[P2P-F] How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means

Tue May 31 09:39:25 CEST 2011

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 <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Kevin Flanagan <kev.flanagan at gmail.com>
> 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-tansley-smuts
> >
> > Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on youtube
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc
> >
>
>
> 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
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> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>
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