diff options
| author | elioat <elioat@tilde.institute> | 2023-08-23 07:52:19 -0400 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | elioat <elioat@tilde.institute> | 2023-08-23 07:52:19 -0400 |
| commit | 562a9a52d599d9a05f871404050968a5fd282640 (patch) | |
| tree | 7d3305c1252c043bfe246ccc7deff0056aa6b5ab /js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/capitalist.html | |
| parent | 5d012c6c011a9dedf7d0a098e456206244eb5a0f (diff) | |
| download | tour-562a9a52d599d9a05f871404050968a5fd282640.tar.gz | |
*
Diffstat (limited to 'js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/capitalist.html')
| -rw-r--r-- | js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/capitalist.html | 660 |
1 files changed, 660 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/capitalist.html b/js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/capitalist.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e969164 --- /dev/null +++ b/js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/capitalist.html @@ -0,0 +1,660 @@ +<HTML> +<HEAD> +<TITLE>Logo: Capitalist Tool?</TITLE> +</HEAD> +<BODY> +<H1>Logo: Capitalist Tool?</H1> +<CITE>Brian Harvey<BR>University of California, Berkeley</CITE> + +<P>In 1964, John Holt wrote <CITE>How Children Fail</CITE>, based on his careful +observation of actual interactions in classrooms. He found several common +ways in which the events of classroom life led to miseducative results. +Holt's stance at that time was that once teachers understood these mistakes, +they'd be corrected, and schools would be much better places. + +<P>By 1972, Holt had seen his ideas become widely accepted, at least in +the abstract, but schools were as bad as ever. In his book <CITE>Freedom and +Beyond</CITE> he asks himself why: + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>In a way this book marks the end of an argument. For some time I +and others have been saying--some before I was born--that children are by +nature smart, energetic, curious, eager to learn, and good at learning; +that they do not need to be bribed and bullied to learn; that they learn +best when they are happy, active, involved, and interested in what they +are doing; that they learn least, or not at all, when they are bored, +threatened, humiliated, frightened. Only a few years ago this was +controversial, not to say radical, talk. Not any more. Almost any body +of educators, hearing such things, will yawn and say, ``So what else is +new?'' + +<P>This is not to say that everyone has been won over. Some may never +be. But on the whole these once radical and crazy ideas have become +part of the conventional wisdom of education. Students in most colleges +of education are regularly required to read, and I suppose take tests +on, books by people who not long ago were being called ``romantic'' +critics. The unthinkable has become respectable. + +<P>At any rate, what concerns me now is that so many people seem to be +saying that our schools must stay the way they are, or at any rate are +going to stay the way they are, <EM>even if</EM> it means that children will +learn less in them. Or, to put it a bit differently, our schools are +the way they are for many reasons that have nothing whatever to do with +children's learning. If so, convincing people that most of our present +schools are bad for learning is not going to do much to change them; +learning is not principally what they are for... + +<P>More and more it appeared that a large part of our problem is that +few of us really believe in freedom. As a slogan, it is fine. But we +don't understand it as a process or mechanism with which or within which +people can work and live. We have had in our own lives so little +experience of freedom, except in the most trivial situations, that we +can hardly imagine how it might work, how we might use it, or how it +could possibly be of any use to us when serious work was to be done. +For our times the corporate-military model seems to be the only one we +know, trust, and believe in. Most people, even in democracies, tend to +see democracy as a complicated process for choosing bosses whom all must +then obey, with this very small difference--that every so often we get a +chance to pick a new set of bosses. + +<P>Not understanding freedom, we do not understand authority. We think +in terms of organization charts, pecking orders, stars on the collar and +stripes on the sleeve. If someone is above us on the chart, then by +virtue of being there he has a right to tell us to do what he wants, and +we have a duty to do whatever he tells us, however absurd, destructive, +or cruel. Naturally enough, some people, seeing around them the +dreadful works of this kind of authority, reject it altogether. But +with it they too often reject, naturally but unwisely, all notions of +competence, inspiration, leadership. They cannot imagine that of their +own free will they might ask someone else what he thought, or agree to +do what he asked, because he clearly knew or perhaps cared much more +about what he was doing than they did. The only alternative they seem +to see to coercive authority is none at all. I have therefore tried to +explore a little further the nature of freedom, so that we may better +understand how people of varying ages and skills may live together and +be useful to each other without some of them always pushing the others +around. +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>Perhaps Holt's discovery that schools are not mainly about learning +merely demonstrates a specifically American naivete. Perhaps intellectuals +in the civilized world, with a tradition of political discourse, would sum +up Holt's entire argument by saying, ``The purpose of schools is to reproduce +the class structure of society.'' Indeed, much of Holt's book is taken up +with statistics about poverty, and with a debunking of the idea that better +education would bring everyone out of poverty. (But most of the book is +filled with quite specific, practical suggestions for building alternative +institutions in which adults and children can live together in freedom.) + +<P>What does this have to do with Logo? We, too, have seen our ideas +about education move from the lunatic fringe to the mainstream, with hardly +any actual change in the practice or the results of schooling. Just as John +Holt had to come to terms with this contradiction in <CITE>Freedom and Beyond</CITE>, +Seymour Papert takes up the problem in his 1993 <CITE>The Children's Machine: +Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer</CITE>. But Papert reaches his +analysis of the institution of schooling by way of a technical detour +through what he calls ``pilotage'' or ``emergent programming.'' Suppose you want +to get a Logo screen turtle to follow a specific path--for example, through a +maze drawn on the screen. You can accomplish this straightforwardly by +writing a program that embodies the exact desired path as a sequence of +precise moves and turns. But this ``dead reckoning'' approach will not work +for a physical robot turtle trying to follow the same path on the floor, +because the real-world imprecision in the robot's movements will accumulate +so that it soon ends up moving in entirely the wrong direction. Instead, a +maze program for a physical robot must use feedback--from touch sensors or +light sensors--to correct its movements dynamically. Papert's point is that +such a program does not directly embody the desired path. Rather, the +robot's motion along the path ``emerges'' from a combination of the program's +rules and the feedback from the actual situation. Central planning is bad; +reacting to the local situation is good. + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>When one is overwhelmed, as everyone must be from time to time, by a +sense that School is too firmly implanted ever to change, it is helpful +to contemplate the political changes across the globe that were until +recently considered quite impossible... + +<P>Mikhail Gorbachev, whose name has deservedly become emblematic of +change, is also one of history's most interesting examples of resistance +to change. Even as he ushered in previously unthinkable reforms, he +continued to pay allegiance to the ideas on which the system was +founded, and renounced the Communist party only when he was on the verge +of being renounced himself. His slogan of perestroika (which literally +means ``restructuring'') became synonymous with a policy of struggling to +reform a system in serious crisis without calling in question the +foundations on which it was built. It should be clear by now that I see +most of those who talk loudly about ``restructuring'' in education in much +the same light--though few of them have the courage to carry the reforms +as far in their realm as Gorbachev did in his. In their case a more +appropriate phrase than ``restructuring'' might be ``jiggering the system.'' + +<P>The analogy between perestroika and education reform would be +instructive even if it went no further than highlighting these general +features of change and resistance to change. But there is more. Using +the language of system dynamics developed earlier, the problems of both +the old Soviet Union and School can be described in terms of a conflict +between tightly and emergently programmed systems. +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>This seems to me to be an extremely simplistic analysis. The ideas +to which Gorbachev maintains his allegiance are <EM>not</EM> primarily a belief in +tightly programmed systems! Rather, they are ideas about the class nature +of society, about the fact that different societies work differently because +they are planned that way: Each society is controlled by certain people, +who set up institutions that serve their needs. A profound critique of the +Soviet Union would have to ask who controlled it, and whose interests it +served, rather than what administrative structures were used. + +<P>In the United States, the current organizational wisdom tells us +that airplane travel should be run in a decentralist manner, whereas rail +travel should be centrally planned. Our telephone system, once the best in +the world, was built by central planning--but by a private company, not by +government. In the name of decentralism we have replaced that central +planning with a maze, so that ordinary people can no longer figure out which +of three companies to call for help with a telephone