Universum – C. Flammarion, Holzschnitt, Paris 1888, Kolorit : Heikenwaelder Hugo, Wien 1998
Years ago, when I was the typical run-of-the-mill rational-minded liberal activist, I did lots of stuff. I thought about what I hated most in the system under which we live (which I will call Bob, in an effort of simplicity, and also in order to avoid tedious arguments over the language and meaning of various terms such as civilization, western culture, taker culture, capitalism, the world as we know it, the current paradigm, the current logic, and so on), and I put my time into trying to stop Bob. I registered voters and urged people to vote for a (any!) Democrat. I encouraged people to sign petitions. I even put recycling bins in the dorms of the college I attended. I did lots of other stuff that took my time and in the end I felt I hadn’t made a dent in Bob; rather, I felt frustrated and inept. I don’t feel inept these days, for a variety of reasons, and I wanted to bring up questions that have me thinking. What alternatives does Bob exclude, and what circumstances (constraints) in our current system disallow these alternatives? Merely framing the question in a different domain—that of cybernetics, rather than conventional politics—led me to answers that provide fodder for new questions. Hooray! Thinking resumes, action commences, and frustration? Poof!
Once we begin to answer the question of what alternatives are excluded in favor of Bob, we may find ourselves in the land of tasty treats. What do we desire? And we could even ask that question on behalf of our greater society. First let’s ask, what do we desire not to happen? I imagine the majority of Americans, even those faithful patriots who persist in driving SUVs and shopping at Wal-Mart would agree on some things, like there should be no cold and starving children, no homeless veterans, no illiterate Americans, and so on. And maybe a whole bunch more of us would chime in to say that we prefer no oil in our gulfs, no anti-depressants in our drinking water, no genetically altered food on our plates, and maybe we’d even articulate really radical stuff like not having a car-dependent society, no one going to jail for consensual crimes like smoking marijuana, and no one doing any work or school they despise. In talking about what we do not desire, we may find ourselves on common ground with people we would not normally expect. Now, into the next paradigm we go!
What are we for? What do we desire? I know I’m against giant oil leaks in our ocean, but what am I for? While I acknowledge my own distasteful and ill-designed dependence on fossil fuels, I can heartily say I’m for community gardens, walkable and bikable cities, local economies that are (shockingly!) based on a currency besides money, and for vacant land and homes being available to those who need them or will make use of them. I’m also for the United States government ceasing the War of Destruction it wages with every last inhabitant of this planet. (The U.S. government is the world’s largest single consumer of petroleum, and it acts on my behalf, though I don’t recall voting for that.)
My message, eternally, is that there are alternatives to Bob. We have choices, and one of them is to say no. Philip K. Dick remarked that this ability to refuse is what makes us different from robots. We can say no to Bob, the destruction machine many hardworking Americans animate on a daily basis. We can say no to taking a living ecosystem and turning it into yet more deserts, landfills, and Stuff. We have other choices; we may enact a different future should we decide to do so.
When I say things like this, I often hear a sputter of buts, usually regarding Bob’s strength and evilness. I agree that burning down capitol buildings and credit card headquarters often results in jail time, and thus is not advised. There are other methods of enacting a new paradigm that are not illegal, that do not use force to fight force, and that are effective. Do not feel a need to limit yourself to the few I suggest in this essay.
Part of realizing a new paradigm is spreading the meme that it does exist. It is right here, under our feet, over our heads, permeating our existence. Can’t you see it?! Feel it? Taste it? Use all your sensory organs in as many different ways as they allow. Extend your hand to grasp the hand outstretched to you. Well, even if you haven’t conjured it into physical reality yet, can you conjure it into your mind’s eye and allow it to exist there? Good! As Barbara Max Hubbard so beautifully put it: “The future exists, first in imagination, then in will, then in reality.”
Now that we can see this new paradigm, even in our mind’s eye, how can we describe it to others? If we start out with a story of how we’re going to solve all the world’s problems as soon as our status is benevolent dictator, we may find ourselves short of an audience. I often enjoy strict language, but I think this is a place and time for big picture language: loose and obscure, a mere outline. More questions than answers come to mind at this point, and I feel comfortable with that in the here and now.
I like to think of a new paradigm as being transmitted by messages, and here cybernetics provides some useful language. Communication is the creation of redundancy or patterning. It is not the transmission of information that matters so much as the spreading of redundancy. Redundancy is the patterning or predictability of particular events within a larger aggregate of events. Redundancy allows the message to be recognized more easily and by greater numbers. Gregory Bateson notes,
“If then we say that a message has ‘meaning’ or is ‘about’ some referent, what we mean is that there is a larger universe of relevance consisting of message-plus-referent, and that redundancy or pattern or predictability is introduced into this universe by the message.”
The universe, which includes us, is informed by the message.
What does this mean? We recognize the familiar by its patterns or predictability. Taking notice of the message is a monumental task, because it is often framed in a way that is not understandable in our current language, as our current language does not include this (presumably) inconceivable future as a tenable reality. And what is the message? In a social-change format, I would assert that one form of the message is: “Hey, you! Alternatives exist! Use your ginormous brain to think of some and realize them!” We could also assert the message as: “Hey, you! Don’t we have anything better to do than Empire? I think so!” There are countless ways of stating the message, and it seems to boil down to recognizing that Bob, over the long haul, isn’t working for us. Bob is, in fact, destroying our habitat, which in turn implies the destruction of humanity. We see this and we want it to stop. We want to lead meaningful lives and ensure this opportunity for untold future generations—the future We.
Once we take notice of this message—in whatever form we may recognize it—we can then broadcast it to others. And how do we do this? We can perform the message in any number of ways; I write, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg. We can sing, dance, play, or paint the message. We can care about our friends and family, share and help, and encourage the economy of community. We can feel as much as we can feel, and live as though we’ve never lived before. We can see and feel beauty wherever our eyes may rest. There are endless ways to broadcast this message, and I encourage every reader to find the ways that speak for them.
Broadcasting the message allows others to pick up on it. It encourages others to question and think, and offers an opportunity for change. The message becomes redundant (as in, a noticeable pattern), easily recognizable by others. It becomes a new input in the feedback loop, cycling into Bob. It creates and enables NOISE, the only possible source of new patterns. New patterns enacted and made real in our daily lives make the reception of new information possible, which alters the current logic (Bob!) in some unknown way. There is chaos! And that’s great! Because that’s a state in which all becomes possible yet again. We find ourselves no longer stuck in an endless feedback loop of destruction and frustration.
We can also use the information contained in the pattern of the message to guess about the larger aggregate of which it is a part. We need not have all the answers to begin living in a way that makes more sense. We may apply logical intuition to perceive information about the big picture, the next paradigm which (we hope!) is founded on satisfying human needs. We may even find ourselves designers, living lives worth our efforts, in landscapes created from our imaginations, planted by our desires, and nourished by our interactions on a daily basis.
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Part 2 coming very very soon. Like, in a day or so…
