How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan... Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
it's great to tease out the right-libertarian influences on cyber-systems and culture, these are very real, but it's only part of the story, while Randian philosophy focuses on a minority of heroes in a mass of sheep; others have wanted to help all sheep; in other words, cyberculture is equally influenced by egalitarian dreams, not just elitist ones ... Michel On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]>wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
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Sam, I hope you survived the tornado? I hope some of our participants can react to this very interesting challenge from Adam Curtis in the Guardian, Michel On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]>wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
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I made it out alive. We lost power for a couple of days. I just sent a response even before I read this request that I send a response :) As such, my response was not all that great. On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 1:40 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
Sam,
I hope you survived the tornado?
I hope some of our participants can react to this very interesting challenge from Adam Curtis in the Guardian,
Michel
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]> wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
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Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://futureforwardinstitute.com http://forwardfound.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan
missed that response Sam, so glad you are doing okay and have a roof over your head still, Michel On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Samuel Rose <[email protected]> wrote:
I made it out alive. We lost power for a couple of days. I just sent a response even before I read this request that I send a response :) As such, my response was not all that great.
On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 1:40 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
Sam,
I hope you survived the tornado?
I hope some of our participants can react to this very interesting challenge from Adam Curtis in the Guardian,
Michel
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]> wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
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Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://futureforwardinstitute.com http://forwardfound.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
I find there is an interesting contradiction in Curtis' editorial, he criticises UK Uncut for refusing to acknowledge leadership in their group, and at the end hails the ants that destroyed the Biosphere 2 experiment as an example of 'collective action' yet, UK Uncut is collective action, and ants have no leaders ... this makes his argumentation rather paradoxical, no? On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]>wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
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On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]> wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
A quote from the Guardian: "But they also fused it with cybernetic ideas drawn from computer theory, and out of this came a vision of strong, independent humans linked, just like in nature, in a network that was held together through feedback. The commune dwellers mimicked the ecosystem idea in their house meetings where they all had to say exactly what was on their minds at that moment – so information flowed freely round the system. And through that the communes were supposed to stabilise themselves." "But they didn't. In many communes across America in the late 1960s house meetings became vicious bullying sessions where the strong preyed mercilessly on the weak, and nobody was allowed to voice any objections. The rules of the self-organising system said that no coalitions or alliances were allowed because that was politics – and politics was bad. If you talk today to ex-commune members they tell horrific stories of coercion, violent intimidation and sexual oppression within these utopian communities, while the other commune members stood mutely watching, unable under the rules of the system to do anything to stop it." "Again, the central weakness of the self-organising system was dramatically demonstrated. Whether it was used for conservative or radical ends, it could not cope with power, which is one of the central dynamic forces in human society." [end quote]
Sam writes:
There is something oxymoronic about describing a "self organising system" in which participants force each other to act in certain ways. I think it is safe to say that what is being described is not a "self organising system", but rather a coercive system. The coercive system definitely *could* "cope with power", as "power" was frequently exerted by anyone who was doing the coercing...
[begin quote] "But at the very same time a new generation of ecologists began to question the very basis of Arthur Tansley's idea of the self-regulating ecosystem. Out of this came a bloody battle within the science of ecology, with the new generation showing powerfully that wherever they looked in nature they found not stability, but constant, dynamic change; that Tansley's idea of a underlying pattern of stability in nature was really a fantasy, not a scientific truth." [end quote]
Sam writes:
I feel sorry for the people who might have wasted hours, days, weeks or years on these debates. Still in hindsight it makes sense that early industrial era thinking clashed with later thinking.
[begin quote] "But in an age that was increasingly disillusioned with politics, the ghosts not just of Tansley but also of Smuts now began to re-emerge in epic form. In the late 70s an idea rose up that we – and everything else on the planet – are connected together in complex webs and networks. Out of it came epic visions of connectivity such as the Gaia theory and utopian ideas about the world wide web. And human beings believed that their duty was not to try to control the system, but to help it maintain its natural self-organising balance." [end quote]
Sam writes
I would not attribute this thinking solely to Tansley and Smuts. Plus, there are still *many* people who believe their duty is to control. I think the history that Adam Curtis writes about in this article is interesting and worthy of note. However, I think he has mixed up what led to what, and where the world view/weltanschauung of people is at and heading to. I don't see how Curtis could have written this article without discussing the field of modern complex systems theory, for instance. It's not all utopian/"Gaian" visions, really.