problem (the +manufacturer of their telephone equipment, the local operating company, or a +long distance carrier), although big business benefits from competition through +price breaks for large-volume customers. The key point about all of these +examples is that the central or decentral organization is actually not so +important; trains and planes are both run to serve the rich. The ``smart +bombs'' that Papert admires in this book[*] may work by emergent programming, +but their development was funded by a massive concentration of political and +economic power, not by market forces or individual initiative! + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>[*] (Footnote added later.) Nobody ever believes me about this, so here +is an excerpt from the relevant section, starting on page 179, the beginning +of Chapter 9, "Cybernetics": + +<P>Television pictures of the war over Iraq gave millions of people their +most vivid view of cybernetic technology, in the form of the "smart" missile, +which seemed to hover like an insect before lunging into the entrance of a +hangar or other building. + +<P>It is depressing to feel again that the best way to open a discussion is +with a military image, but it reflects a real fact of life that has played +a big role in the strategies that have guided my work. The people who forge +new technological ideas do not make them for children. They often make them +for war, keep them in secret places, and show them in distant views... + +<P>Most people watching the missiles on TV would not have been able to give +a better explanation, if asked how they worked, than that "they are programmed +to do it." The booty I am after is a set of ideas (and technologies to allow +children to appropriate them) that would allow a more specific answer. Of +course the missiles are programmed. But they are programmed in a particular +way, using specific ideas whose development has played an important role in +the intellectual history of our century and whose implications might play an +even bigger role in the coming one. My hope is that for anyone who has +appropriated these ideas, the smart missiles will become transparent and, +with them, a whole range of technologies and areas of science... + +<P>The outline of this new subject will emerge gradually, and the problem of +situating it in the context of School and the larger learning environment will +best be broached when we have it in front of us. Here I give a preliminary +definition of the subject--but only as a seed for discussion--as <em>that +kernel of knowledge needed for a child to invent (and, of course, build) +entities with the evocatively lifelike qualities of smart missiles.</em> +[Emphasis in original.] +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>Seymour Papert is not the only Logoite for whom the contemplation of +emergent programming has given rise to bad political analysis. Papert's MIT +colleague Mitchel Resnick, in his 1994 book <CITE>Turtles, Termites, and Traffic +Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds</CITE>, moves beyond Papert's +mixture of praise and criticism for Gorbachev. Resnick's political hero is +Boris Yeltsin, the new Russian tsar. Because Yeltsin dissolved the +centralist Soviet Union, Resnick takes at face value his claim to be a +democrat and a decentralist. But the people of Chechnya understand, as +Resnick does not, that Yeltsin is neither of those things. What looks like +decentralism to Resnick is mere ethnocentrism (Russian Jews, in particular, +face much worse antisemitism than they did even in the Soviet Union days), +and what looks like democracy is opportunism. + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>The spread of decentralized ideas can be seen in organizations of +all sizes and types--countries, companies, schools, clubs. Although +details are different in each case, the basic idea is always the same: +pushing authority and power down from the top, distributing rights and +responsibilities more widely. For some countries (such as the Soviet +Union) decentralization has meant breaking apart into separate pieces. +But changes in national boundaries are not nearly as important as +changes in political and economic structures. Politically, countries +throughout the world are shifting away from totalitarianism toward +democracy. Economically, countries are shifting away from centrally +controlled economies toward market-oriented economies. As a result, +decision making (both political and economic) is becoming more +decentralized than ever before. Of course, there are exceptions to the +trend. In China, the government reasserted its centralized power with +the brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square. And on many of the former +Soviet republics, democracy is very fragile. But the overall trend is +clear. Between 1989 and 1991, countries with a combined population of +1.5 billion people, more than one-quarter of the world's population, +moved away from autocratic toward more democratic forms of government, +according to Freedom House, an American human-rights group. Now, for +the first time ever, more than half of all countries are democracies. +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +What's