This is Not a Time to “Sit Tight and Assess”
Do “look up” and fix governance
With Miroslaw Manicki
Governance is effective nowhere. Perhaps some countries make effective use of simple situations, but where realities of nature and of societal preferences and commitments are concerned, the dumpster fires of organization failure rage throughout the world.
What to do, then? First is to acknowledge that regardless of regime, connections between knowledge and authority are broken. The recent global movie phenomenon, “Don’t Look Up” laid bare this fact [https://tinyurl.com/2a79ptd9]. The most astounding aspect of this is that although the problem is couched in the political milieu of the United States, the problem exists everywhere.
The collective action problem introduced in the 1960s by Harvard professor Mancur Olson was wrong. This was to say that when problems got complex, with many actors, they eventually became impossible to carry out. This assertion provided an excuse to fail to many projects, most particularly international development projects. Such entered into a category of doomed efforts and provided justification for more of the same. This must end; we need to come to understand messages from the long cultures and from musicians themselves. Perfection in the behaviors and outcomes of many actors amid complexity can be achieved. For this, we do not need utopias. Rather, we need to look to solutions that have long existed, though not generally recognized or honored.
This is underscored by the works of Anthony Wallace and Chalmers Johnson. The key to success is not in guessing about possible utopias, but in cultural revitalization of what has proven effective in the past and even currently in some societies and cultures. This isn’t to say simply in declarations of faith or belief, but in actions. Wallace referred to “mazeways”, means of guiding people through effective behavior, given conditions that may prove complex and confusing otherwise.
The collective action problem was based on the idea of universal rational choice, which itself was based on the wrong thinking around open markets. Sure, open markets can exist, but only under certain circumstances. Frederik Hayek, one of the leaders in this kind of thinking, said that all of the needed elements of market transactions cannot be known, hence, they should be left to the “invisible hand” that will automatically calibrate all aspects of the deal.
In areas of complexity, in areas involving a consequential dance of humanity within nature, this is pure folly. With the pandemic in full view, this is easy to see. Adaptations to requirements brought on by the gyrating, seemingly conniving virus have been ham-handed, awkward, and often counter-productive.
Partly this is due to actual connivance by some authorities who have seen an opportunity for prerogative and mayhem that improves their political standing. Partly this is due to scientific adventurism that has not benefitted from means-tests and structural checks-and-balances that reinforce peer review and direct application of validated knowledge.
Are humans doomed to destructive, highly risky behavior, constantly on the verge of extinction? This has certainly seemed to be the case ever since knowledge of the atom led to pernicious public policy and nuclear weaponry. We say “no”, with two examples to share. We considered more than these in our 2014 booklet “Dual Control or Certain Derailment” [https://tinyurl.com/hxz9hvsj].
First, there is much more to history than has previously been thought. For example, based on updated documentation by the U.S. Population Reference Bureau, roughly half of the world’s population lived during or before the time of Christ, 0 BCE. This amounts to approximately 52 billion people in ancient times [https://tinyurl.com/2p8stsh7]. This is testament to success in governance and in adaptation to nature’s challenges. As embodied by the many indigenous societies that have survived the onslaught of modernity, mankind has long experience with governance. Our long history is testament to this, as seen by the example of the Great Ziggurat of the city Ur in Mesopotamia.
For the last hundred years in particular, the complexities and subtleties of old cultures are becoming clear. This is true in the key areas of Mesopotamia, India, Africa, Central and South America, China, and Southeast Asia, including the islands and Indonesia. One example of the long history is the sophistication and breadth of Turkey’s Gobekli Tepe, dating back to around the time of the last great climate adjustment of the earth, the Holocene Period of over 10,000 years ago [https://tinyurl.com/2p8s3w3w]. These show substantial evidence of insight and adaptation to nature.
The second example is the living cadre of musicians, most particularly the highly-talented and professional symphonic musicians throughout the world. They represent a governance and performance model that could be leveraged in any and all sectors, where steeped in science or society.
This is serious, more than a silly, trivial comparison. Such musicians representing different performing traditions, different kinds of instruments made from different materials, and very different performance conditions can perform together amid complex, changing requirements. As seen in the image below, the sheet music they use is an important aspect of this success. Organized and arranged by highly qualified composers and arrangers, such solutions are so effective they have demonstrated useful and unique capabilities that have lasted for centuries of continual and satisfying use.
Improvements in instruments and methods are readily incorporated in that world, but the primary model for composition and performance is stable and fully upgradable in the process. Interestingly, many musicians have taken to store and display their sheet music using electronic tablets. Nonetheless, the result is continued perfection.
Ask yourself if you are a consumer of such products — which includes movies, which are replete with good symphonic music. This is especially true of outer space productions. Would you attend and continue to support such productions if any discernable imperfections were to enter in? We think this is unlikely.
Why, then, do we have the cognitive and authoritative morass that constitutes global governance? Such abiding conditions do not exist in them. Rather, information processing introduces limitations and risks that vex all of us now. Of course, the answer is not to make use of music sheet music, but a different model with similar characteristics. In short, this involves tree-based structures that can unite symbols and math in compact and functional forms. We refer to this as an extension of knowledge forms beyond tacit knowledge, the knowledge in your head, and explicit knowledge, in documents, media, and other fixed forms.
Experts and authorities need to be empowered using such models. They need to be coached into becoming the Beethovens and Mozarts of this. As Vienna and other cultural centers of prior centuries served as fertile foundations for their work, the world needs to encourage a similar flowering now. This needs to cover all critical domains of knowledge, linking them to policy and finance. Technology can serve in this effort, but it needs to be reprioritized.
We do not need to listen to the experts. We need to empower them systematically to take advantage of every aspect of their knowledge. As was the case with Beethoven, his words were simplistic in comparison with his works.
It comes down to this: Greek democracy was incomplete. The proposition was that control of territory granted very broad prerogative to the ruling junta, regardless of how they were elected or designated. The Greek model was an incomplete shadow of governance models that had proven themselves in the thousands of years that came before.
Thus, we live in a world where everyone suffers from leaders who may or may not have respect for or knowledge in areas of science, society, and nature. This is a serious error. We have considered this in a 60-page essay “Mother Russia: Earth’s Puzzle” [https://tinyurl.com/5n99628s]. This considers much of the challenge with governance brought on by militarized, presumptive modernization.
Finally, we reiterate that the struggle shouldn’t be between presumed “left” vs “right”, but between knowledge-based process and ignorance-based prerogative. This can be seen below:
As seen above, traditions as represented by the Ferdinand Tönnies’ concept of Gemeinschaft needs to be brought together his depiction of Gesellschaft. In short, Gemeinschaft makes reference to traditional societies, while Gesellschaft involves modernity and subject-related associations. In a sense, we can see that Gesellschaft has taken over, but without acceptance by the people, Gemeinschaft communities, it is ineffective. Certainly it is a poor foundation for cultural questions.
Regardless of how a regime establishes primary authority, knowledge needs to be systematically integrated into the governance process. Society needs to systematically bring facts in line with acts.