMATION STUDIES 131, 146-150,\r\n1990]. Despite the ethical basis on which facilitated dialogue\r\nclaims legitimacy, the \"values gap\" between \"the information rich\r\nand the information poor\" is now paradoxically widening by\r\nlimitations that curb the use of the new technology and treat it\r\nas a luxury for privileged users. Invited to comment upon the Dialgue Game that helps potential\r\nusers understand the laws of design<\/i> used in this\r\ntechnique, CC has called for enlarging the dialogue through an\r\nethical design and management strategy that would broaden\r\nparticipation in the dialogue via<\/i> Internet. However, a\r\nnasty limitation has been placed on CCs call.\r\n\r\nFollowing an online exchange of comments between myself\r\nand Dr. Alexander N. Christakis, a world renown practitioner of\r\nthe \"Dialogue Game\" [President-elect, 2002-2003 \r\nInternational Society for the System Sciences], a collaborative \r\nventure was undertaken for development of a new version of the \r\n\"Dialogue Game\" for broad public participation via Internet. \r\nSubsequently, various requests were made to Dr. Christakis by \r\nemail Sept. 9, 2001, for \"a simplified version of the dialogue \r\ngame\" in order to \"close the values gap that has been disclosed.\" \r\nDr. Christakis previously expressed his agreement with my \r\ncritique of the situation: \"I am in full agreement with \r\neverything you say. Your observations are indeed very profound.\" \r\nBut in response to my request for action to simplify the process, \r\nDr. Christakis was unable or unwilling to relate to the need for \r\nany change in his game plan.\r\n\r\nWhile\r\ncontinuing to espouse the role of democrat as he has for the past\r\nquarter century, which this writer can personally confirm, Dr.\r\nChristakis responded to my requests Sept. 9, 2001, with this\r\nemail flame:\r\n\r\n\r\nYou\r\nseem to challenge my intentions to offer the opportunity to\r\neverybody to participate through meaningful dialogue. I am\r\ntotally committed to this endeavor for all my life, and have\r\nnever accumulated any wealth as a facilitator, ...\r\n\r\nI do\r\nnot know what revisions you are talking about in order to close\r\nthe \"values gap.\" If you know what is required, please go ahead\r\nand do it with the help of your friends. I am supportive of your\r\nefforts, but unable to understand your presumed \"value\r\ngap\"....\r\n\r\n\r\nDr.\r\nChristakis explains his ethical choice with the same mask of the\r\ntruth as the often quoted Anatole France (Jacques Anatole\r\nFrançois Thibault, 1844-1924), one of the major figures of\r\nFrench literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who\r\nwas awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921,\r\n\r\n\r\nThe\r\nlaw, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to\r\nsleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, or to steal bread.\"\r\n[From The Red Lily<\/i>, 1894].\r\n\r\n\r\nWhile\r\noffering \"the opportunity to everybody to participate\" only the\r\nelite can afford the professional fees charged for facilitated\r\ndialogue, which costs tens of thousands of dollars per session, a\r\nmillion or more for education of an organization in the process.\r\nA simplified version available via<\/i> Internet could greatly\r\nbroaden access to the process, without diminishing and, perhaps,\r\ngreatly enlarging the commercial market.\r\n\r\nThe\r\nfacilitation of dialogue limited to the elite in a process\r\ndesigned to realize democratic dialogue, manages the dialogue so\r\nas to release the greatest potential of the participating group\r\nmembership. The flaw in this structure comes from the inherent\r\nlimited perspective of any one specific group, itself, which avoids \r\nany adjustments of the social order, which might otherwise upset the\r\npower of the dominant class structure. This strategy is also\r\ncongruent with the anti-dialogical<\/i> cultural reality of\r\nliberal Western societies, particularly the United States\r\n[Hernán López-Garay, Dialogue Among\r\nCivilizations<\/i>, in INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON WORLD PEACE (March\r\n2001): pp.15, 24]. Political pluralism, moral relativism have\r\ntaken hold of modern humanity. Without a rational standard to\r\ndiscriminate between competing moral conceptions, \"then morality,\r\nthe conduct of life, becomes just a matter of\r\npreference.\"\r\n\r\n\r\nThe\r\nresult is a society made up of individuals who have nothing\r\ntranscendental (i.e. a common history, a common life project, a\r\nmeta-narrative) to share except an interest in exploiting each\r\nother in the most effective and efficient way possible. Id., at\r\n28\r\n\r\n\r\nFurther\r\ncompounding the manifest lack of moral and ethical sensitivity of\r\nthe economic market and liberal culture, there exists a set of\r\ninherent human barriers to sociotechnical design activities,\r\nwhich resist strategies to facilitate competent dialogue\r\n[Christakis, Keever, Warfield, Development of Generalized\r\nDesign Theory and Methodology<\/i> 41-48, in 1987 PROCEEDINGS OF\r\nNSF WORKSHOP ON DESIGN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY (1987)]. The\r\nfollowing barriers (among others) have been identified by\r\ninvestigators from a study of the following human\r\nlimitations:\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\nThe\r\nlimited human perspective within complex, multidimensional\r\nsystems<\/i> [Ashby, 1958]:
\r\nIndividuals bring to each problem situation they encounter\r\n(regardless of their educational level), a set of personal\r\nperspectives and a generally limited understanding of the\r\nproblems. Without adequate consideration of all of the dimensions\r\nof the problems they encounter, short cuts will be taken that\r\nignore important aspects of the problems and alternative\r\npossibilities. Effective solutions will not, therefore, be\r\nforthcoming.\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nThe\r\nlimited human capacity for short-term processing of\r\ninformation<\/i> [Miller, 1956]:
