Failed State: An Effort at Definition
I believe you can trace it some of it back to Europe and the ideological and political virus of "eidodynamic" revolution:
"Isolated expressions of eidodynamic assumptions can be traced far back into history, Walsby finding them in ancient Greek and Chinese writings, {1} but they can hardly be said to have motivated political activities before the appearance of the Diggers and other egalitarian protesters of 17th century England. In the French Revolution Babeuf and followers, with their communistic Utopia, claim a place among the eidodynamics, but the main movement has to be ascribed to the ideology of precision. Not until the 19th century did the reformers and revolutionaries come to form enduring parties and movements.
These have not been able to realise their own idea of themselves; claiming to represent the interests of the great body of the people against a dominant and exploitative few, and therefore expecting to receive overwhelming numerical support, they have remained in the minority. They have known war and peace, boom and slump, the virtual disappearance of empires and ruling monarchs, the growth of political democracy, general education, widespread literacy and mass communications; one of them has been able to grasp control of governmental power in two of the largest states and a number of smaller ones. Each of these conditions has been proclaimed, before the event, the one thing needed to bring the great body of the people to accept socialism (or communism or anarchism) but none of them have produced this effect. The features and tendencies these groups oppose - private ownership, togetherness, economic competition, institutional religion, hierarchy, authority, low valuation of theory, respect for success in life, willingness to defend the national group - these continue to be the values by which society mainly operates."
In complex systems like human society, organizational success must emerge organically from the properties and interactions of the previous level. Failure to take into account the material you are working with is a fast route to failure; imposing a revolutionary (eidodynamic) paradigm from the top, an ideology based on false premises and contradictory to the properties of the existing system, will inevitably lead to the collapse of the system itself, and to our failed states.
In fractal geometry one of the first things you notice is how properties are self-similar and recursive, all the way to the bottom. Societies, if they are to have structural fitness, must also have self-similar levels and recursive properties. At the bottom of society lies the individual, then the family, then village, etc. The culture and customs that grow organically at these low levels are as important to the "state" as a cornerstone to a foundation; the low levels are determinative of of the nation's properties and fitness.
Some ideologies are never fit enough on a local level to have a new level "emerge", i.e. a nation built around those principles. Some paradigms are fit enough to go global.
Imposing a nation-state on unfit local paradigm's is one reason for state failure. Imposing unfit and eidodynamic paradigms on an otherwise fit nation-state is another.
When you look at the over-all ecology, the global system of interaction and competition, it becomes apparent why we must be like "swimming sharks", constantly moving. The world is constantly shifting, and if you sit back on your laurels and refuse to adapt, pretty soon your very successful paradigm at time 't', which was working with reality 'r', will be obsolete at time 'T' when you must work with reality 'R'.
Evolution. All these systems and all their levels have the self-similar property of participating in a selective system. The question each society must ask itself: can you compete?
If you cannot play by the organically-grown rules of world selection, then a priori you will fail.
"Isolated expressions of eidodynamic assumptions can be traced far back into history, Walsby finding them in ancient Greek and Chinese writings, {1} but they can hardly be said to have motivated political activities before the appearance of the Diggers and other egalitarian protesters of 17th century England. In the French Revolution Babeuf and followers, with their communistic Utopia, claim a place among the eidodynamics, but the main movement has to be ascribed to the ideology of precision. Not until the 19th century did the reformers and revolutionaries come to form enduring parties and movements.
These have not been able to realise their own idea of themselves; claiming to represent the interests of the great body of the people against a dominant and exploitative few, and therefore expecting to receive overwhelming numerical support, they have remained in the minority. They have known war and peace, boom and slump, the virtual disappearance of empires and ruling monarchs, the growth of political democracy, general education, widespread literacy and mass communications; one of them has been able to grasp control of governmental power in two of the largest states and a number of smaller ones. Each of these conditions has been proclaimed, before the event, the one thing needed to bring the great body of the people to accept socialism (or communism or anarchism) but none of them have produced this effect. The features and tendencies these groups oppose - private ownership, togetherness, economic competition, institutional religion, hierarchy, authority, low valuation of theory, respect for success in life, willingness to defend the national group - these continue to be the values by which society mainly operates."
In complex systems like human society, organizational success must emerge organically from the properties and interactions of the previous level. Failure to take into account the material you are working with is a fast route to failure; imposing a revolutionary (eidodynamic) paradigm from the top, an ideology based on false premises and contradictory to the properties of the existing system, will inevitably lead to the collapse of the system itself, and to our failed states.
In fractal geometry one of the first things you notice is how properties are self-similar and recursive, all the way to the bottom. Societies, if they are to have structural fitness, must also have self-similar levels and recursive properties. At the bottom of society lies the individual, then the family, then village, etc. The culture and customs that grow organically at these low levels are as important to the "state" as a cornerstone to a foundation; the low levels are determinative of of the nation's properties and fitness.
Some ideologies are never fit enough on a local level to have a new level "emerge", i.e. a nation built around those principles. Some paradigms are fit enough to go global.
Imposing a nation-state on unfit local paradigm's is one reason for state failure. Imposing unfit and eidodynamic paradigms on an otherwise fit nation-state is another.
When you look at the over-all ecology, the global system of interaction and competition, it becomes apparent why we must be like "swimming sharks", constantly moving. The world is constantly shifting, and if you sit back on your laurels and refuse to adapt, pretty soon your very successful paradigm at time 't', which was working with reality 'r', will be obsolete at time 'T' when you must work with reality 'R'.
Evolution. All these systems and all their levels have the self-similar property of participating in a selective system. The question each society must ask itself: can you compete?
If you cannot play by the organically-grown rules of world selection, then a priori you will fail.
posted by John Aristides at 7:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home