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Fuzzy Signalsextracting the signal from the noise |
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Fuzzy Signalsextracting the signal from the noise |
I just received an email from a friend, Joe Tankersley, a Disney Imagineer and corporate storytellerwithin a corporate setting. Well, unfortunately he was living the pathway of Hurricane Charlie.
Fortunately, he and his family are alright. Like many, I'm sure, he is reporting the following phenomenon: "In the aftermath of the storm, neighbors found themselves carrying on conversations and offering to help folks they barely acknowledge most days. I've also been really fascinated by the way information is flowing. Everyone shares whatever they have heard about conditions--school closings, power returning etc. When the roads were cleared neighbors and relatives were coming by to check on us and vice versa. Those with ice were delivering it to those without. As is always the case, hard times bring out the best in people. Seems somewhat a shame that we can't have a more connected community everyday."
I responded something like this: Nothing like nature to unite human natures. A common story. But I'm glad your anthropological senses are making the most of such disruptions. I'm almost a disruption-fetishist myself (even if I'm at risk) just because of how they shake-up human relations, just because they make visible so many invisible relationships, flows and issues. And I agree with you collective action and commons-sharing is always fascinating to watch, and even more amazing to experience first hand. NYers talk a lot about this post September 11th, i.e. how they met neighbours for the first time; how they still have block-parties as a result of this powerful community-forming event. As you note, it's sad when this is an anomaly versus the norm. American society didn't used to be this way; it's pro-social aspects were what made outsiders like Tocqueville admire the country so.
One hypothesis about these events: I think they showcase, more acutely than ever, the existence of much deeper relatively untapped reservoirs of human potential, which seem to gush forth like water through a hole in a dam. This glimpse of collective human potential contrasts sharply to the more tepid flow (or lack thereof) defining day-to-day social and civic arrangements. It's a striking reminder of just how shallowly our current institutions, both in the private and public sectors (curiously the big ones), tap into these deeper wellsprings of collective feeling and action. I suppose some people think this is a good thing. Better to keep the masses quiescent, the cynical power-brokers might quietly say to themselves. And sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. Social movements do spiral in unpredictable directions, namely, the massive collective action that happens during revolutions often results in some pretty horrific things.
Most people would also qualify and bracket this state of cooperation, these bursts of pro-social behaviour, as a temporary phenomenon— as something that's exceptional as opposed to the norm. Hundreds of years of political theory and cultural assumptions about human nature tended to reinforce this view quite definitively, almost to the point where it's hard to imagine anything else. Many people even assume that this view of human nature is tantamount to a law of nature, immutable and unchangeable. But this is logically and empirically not true. Neither of these assumptions are a given. Shift the context, the tools, the underlying organizing values and frameworks, and we might get a different collective versus individual equilibria. And no, I'm not dreaming up utopian visions. Everything from applied Open Source approaches to widespread experiments in social entrepreneurship may reveal a different set of models and approaches.
Three books, recently read, lay these claims out quite clearly: "The Success of Open Source" by Steve Weber, "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki, and "Smart Mobs" by Howard Rheingold. I hope to do a collective review of these books, and other recent material soon so I can summarize some of these findings and ideas, but please don't hold me to that :) The point is that, unlike other revolutions, these ideas are already in the rapid prototyping, learning-by-doing phase; and they are manifesting themselves daily, quickly going mainstream, in a way that many entrenched interests will find surprisingly and perplexing. Another inevitable surprise to put to the bookies. This is also another role for Worldchangers. Translators and boundary-spanners will be sorely needed!