\r\nIn direct contrast with the multidimensional nature of the\r\nproblem situation, individuals have only a limited short-term\r\nability in processing information. Attempts to deal\r\nsimultaneously with more than between five and nine observations\r\nat one time are met with cognitive overload, imposed by\r\nphysiological and psychological limits that preclude sound\r\nreasoning.\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nThe\r\nunshakable cognitive burden that hinders human transformation<\/i>\r\n[Goudge on CS Peirce, 1969]:
\r\nIndividuals have a deep mental blueprint of the means to their\r\nown effectiveness, while the act of transforming personal values\r\nrequired by the problem situation can require fundamental change\r\nof the cognitive program under which human beings think and act.\r\nSince individuals must start any investigation \"from where they\r\nare\" significant change in cognition is normally resisted and\r\neffective solutions to emerging problems blocked.\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\nThe\r\noutcome of all such barriers to democratic dialogue, particularly\r\nin an increasingly global economic environment, imposes a\r\nterrible threat to human civilizations. In subordinating all\r\nglobal and social relations to the market the remaining\r\nrestraints and mitigating illusions have been stripped away from\r\nthe \"war of all against all.\" By these means a state of organized\r\nanarchy has been propagated, spawning the diabolical\r\ncivilizations that are defined by these new\r\nrealities:\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\nglobal warming, with a scientific expectation that we are at \r\nthe start\r\nof a mass extinction, a mass dying, such as the planet has not experienced \r\nsince the end of the age of dinosaurs, some 65 million years ago.\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nindividual collapse of hope and purpose, producing an epidemic of\r\nsuicide, in which there were a total of 535,890 deaths in the\r\nU.S.A. from 1979 to 1996 that were diagnosed and reported to have\r\nbeen suicides.\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nsocial\r\nbreakdown leading to a \r\ncounter-culture of madness involving a continuing epidemic\r\nof youth violence.\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\n\"leaderless resistance\" such as the \r\nAlfred P. Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City (1995),\r\nwhich killed 168 individuals.\r\n<\/li>\r\n\r\n
\r\nglobal\r\nacts of desperation such as the World\r\nTrade Center bombing in New York City (2001), in which more\r\nthan 9,300 individuals are listed as dead, wounded, or\r\nmissing.\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\nThese\r\nare the tragic outcomes faced by \"the People\" in civilizations of\r\nopportunism when all ethical professional sensibilities are subordinated to the \r\n\"free market,\" social and community bonds\r\nare gravely weakened, and \"meaningful dialogue\" made available by\r\ntechnology is limited in practical terms to the elite. Indeed, \r\nonly as a consequence of the absence of \"meaningful dialogue\" by\r\nall can it be emagined that the root causes of these tragedies \r\nremains obscured by official policies: global warming -- not in the\r\nAmerican economic self-interest to join responsible action under the \r\nKyoto Protocol signed by 178 other nations; an epidemic of suicide -- uninvestigated; \r\nan epidemic of youth violence -- just a family matter; bombs on our prominent\r\npublic buildings -- just a work of evil terrorists. \r\n\r\nNevertheless, there is nothing \r\ninevitable about these outcomes, there is nothing wise about those official responses. \r\nOn the contrary, the possibilities of \"meaningful dialogue\" for all and a wise response by \"the\r\nPeople\" are a spectacular wide open \r\nopportunity -- in cyberspace\r\ncapital!\r\n\r\nGenuine\r\ndemocratic possibilities have been opened by design science and\r\nthe creative genius of Aleco Christakis, John Warfield, and their\r\ncolleagues. Do \"the People\" desire to engage in \"meaningful dialogue\"\r\nor are they just paralyzed by the elite assault on the\r\nminds of the masses? Will Homo sapiens sapiens<\/i> 'wise man' \r\ncrash under existing conditions, or rise up to the occasion?\r\nThere is much to contemplate as time for choice quickly slips\r\nby.\r\n\r\nSomeone must take the responsibility \r\nat this time for deliberate action in meeting the challenge of breaking the \r\ndebilitating cycle and developing the transformative public model for \r\n\"meaningful dialogue\" via<\/i> Internet. I suggest that this cannot be the \r\nrole of the government as it is now constituted. The professions of design and \r\nmanagement have already refused that role. Only \"the People\" have the power to\r\nact on such fundamental concerns, there are no other sources of wisdom within the\r\nexisting civilizations.\r\n\r\nEmail\r\nme your response to this issue vigdor@cyberspacecapital.org\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nCYBERSPACE CAPITAL AND DEMOCRATIC SUSTAINABILITY
\r\nVIA<\/i> INTERNET\r\n\r\n
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\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"Vigdor@cyberspacecapital.org","link":"http:\/\/cyberspacecapital.org","address":"18 - 9th Street NE Apt #206, Washington, DC 20002-6042","phone":"1-202-547-8715","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The civilizations of opportunism advanced by irresponsible government and big business, bring catastrophic destruction and dispair. Democratic power alone can make government and business responsible institutions. These words explore the terrible barriers and pragmatic possibilities for achiving a wise democracy in a technological civilization.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/10\/civilkjwx3g.html","filesize":"22.6 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/10\/11124.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}