Dear Douglas, This is one of your best posts. Yes we are as Gods with amazing powers. We need to be making the point that until and unless we start thinking like the God(s), then we should not be surprised that we become participants in "The Theory and Practice of Hell"*
Your point is a straight forward statement "Humans make a world they cannot control" UNTIL AND UNLESS we understand the second part of all living systems -communications - we either intentionally or unintentionally pull the lethal variables activating the design and practice of Hell on Earth .
As Norbert Weiner said of Cybernetics (Governance and Navigation in both living systems and machines) there is the dual dimensions of both CONTROL AND COMMUNICATIONS. The EXPLICIT aspects of control make it the default paradigm for humans. who do not endeavor to look behind the explicit into the implicit behaviors of others (backroom dealings, lobbyists hidden agendas) and most importantly the embedded organization of the meta paradigms we cannot see directly.
The Genius of the Founder Generations of the American Experiment was embodied in how they thought and fought and 200 years later small groups of concerned citizens created a new unifying fields of Cybernetics, systems and design. Both groups separated by two centuries came up with an alternative to the power/control paradigm . The alternative was design of and protection of systems of communications, feedback. and diversity. with the design of the Second Declaration of Interdependence of the Constitution and frame of governance. checks and balances Until we start thinking like the Gods we are transformed into the devils who make Hell on Earth.
Your insights compliments one of the main themes of the FORUM on democracy's opening talk on 01 December "Policy, Governance & Thinking AS IF Democracy Matters. We try to answer the Why are WE? question of the American Experiment.
The title of Valarie Lamont and my presentation is, "The American Experiment in Democracy Makes Absolutely No Sense Unless. & Until....." The Unless and Until is based on understanding the Deep Democracy that underlies the American Experiment.
Possibilities of exceptionalism in governance are based on what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote as intelligence, " “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.” The is what happened on the Night of 03 July 1776 when the delegates went to bed before signing the Declaration of Independence realizing that 18,000 crack Prussian and English soldiers were on the high seas headed to quell these treasonous colonists.
Paradox, contradiction, conversation across differences all were part of the design of the American Experiment in Governance. Their brilliance was seeing the institutions and society needing processes for cultural and conversational security. The exceptionalism as a possibility is how well the processes of governance were able to be whisperers of the Genius of the People, the arts of self assembly and self governance. Thus all the issues upon which they could not agree they created processes for future generations to be held to interactions arising from communications to evolve o a "More Perfect Union."
Our conference is about the other side of systems "To see what communications based governance can do?" hope you can attend. Send it out to your network
Register for the virtual event on 01 December 9-5. Four panels, Re-discover, Re-think, Re-imagine & Re-build
* "The Theory and Practice of Hell" is the book by a concentration camp inmate. This is the best book on the subject. It is a horrific examination of life and death inside a Nazi concentration camp, a brutal world of a state within state, and a society without law. The unique perspective of how governance and sense making occurred during WWII opens the portal into functioning of a Meta Power Paradigm of Control Over. I was reading this at lunch in seventh grade, A teacher sent home a note whether it was OK that I was reading this. My Dad knew my interest was not in becoming a proto Nazi.
Dear Douglas, This is one of your best posts. Yes we are as Gods with amazing powers. We need to be making the point that until and unless we start thinking like the God(s), then we should not be surprised that we become participants in "The Theory and Practice of Hell"*
Your point is a straight forward statement "Humans make a world they cannot control" UNTIL AND UNLESS we understand the second part of all living systems -communications - we either intentionally or unintentionally pull the lethal variables activating the design and practice of Hell on Earth .
As Norbert Weiner said of Cybernetics (Governance and Navigation in both living systems and machines) there is the dual dimensions of both CONTROL AND COMMUNICATIONS. The EXPLICIT aspects of control make it the default paradigm for humans. who do not endeavor to look behind the explicit into the implicit behaviors of others (backroom dealings, lobbyists hidden agendas) and most importantly the embedded organization of the meta paradigms we cannot see directly.
The Genius of the Founder Generations of the American Experiment was embodied in how they thought and fought and 200 years later small groups of concerned citizens created a new unifying fields of Cybernetics, systems and design. Both groups separated by two centuries came up with an alternative to the power/control paradigm . The alternative was design of and protection of systems of communications, feedback. and diversity. with the design of the Second Declaration of Interdependence of the Constitution and frame of governance. checks and balances Until we start thinking like the Gods we are transformed into the devils who make Hell on Earth.
Your insights compliments one of the main themes of the FORUM on democracy's opening talk on 01 December "Policy, Governance & Thinking AS IF Democracy Matters. We try to answer the Why are WE? question of the American Experiment.
The title of Valarie Lamont and my presentation is, "The American Experiment in Democracy Makes Absolutely No Sense Unless. & Until....." The Unless and Until is based on understanding the Deep Democracy that underlies the American Experiment.
Possibilities of exceptionalism in governance are based on what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote as intelligence, " “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.” The is what happened on the Night of 03 July 1776 when the delegates went to bed before signing the Declaration of Independence realizing that 18,000 crack Prussian and English soldiers were on the high seas headed to quell these treasonous colonists.
Paradox, contradiction, conversation across differences all were part of the design of the American Experiment in Governance. Their brilliance was seeing the institutions and society needing processes for cultural and conversational security. The exceptionalism as a possibility is how well the processes of governance were able to be whisperers of the Genius of the People, the arts of self assembly and self governance. Thus all the issues upon which they could not agree they created processes for future generations to be held to interactions arising from communications to evolve o a "More Perfect Union."
Our conference is about the other side of systems "To see what communications based governance can do?" hope you can attend. Send it out to your network
Register for the virtual event on 01 December 9-5. Four panels, Re-discover, Re-think, Re-imagine & Re-build
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/policy-governance-and-thinking-as-if-democracy-matters-tickets-731382844777?aff=oddtdtcreator
Lowell Christy, Co-founder The FORUM on democracy
* "The Theory and Practice of Hell" is the book by a concentration camp inmate. This is the best book on the subject. It is a horrific examination of life and death inside a Nazi concentration camp, a brutal world of a state within state, and a society without law. The unique perspective of how governance and sense making occurred during WWII opens the portal into functioning of a Meta Power Paradigm of Control Over. I was reading this at lunch in seventh grade, A teacher sent home a note whether it was OK that I was reading this. My Dad knew my interest was not in becoming a proto Nazi.