Horizontal Social Governance

Inspired by the following RSA presentation I have begun a new train of thought this morning. But before I introduce what could become a lengthy introduction I will let you get acquainted with the material yourself.

What I gather from this talk is that Jeremy Rifkin believes that a 3^rd industrial revolution could be on its way. Obviously this is interesting by itself, with all the perspectives on peak oil and what not, but what I find to be even more intriguing is that this perspective that power and management thus far has been vertical – top-down. And as is introduced the internet has more than proved that people are ready for a more horizontally oriented approach. Powerful search engines have made the lack of available information a thing of the past, and this could be interpreted as a sign that people are adjusting to having more influence.

As opposed to Mr. Rifken I see a wealth of possible conflicts with this emerging social paradigm of equality. A horizontally governed direct democracy, as it would be, would feature less individually oriented authority. This would make politics obsolete in a relatively short period of time, and that would be perfectly fine, if it was not for the fact that the powers that be will know this in advance of the majority, and they will try, as they have with the Occupy movement and similar groups, to turn public orientation towards an illusion that they and they alone embody democracy. Because if they do it would become obvious how counterproductive it is to diminish the institutions concerned with politics and law making.

The proof of the above claim? Look at how the media handles the rising discontent with governing institutions. They are attempting to shadow the reality of how big a portion of the globe is currently interested in making changes. While all of them do not share a unified goal for whatever change they seek, they agree on the fact that something must be done. Humans are now on a collision course with reality, as we begin to understand that razing forest after forest to compete in this global game of monopoly is unrealistic.

In closing it should be noted that the reason that we are simultaneously aware of this abyss and still moving towards it, is exactly the vertical governing installation of representative democracy. This makes for a dissonance between what we know and how fast we can make changes accordingly because every discovery in science and later in public understanding has to go through the process of persuading political figures and market shaping forces before it can be integrated properly.

Because we are a top-down species at this point, we are limited from responding optimally to emerging social problems.

Service

Depending on what culture you are from you may have experienced what I am about to describe. In my country it is very much the case in the service sector of the market that younger and younger people are employed as front line personel. In short, people of the new school.

Aside from the obvious financial benefit this has brought to the employers, since younger, inexperienced people are cheaper, it may be worth pointing out another very important point about this situation.

In the past when the service sector was a relatively fresh industry, following the downsizing of the work force in aggriculture caused by the technology available around the start of the 20^th century, there was a period where it had include a certain flexibility to market itself. The kind of flexibility you would probably only experience presently if you get in contact with someone with a higher grade of responsibility than the service level. The shop keeper or to a lesser extent the manager. Most managers would not apply though. They are put in place to uphold the rules put down by their own employer and their job is based mostly on making sure the staff beneath them bends no rules and applies no flexibility.

Not because the industry tries to work against flexibility, but because the total stream lining of the service sector has allowed for a much more rigid rule set. If you do not like the rules in place at a restaurant or a store, you are pretty much out of luck. Because you can be certain that a quite similar set of rules are in place in whatever other place you may visit.

This may or may not bother you. If it does not I would venture the guess that it is because you have not thought it through. Surely you would rise to some level of discontent if you realised that you had been manipulated into the acceptance of this.

The most modern and ”hip” places introduced this concept into our culture and since then we have come to accept it on a daily basis. We are now at the point where we consider good service the abnormal and remember it for days when some employee somewhere gave us a personal experience. But why is this? Should it not be preferable for society to accept only bad service as the abnormal?

The reason for this rigid business model that we are all supporting with our purchases out of the lack of proper alternatives, is of course that it works. It works to cut back on the extent of service, because the extent of service mostly implies the extent of lowering expected pay for whatever service was given. Deductions and good will are concepts swept under the carpet and the consumer remains ever oblivious.

And this is just the beginning. Now that the industry has us accepting a very poor standard of service, they can easily make the transfer to automated kiosks everywhere. In the grocery store, in the café, in the restaurants and in the malls. For what is more rigid than a machine? And companies know this. They exploit it. They are very much interested in automating the process of purchasing everywhere.

Criticism

Most people today are familiar with the idea that it is easier to notice the flaws of others than the flaws of oneself. To my knowledge this is an idea originating from the teachings of Christ, which would make it a lesson from the new testament. Without needing to debate religious subjects to dig deeper, it is perfectly possible to reflect on how this has had an effect on the larger social evolution that has happened since then.

Many people revert to this mantra every time they are called out on making a mistake. Indeed it is a practise we spend considerable amounts of time on disapproving of in public. We disapprove of politicians that spend their valuable time for preaching their own mass appeal on preaching of the lack of mass appeal in their adversaries instead.

So it would be safe to assume that we have made it a cultural phenomenon to express discontent with any one flawed person or group to criticise another person or group. In this respect it becomes somewhat impossible to be honest about oneself and constructive towards others. Because by default we are all useless as critics to one another, as we are all “sinners”.

Since evolution has made us a socially dependant animal I would propose something entirely different to this approach discussed above. It is possible that we have developed in a fashion that made us superior at noticing the mistakes of others simply because we have spent so much time through history on looking outwards. At others and at society. Indeed it compliments us well in social contexts that we can function as coaches for others.

