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Fuzzy Signalsextracting the signal from the noise |
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Fuzzy Signalsextracting the signal from the noise |
Given the subject of my last blog, I thought it interesting, in the serendipitous flow of memes, that this short article surfaced: "The French connections" by Edward Tenner (US News and World Report, 2/16/04). Edward Tenner, the author of Why Things Bite Back. This is one of the good books examining the unintended consequences of new technologies.
By the way, this article came to me via David Rejeski who heads an very interesting program in Washington DC called the Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. Check it out. He's leading some cool projects which are astonishingly close to GBN's content agenda. An interesting project to watch will study emergent social behaviours using new technologies, like the kind discussed in the must-read Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold. The aim is to see what positive social good may rise of these bottom up interactions, with the future role of policy and governance in mind. Dave tells me that Tenner is now working on a book looking at positive unintended consequences, which would be a welcome addition to the literature. This article about the French Connections may give us a glimpse into what be will be writing about.
Anyway, I loved this short piece of Tenner's because it shows just how interconnected many of the "American" innovations are with developments in Europe, in this case, France. Tenner start's by saying, "A hundred years after the Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk, the European consortium Airbus announced a milestone of its own--surpassing the American aviation giant Boeing in the number of airliners delivered in 2003. Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is now beating its U.S. rival at its own game of size and distance: The 555-passenger, long-range A380, bigger than any Boeing, is already in production. Airbus's success should be no surprise. America and France may be sparring diplomatically, but technologically the two nations have had a long love affair. Each has developed outstanding innovations, and each has assiduously exploited the other's ideas."
In a time when French-bashing is fashionable (I hear it's getting another head of steam again), it reminds people, especially Americans, that much good has come out of France. It's only arrogant and ignorant to think otherwise. Nothing bugs me more than people taking credit when credit's not due. A fact of life, I know, but there are bigger values at stake here – values that underpin an emerging worldview that favors interconnectivity, interdependence, and access versus claiming "ownership". This is just evidence of that reality. As Tenner writes, "it's pointless to debate who owes more to whom, and far more interesting to rejoice in cross-appropriation. Airbus has many U.S. suppliers, and Boeing will jump ahead sooner or later in the endless technological leapfrog. The last word may belong to the sage--perhaps Oscar Wilde--who said, "Talents imitate; geniuses steal."
Building off this article, I'll share a few things I wrote in a memo to one of my colleagues last year before he came to do a talk to ENA alumnae (ENA is the elite public administration school feeding the top private and public sector jobs). I muse: what makes France so confusing is that there is so much to criticize and find reprehensible, and, at the same time, so much to love and praise. On the surface it's very easy to dismiss the country as irrelevant and in decline, essentially corrupt, especially vis-à-vis Chirac's political double-dealings. Living here, once you get off of the manicured tourist beat, one also witnesses the failure of the Republican ideal to accommodate its multicultural reality. The idea of not acknowledging difference because this dilutes the universality and unity of the French citizen is noble, but in practice has become a front for systematic racism and the institutionalization of non-whites as second and third class citizens. And then there is the bureaucracy and les functionaire, which is enough to get even the most placid person's blood to boil with frustration. I could go on and on...
But living here, the fire of my criticisms are dampened just by going out my front door. As I quickly register my beautiful surroundings and way of life, the more admirable face of France rises to the foreground. It's hard not to admire a place where aesthetics and beauty do matter. You're well being is so much greater when your environment is well designed and delightful to your senses. Quality of life is more important than narrow economic gain. Intellectualism is also something to be respected and valued here. Academics and philosophers share top billing with movie stars, and the hierarchy is clear: good ideas are superior than the ephemerality of show biz. People also forget just how much France has contributed to the world, its prevailing ideas and driving assumptions. Despite what Bush thinks, the French do have a word for "entrepreneur." In fact (surprise, surprise) the word actually originated in France when it was still a hotbed of innovation, sometime after the Middle Ages, as the feudal and guild systems collapsed, thus reducing barriers to entry and launching a wave of entrepreneurial activity. In more recent times France has gestated and unleashed countless sea-changing ideas, everything from germ theory, to Picasso's cubist break-though, to the Enlightenment Thinkers which paved the wave to modern science, to the French Revolution which gave birth to human rights as we know it, to the postmodernism, to "restaurants" and modern gastronomy, to the first shopping mall concept (Mr. Bon Marche), to fashion (Cartier, Coco Chanel, Yves Saint-Laurent)...well, important things. The memo goes on, but I will stop for now.
At the end of the day, you're left with a sort of cognitive dissonance, a divided and ambivalent state, on the question of France. You're forced to live with this ambiguity, rather than take sides. How post-modern... Foucault and Derrida would like this. I have to say, though, that the abstract and philosophical fades quickly in favour of the personal, the glow of the lived experience in Paris wins out hands down. It's hard to stay mad at a place that has invested in the art of the good life – that Aristotelian ideal that alludes so many in the Anglo-American world. We are happier here, without question, and it was almost luck that brought us to Paris rather than Francophilia.
Back to the big picture, far from being irrelevant, France is exactly the kind of place we need to exist to explore the most pressing questions about how we want to live. To talk about happiness, about being a whole person. As the world gets more homogeneous, it's important that we have a different model within the Western world to learn from. Lastly, if one of the most important macro debates we're having today is about "civilization", and in particular, the strengths and weaknesses – and future role of – Western civilization(s) in a globalizing world, it's very useful to start with France where many of these macro ideas started.
One crazy idea: perhaps I should create a learning journey – part workshop/part field trip in Paris – targeted at today's idea-makers and idea-shapers on just this topic. What fun that would be...
Eugène Delacroix 1798-1863
La Liberté guidant le peuple (28 juillet 1830)
Museé du Louvre