Everyone Should Read Arnold

Organizations make their own realities- mass communications increased that power, but the net with a much more anarchic model—there are more voices—fuck with an organization’s identity as its own thing…things go viral… centralized organizational structure doesn’t matter anymore…

The ability to disrupt communication is changing dramatically.

To begin with, let's get the Holmes quote out of the way. It comes from a letter to Frederic Pollock:

Chauncey Wright, a nearly-forgotten philosopher of real merit, taught me when young that I must not say necessary about the universe, that we don't know whether anything is necessary or not. I believe that we can bet on the behavior of the universe in its contact with us. So I describe myself as a bet-abilitarian.

What this does or does not have to do with anything I leave to others to decide.

I of course have a particular problem in commenting on this essay. It is too much about me, and too much of that is flattering (if not flattery). I hope that eventually it will be clear whether some of the social processes I designed and set in motion justify the praise unduly lavished now on the minor phenomenon of a teacher merely but seriously teaching his students.

I am actually the fracture at the midline, and if I were removed, the remaining sections could come together more effectively. Arnold's analysis of the way in which organizations are held together is still appropriate, as you show. His understanding of organizational psychology captured much that would later become so overwhelming as to be (as you show) invisible, because he explicated mechanisms that mass broadcast media would mold into an immense organizational landscape literally unimaginable at the opening of the 20th century.

But the principles of social self-organization represented by the quotation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry are becoming powerful themselves in the 21st century, as the Net makes it possible to form collaborative organizations stretching across the whole breadth of humanity in the blink of an eye. My work and the work of hundreds of thousands of other people has shown that anarchic production in such communities can not only rival but surpass capitalist innovation, and that cultural distribution will be massively democratized, leading to the collapse of power-concentrating mass media, with equally profound organizational consequences as those that Arnold's writing partially described.

What all those boats are about might otherwise be described as the development of new forms of "institutional architecture" for young people such as yourselves to become masters of. Obviously you will have teachers, and evidently I will be one of them. But by the time you have come fully into your powers we will be gone, and the world to be made will be made as you are beginning to imagine making it.

I share your curiosity and desire for knowledge, albeit, I think we have entirely different approaches and attitudes on the subject.

(1) I think the character you are looking for is not from Holmes but H.A. Rey. At any rate, I don't see why you are deferential to my comments, especially being off the mark on betabilitarian. I did not give you what I believe Holmes is talking about and I also did not give you any evidence to suggest that you were off the mark--and I don't see why I'm any better authority than you are (save for the fact that I may have looked up the quote).

(2) Like I said, the subject is fine--I just feel like you are experiencing a problem that I often struggle with: you have these metaphors, quotes, and structures you want to use but in the end they detract from the message. Even if you like them and are eloquent, the rather obvious step in my view is to remove the metaphors and replace it with substance. In the end, the essay seems fractured at the midline, because neither idea fits with the other.

(3) This is not so much a comment on the paper and more on the philosophy: You, the betabilitarian, place rather large amounts of confidence in your bets with the Law School and Eben (and in my comment, for god knows why).

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

Tzedek Tzedek, Tirdof

I am not sure how to explain what that "just" is and so I guess I misused Eben's reference to betabilitarian without proper research. I only used two quotations and I kind of like them so sorry that you didn't. Since this paper gives us the ability to hyperlink without adding clutter, I had fun with my multiple metaphors. Everyone should be as pissed as Mr. Kennedy. The boats are a little much, but I do think they are accurate. I want to have a box filled with 1000 different tools for solving a problem and reaching my goal. There I go again... I will work on that metaphor thing next time.

Anyhow, I know that this thing is all over the place, and I eagerly await Eben's feedback so that next time I can write a paper that means something to you Matt. (Note: I do not mean this sarcastically, I want to write something that anyone can read without feeling suffocated, and perhaps even enjoy).

I also think your description of Holmes' betabilitarian is off the mark by a considerable margin.

-- MatthewZorn - 28 Mar 2010

“The actual habits and attitudes which operate under the banner of the creed to make the institution effective have a slightly obscene appearance. Nice people do not want to discuss them, except for the purpose of getting rid of them.”

We ignore the less identifiable and more difficult ways by which powerful institutions bombard us with particular attitudes and creeds. This ignorance perpetuates the separation borne of institutional identification, and leads to moral rationalization grounded in institutional folklore, not in reality. A simple experiment to witness this phenomenon can be performed by watching the Fox News Channel during prime time. Journalism today mostly serves to help obfuscate what is actually happening in the world around us (particularly from 2:45).

If institutions unconsciously move us by creating some notion of a general will whose furtherance demands the suppression of the particular, we should be focused on improving the frameworks of society's most basic structures so they are more just. My license will also be a membership to one of the world's most powerful institutions-- the American legal system. How can I use my membership to increase the share of justice in a world devoid of ascertainable moral standards? I will seek to be Holmes’ betabilitarian: I cannot measure my choices against a normative standard, but against my predictions on how people behave. The only choice I have is to measure risk and place my bets.