Imagine that from this instance people were better at coaching themselves than others. What would spark our drive towards mutual inspiration? How would we surpass anything previously thought of, if we were only better critics of what we had produced or proposed ourselves, rather than of the common wealth of knowledge and produce of all others?

Is it possible that this natural inclination towards outward criticism is culturally fought because if we accepted this perspective as innate, if not to our entire species then at least to our contemporary culture, we would rise towards our current potential and possibly evolve our social sphere?

Cause is mentioned here as there is conservative inclination in most social contexts to resist any change that could potentially snowball into more changes. “Controlled change” is even a phrase used by modern conservative politicians.

Recently

Following a period of illness and complications I had to conclude that blogging was the least of my priorities. This is why the activity has been decreasing to the point of fading completely.

To make up for this I have written a new post that will be published early tomorrow concerned with social evolution.

Ownership

What is ownership? In its most basic term it seems to imply the occupation of something by someone. This someone has since the original term was used been expanded to also include organisations and institutions such as corporations and even countries or groups of countries.

What it legally means, however, is simply that this something you have legally bought or acquired is now reserved for you by the enforcing institutions of your community. Is this just a silly overanalytic way to say that the something is yours?

No.

There is a vast difference between the idea of ownership and the actual phenomenon of ownership. You see in the idea of ownership it is possible to say that something is yours. But in the actual world nothing is really yours. It can all be taken away, if not by other people then by external elements operating outside the rule of ownership, such as your dog deciding to eat it or a tsunami washing it all away.

So what you are left with is simply this illusion backed up by real world enforcement that in the event that your something is taken away from you and still desirable for you, then you may call upon these enforcers to bring it back to you or at the very least punish the ones that took it and in some cases recieve a monetary settlement in exchange for your something. It is an illusion that only works because we are all hooked into the same feed of rules, norms and acceptable behaviour.

Just like money it only works as long as everyone operates under the same principles. As soon as someone breaks the norm and becomes a thief, then you need to bend the guiding principles of reality to incorporate enforcing parties, such as the police, to shield you from this asocial behaviour.

And just like money it is only required for society to work properly as long as everyone operates under the same principles. As soon as someone breaks the norm and becomes able to grow their own food and gather their own water from natural sources, they start breaking the need to compromise themselves as individuals to function in this game of monetary exchange.

This clash of topics will most likely raise the issue of what happens to ownership when nothing is bought or sold anymore. When money is no more.

It obviously ceases to exist as the illusion it has survived as for so long. Surely it is a requirement for society to function though?

When you think about it, it should be a perfectly viable model for adults to share rather than own. After all we are not the primates we evolved from, nor are we the child we grew up from. If you connect the reality of sharing rather than owning with the reality that our current means of production could produce an abundance of high quality items for everyone, so long as there is no need for a profit to be generated anywhere, then you will see that this idea of ownership really only serves the salesman. The buyer is left with purchasing illusions.

So this is where the closing question arises. How much do we believe in the modern social sciences proving to us that we are extremely adaptive to the rules of whatever context we apply ourselves to?

Integrity

About a month ago I came up with the idea that I wanted to show my girlfriend a clip from a movie that I would like to discuss with her. In spirit of Black March I completely forgot about it until last night, where I dug up the clip on YouTube. The clip is from the majorly provocative feature called Brüno.

Even if you have watched the movie, you may not remember it as I did. I actually saw the movie in the cinema with my brothers and my cousin. It was quite a movie that we were in no way prepared for, but I suppose that was the idea. What stuck with me, aside from one other very disturbing display of the male body, was this clip of how extremely devoid of integrity the people interviewed seem to be.

I cannot guarantee that they are not actors and this is not a setup, but what I can guarantee is that it would then be very inspired by actual events taking place on an every day basis in the entertainment industry. If you have seen The Greatest Movie Ever Sold you would most likely agree.

But without further ado I bring to you the modern parents with stars in their eyes.

I hope I did not cause any heart problems when the answer ”yes” was given to the question ”can your child handle lit phosphorous?”.

Kony 2012

I thought I would make a post about Kony 2012, considering that it is all over the internet anyway. First I should point out that I have not seen the movie. The reason for this is that I feel no need to watch a documentary about child abuse. I have read a bit on the subject, however, and I thought I would provide you readers with some extra perspectives on this documentary. Mainly because when we are done discussing how important it is to assist children in need, we should consider what ruthless powers might exploit such good will. If that was the last thing on your mind, then you are indeed setting yourself up for quite a lot of surprises as we approach the end of fossil fuels.

According to this article Uganda recently proclaimed itself as en route to becoming an oil producer, with commercial production having begun in 2009. If this does not make any bells ring, we should just leave the subject there. If it does, however, then we should explore what kind of message the movie is attempting to send.

If you believe the following interview to be anything remotely related to the state of these affairs, then perhaps there is more to this motivational documentary than meets the eye. I would argue against being a conspiracy theorist, but I'll just let the words military intervention linger here.

Next up is this personal point brought up by a young woman claiming to be from Uganda herself with relatively regular visits. While she obviuosly has not studied this matter intently, I do think it might be interesting to note that if she is speaking the truth, then Kony is indeed not the subject of daily discussions in the homes of Uganda.

UPDATE: I also stumbled across this article which certainly lays into this documentary in a very rough way. I thought I should provide it in case you like the more theory-based approaches.