Archive for the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Tag
All Together Now
Filed under: interconnected, uncertainty | Tags: conservative, decoherence, Democrats, Occupy, Occupy Wall Street, opposites, progressive, Republicans, Tea Party
Leave a Comment We’re all in this together.
That’s not a popular thought these days.
These days we prefer to think of how we’re different: conservative, progressive, young, old, white, black, Republican, Democrat, Tea Partier, Occupier, Christian, Moslem, Jew, vegan, meat eater, Yankee fan, Red Sox fan, soccer mom, NASCAR dad, beer drinker, wine swiller, etc., etc.
We’re eager to proclaim our differences whenever we can – on the radio, TV, the web, email, and Facebook. For support, we gather together with those who share our values. After all, there’s strength in numbers. We feel embattled and oppressed by those who are different than us. To buck up our spirits for the fight we must fight against our enemies we tell ourselves:
We’re all in this together.
Against THEM.
You’ve got to watch out for THEM. You can’t trust THEM. THEY want to destroy the country. THEY want to destroy our way of life. You can’t believe the crap THEY pour out on the radio, TV, the web, email, and Facebook. THEY are wrong. THEY are liars. THEY don’t know what THEY are talking about. Or maybe THEY know exactly what THEY are doing, spreading lies, half-truths and propaganda to have THEIR way against US.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell what their tactics are. But one thing is clear: THEY are responsible for what’s wrong with today’s world.
WE had better watch out, WE had better be on our guard against THEM. WE had better use all the tools WE have available these days to fight back against THEM: radio, TV, the web, email, Facebook. WE have to be strong and stand together as one against THEM. And remember:
We’re all in this together.
In the fight against THEM.
WE are ready for this fight. THEY deserve whatever WE can do to them: THEY have it coming. The world would be a wonderful place, WE would have peace and happiness, if it wasn’t for THEM. Because THEY fight US, WE must fight THEM. WE have no choice. The world is a jungle because of THEM.
Sometimes it’s hard to imagine a better world, a world free of fear and hatred and conflict. Sometimes it seems hard to believe that THEY have enough power to ruin the world for US. Is that really possible? Can THEY really do that all on their own?
Or do they need US to help THEM create this jungle world? Is this a Fight to the Death? Or is it a Dance? We react to what they do; they react to our reaction; we react to their reaction; they react to our reaction; we react to their reaction… And so forth.
This raises a question: if their actions are in response to our actions, to what degree are we responsible for their actions? Conversely, to what degree do their actions determine our reactions? Do THEY have some influence over OUR actions?
This raises another question: what would THEY do if WE didn’t react? What if we just did our thing, followed our beliefs, went on our way, and ignored THEM? Would the Dance end, the music stop?
What would THEY do if WE weren’t there?
What would WE do if THEY weren’t there?
And what would the world be like if the music stopped and the Dance ended?
Another question: to what degree are WE defined by our opposition to THEM? To what degree are THEY defined by their opposition to US? Who would WE be without THEM? Who would THEY be without US?
In quantum physics, all things exist in a state of potentiality until they encounter something that forces them to be defined as THIS rather than THAT. Physicists have a term for this: decoherence.
Maybe that’s what is happening here: our beliefs exist in a state of potentiality until we encounter the beliefs of others. Confronted by those beliefs, we are forced to choose: do we agree or disagree? It is only in encountering the beliefs of others that we come to know more clearly what we believe.
Just as we can only know light when we’ve encountered darkness, we can only know who we are when we encounter others who are not us. We are inextricably linked to our opposite, as black is to white.
If that’s the case, then there’s only one possible conclusion:
We’re all in this together.
OccupyWallStreet and Failing Institutions
Filed under: emergent, interconnected | Tags: change, failing institutions, future, linked world, Occupy Wall Street, Wall St
Leave a Comment Jeff Jarvis has written about the OccupyWallStreet movement:
#OccupyWallStreet, to me, is about institutional failure. And so it is appropriate that #OccupyWallStreet itself is not run as an institution.
We don’t trust institutions anymore. Name a bank or financial institution you can trust today. That industry was built entirely on trust — we entrusted our money to their cloud — and they failed us. Government? The other day, I heard a cabinet member from a prior administration call Washington “paralyzed and poisonous” — and he’s an insider. Media? Pew released a study last week saying that three-quarters of Americans don’t believe journalists get their facts straight (which is their only job). Education? Built for a prior, institutional era. Religion? Various of its outlets are abusing children or espousing bigotry or encouraging violence. The #OccupyWallStreet troops are demonizing practically all of corporate America and with it, capitalism. What institutions are left? I can’t name one.
He goes on to say:
What’s happening is an attempt to define a new public, now that we can. Iceland, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are all countries being reimagined and remade: start-up nations. Hear Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir talk about building a new constitution, using Facebook, on the principles of “equality, transparency, accountability, and honesty” — liberté, égalité, fraternité, updated for the networked age.
In the end, this is why I wrote Public Parts, because we have the tools and thus the opportunity to rethink and reorganize our publics and decide what they stand for. The power and freedom that Gutenberg’s press brought to the early modern era, our networked tools now bring everyone in this, the early digital age. “They empower us. They grant us the ability to create, to connect, to organize, and to aggregate our knowledge…. They lower borders, even challenging our notion of nations.” That’s what the youth of these countries are doing.
I agree with the observation that many of our institutions are failing in important ways. However, I think this failure is symptomatic of larger changes happening in our world. It’s not a matter of intent – the leaders of these institutions aren’t trying to be evil. Rather it’s a reflection of the fact that those in charge are products of a different era and mindset, which is incapable of understanding and adapting to our changed world. As I have written before:
…many institutions are failing because they haven’t adapted to the ways our world has changed. One thing that’s striking about many of the big institutions finding themselves in hot water these days is that a big part of their problem appears rooted in a mistaken belief that they are able to tightly manage/control the information about problematic issues. Toyota had problems with car defects; it tried to hide them. The Church had problems with perverted priests; it tried to hide them. Goldman Sachs had problems with very risky investments and very shady dealings to get rid of them; it tried to hide them. Tiger Woods had a thing for cocktail waitresses; he tried to hide it.
In an earlier, less connected time, perhaps these things wouldn’t have become such big deals. Probably past experience in hiding problems had led the leaders of these institutions to try a similar approach in these cases.
However, they apparently didn’t realize that in today’s hyper-connected world it’s almost inevitable that bad things will come to light – whether it’s vehicle flaws, priests behaving badly, devious investment strategies, or adulterous affairs. And now when the news DOES come out, the impact is likely to be much greater than it might have been before the Internet and global communications – especially if it’s apparent there was a cover-up involved.
As I noted last year, the end result for all of these failing institutions will depend on their ability to adapt to our changed world:
I think this time is like any other in which great change has taken place. Some people and institutions will adapt to change and thrive; others will fail to adapt and fall by the wayside, deserted by their former supporters and clients.
Some may loudly protest the change and uncertainty of today’s world. They may even gain enough influence to hamper some institutions’ ability to adapt to these changes. But they can’t stop the change itself. In attempting to turn back the clock and to resurrect an illusory past they will be much like a bunch of Americans in the Panama Canal Zone back in 1964: all they are likely to accomplish is a quicker demise of the institutions they had hoped to preserve.
I’ve never been a believer in the so-called “Wisdom of the Market” as the term applied to Wall Street. But I do believe in the idea as it applies to transformational times and ideas. When the times are changing, the ones who understand and adapt to those changes will be the ones who thrive in what comes.
In the end we will be left with a combination of old institutions that adapted and new institutions that saw a better way and followed it. Everything else will just be history.