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-- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://futureforwardinstitute.com http://forwardfound.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan
sam, re your last paragraph, that seems to me the central weakness of the curtis approach, lumping all network-theory/complexity/cybernetics/ecosystems as one big exclusively randian approach .. On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Samuel Rose <[email protected]> wrote:
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]> wrote:
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means - Adam Curtis - Guardian
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tan...
Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
A quote from the Guardian:
"But they also fused it with cybernetic ideas drawn from computer theory, and out of this came a vision of strong, independent humans linked, just like in nature, in a network that was held together through feedback. The commune dwellers mimicked the ecosystem idea in their house meetings where they all had to say exactly what was on their minds at that moment – so information flowed freely round the system. And through that the communes were supposed to stabilise themselves."
"But they didn't. In many communes across America in the late 1960s house meetings became vicious bullying sessions where the strong preyed mercilessly on the weak, and nobody was allowed to voice any objections. The rules of the self-organising system said that no coalitions or alliances were allowed because that was politics – and politics was bad. If you talk today to ex-commune members they tell horrific stories of coercion, violent intimidation and sexual oppression within these utopian communities, while the other commune members stood mutely watching, unable under the rules of the system to do anything to stop it."
"Again, the central weakness of the self-organising system was dramatically demonstrated. Whether it was used for conservative or radical ends, it could not cope with power, which is one of the central dynamic forces in human society."
[end quote]
Sam writes:
There is something oxymoronic about describing a "self organising system" in which participants force each other to act in certain ways. I think it is safe to say that what is being described is not a "self organising system", but rather a coercive system. The coercive system definitely *could* "cope with power", as "power" was frequently exerted by anyone who was doing the coercing...
[begin quote]
"But at the very same time a new generation of ecologists began to question the very basis of Arthur Tansley's idea of the self-regulating ecosystem. Out of this came a bloody battle within the science of ecology, with the new generation showing powerfully that wherever they looked in nature they found not stability, but constant, dynamic change; that Tansley's idea of a underlying pattern of stability in nature was really a fantasy, not a scientific truth."
[end quote]
Sam writes:
I feel sorry for the people who might have wasted hours, days, weeks or years on these debates. Still in hindsight it makes sense that early industrial era thinking clashed with later thinking.
[begin quote]
"But in an age that was increasingly disillusioned with politics, the ghosts not just of Tansley but also of Smuts now began to re-emerge in epic form. In the late 70s an idea rose up that we – and everything else on the planet – are connected together in complex webs and networks. Out of it came epic visions of connectivity such as the Gaia theory and utopian ideas about the world wide web. And human beings believed that their duty was not to try to control the system, but to help it maintain its natural self-organising balance."
[end quote]
Sam writes
I would not attribute this thinking solely to Tansley and Smuts. Plus, there are still *many* people who believe their duty is to control. I think the history that Adam Curtis writes about in this article is interesting and worthy of note. However, I think he has mixed up what led to what, and where the world view/weltanschauung of people is at and heading to. I don't see how Curtis could have written this article without discussing the field of modern complex systems theory, for instance. It's not all utopian/"Gaian" visions, really.
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://futureforwardinstitute.com http://forwardfound.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan
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On 31 May 2011 09:39, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
sam, re your last paragraph,
that seems to me the central weakness of the curtis approach, lumping all network-theory/complexity/cybernetics/ecosystems as one big exclusively randian approach ..
Might be worth responding on his blog post, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/05/all_watched_over_by_machines_o... I see no sign of replies from Curtis, but maybe he reads at least. Dan
getting error messages for now .. On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 4:11 PM, Dan Brickley <[email protected]> wrote:
On 31 May 2011 09:39, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
sam, re your last paragraph,
that seems to me the central weakness of the curtis approach, lumping all network-theory/complexity/cybernetics/ecosystems as one big exclusively randian approach ..
Might be worth responding on his blog post,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/05/all_watched_over_by_machines_o...
I see no sign of replies from Curtis, but maybe he reads at least.
Dan
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participants (4)
-
Dan Brickley -
Kevin Flanagan -
Michel Bauwens -
Samuel Rose