The rituals of the classroom--the music, the lively debate, Eben’s knowledge and war stories, the crowded office hours where students spill out into the hallway-- reinforce Eben's mythology. The wiki adds additional dimensions to the institution's reach and gives us time to play with how we might organize our own institutional efforts. Someone can reroute the wiki's pipelines with a new folder scheme tomorrow, or with little effort as to the how, someone can just participate in this collaborative community. The Changes page is the intellectual version of the Facebook newsfeed (and the bios, our profiles).

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

One Does Not Speak of a Successful Trial Lawyer as a Great Scholar of the Law.

Tzedek Tzedek, Tirdof

The Sea

My Feet on the Street (or Marble). Where Do I Start?

Building My Boat(s)

A Boating Betabilitarian

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

The Sea

My Boat

Creeds, Rituals, Myths. Arnold and Minarets.

(Beit) Tzedek Tzedek, Tirdof

A Boating Betabilitarian

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

I want to make this paper a practical prescription. My plan and how I intend to pursue it.

"this class is my attempt to contribute practically towards making a curriculum that teaches other people how to make positive things happen in society by learning to inspire and harness the human restless hunger for the immensity of possibility"

So much to do, So little time.

A Sunfish Sailboat

Multihull Trimaran

The Arnold Framework in Reverse

- Institutions and Burcu. When I was a freshman, I lived in a dorm with a girl from Turkey named Burcu. Burcu remains one of the wisest and most special people I have ever met. We shared many stories and hours of conversation that forever changed me. Unfortunately, she goes months at a time without a telephone or email so I cannot get in touch with her to get/confirm some of the details of this story. When Burcu was 15 or 16 the mayor of Ankara, Turkey, presented her with the key to the city for her work with street children. Burcu had always been troubled by the high number of street children who did not go to school, did not work, and were involved in petty crime/problematic behaviors. She wrote a letter to the Mayor about her view on solving the problem: a free summer camp that would be anchored by a curriculum rich in Turkish history. She reasoned that if they could inspire these young children with pride for their city and their country's past, their attitudes would change. The Mayor loved the idea and came up with the money, campgrounds and teachers for a few hundred kids. He held a big ceremony for the camp's opening. An hour or so later, after the politicians and press had left, young Burcu was suddenly in charge with no curriculum or oversight. She found her footing and worked with the teachers to come up with a successful program, which she repeated the next summer. Afterward, there was a significant decrease in the number of kids who hung out in the streets.

This is something I have given some thought to because the cause I work on most is environmentalism, and there is often a public perception that the environmental movement is mainly against things, not for things.

-- DevinMcDougall - 21 Feb 2010

I really like the Exupery quote, though for an entirely different reason than why you posted it. To borrow a little Kant, I think it captures the need to treat people as people, rather than as means to a certain end. The irony for me is that I generally operate under the former presumption. I dislike giving up control, and similarly, I don't delegate responsibility as well as I should. When I do delegate, it's for a specific task--I might explain what I want and what the goals are, but I'm basically asking for a mechanical task that serves a larger vision that only I have. I have people gather wood while I give orders. It's hard for me to imagine getting things done by inspiring those I lead to adopt my goals and setting them lose, rather than using them like chess pieces.

The quote could be a jumping off point for an essay on how to achieve things without using people. Just a thought :).

-- RonMazor - 19 Feb 2010

- What is the best way to use my license to shape the creeds, habits, mythologies, rituals of the institutions I belong to? How do we want to shape our institutional boundaries? "Society isn’t what any particular person does; instead, society sets limits on what a person might do." I wrote that down after hearing it one day and think it applies

- Institutions and Burcu. The street children of Ankara and summer camp.

-Exupery said "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." This class makes me yearn for the vast and endless sea. How do I build the ship?

- Is there individual prerogative in law enforcement? What I want is to be the anti-Mike Nifong en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Nifong. How do I get there?

- There are no more seesaws at parks in the United States. We have let people litigate them out of existence. Our legal system over-insures the consequences of individual choice (in the non-Arnoldian sense) and creates collective inertia. As I was writing this in Lenfest, I went into the cafe to get a banana. The employee offered me another one for free because she was about to toss the food. Dining services won't donate it because of the potential liability for giving it to a food bank or homeless people. This is not the first time I have encountered this answer when asking why food is being tossed. Law should not be used as a barrier to a hungry person getting free food.

- "betabilitarian"- this is a term Eben referred to in office hours today. If I understood the brief discussion correctly, we cannot measure our choices against a normative standard. The only choice we have is to place our bets and play. What degree of risk am I/are we willing to assume? That degree of risk defines the boundaries of my/our winnings (and losses).

Paper Title

-- By NonaFarahnik - 18 Feb 2010

Section I

Subsection A

Subsub 1

Subsection B

Subsub 1

Subsub 2

Section II

Subsection A

Subsection B

# * Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, NonaFarahnik

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