wrong with this passage is that Freedom House is <EM>not</EM> a ``human rights +group.'' Rather, Freedom House is a well-funded cold war propaganda mill. + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>Both the Freedom House survey and the State Department reports seem +to have a clear bias reflecting American foreign policy interests and/or +reflecting an undifferentiated, visceral anticommunism. Thus, the Freedom +House reports during the 1980s consistently rated El Salvador and +Guatemala, two countries allied with the United States that have been +notorious for government-allied ``death squads,'' which murdered thousands +of their citizens, as having a comparable or (usually) more favorable +human rights climate than Hungary or Yugoslavia, two one-party Communist +regimes which were not engaged in the slaughter of their citizens. +[Robert Justin Goldstein, ``The Limitations of Using Quantitative Data in +Studying Human Rights Abuses,'' in <CITE>Human Rights and Statistics: Getting +the Record Straight</CITE>, edited by Thomas B. Jabine and Richard P. Claude, +University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.] +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>In describing the behavior of ants, termites, robot turtles, and +other mindless agents, the idea of decentral control, of emergent +programming, truly does capture all of the important aspects of the +mechanism by which such simple devices can give rise to seemingly complex +behaviors. Emergent programming may even turn out to explain how human +intelligence itself arises from the simple behavior of neurons. But once we +set out to describe a system in which the ``elements'' are intelligent human +beings, there is much more to be said. Papert and Resnick both fall victim +to technocentrism; having discovered the power of central vs. decentral +control as an explanation, they take on such questions as autocratic vs. +democratic, governmental vs. private, and led vs. leaderless as if all of +those were merely central vs. decentral in different words. + +<H2>Autocratic / Democratic Is Not Central / Decentral</H2> + +<P>Mitchel Resnick's anticommunist friends at Freedom House use +``autocratic'' to mean communist and ``democratic'' to mean capitalist. This +use of language confusingly blends several distinct questions: + +<UL> +<LI>Are there elections? + +<LI>Are the means of production privately or publicly owned? + +<LI>Is planning done centrally or decentrally? + +<LI>Who holds power? +</UL> + +So, for example, the current movement in the United States to eliminate +federally funded programs in favor of state funded programs is a move toward +decentralist planning, but it is not a move toward democracy; the state +governments are no more and no less under popular control than the federal +government. + +<P>The history of the Soviet Union, following the abandonment of +communism by Lenin and Stalin, makes it easy to blend all these questions. +It may be helpful, therefore, to review the nature of the only government +ever blessed by Marx himself as authentically communist: the short-lived +Paris Commune of 1870-71. The following is from Engels' introduction to +Marx's <CITE>The Civil War in France</CITE>. (I quote Engels because Marx writes at +much greater length, but it's worth reading the third part of Marx's book, in +which he describes the Commune; the other parts are about the external +political and military events that led to its formation and then its +defeat.) In brackets I'll point out how this passage is relevant to the +issues under consideration here. + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>The members of the Commune were divided into a majority, the +Blanquists... and a minority, members of the International Working Men's +Association, chiefly consisting of adherents of the Proudhon school of +socialism. [That is, the Commune was multi-party.] ... Naturally, the +Proudhonists were chiefly responsible for the economic decrees of the +Commune, both for their praiseworthy and their unpraiseworthy aspects; as +the Blanquists were for its political commissions and omissions. And in +both cases the irony of history willed--as is usual when doctrinaires +come to the helm--that both did the opposite of what the doctrines of +their school prescribed. + +<P>Proudhon, the Socialist of the small peasant and master-craftsman, +regarded association with positive hatred. [He was a decentralist, like +Papert and Resnick.] He said of it that there was more bad than good in +it; that it was by nature sterile, even harmful, because it was a fetter +on the freedom of the worker; that it was a pure dogma, unproductive and +burdensome... that, as compared with it, competition, division of labor, +and private property were economic [i.e., good] forces. Only in the +exceptional cases--as Proudhon called them--of large-scale industry and +large establishments, such as railways, was the association of workers +in place. + +<P>By 1871, large-scale industry had already so much ceased to be an +exceptional case even in Paris, the centre of artistic handicrafts, that +by far the most important decree of the Commune instituted an +organization of large-scale industry and even of manufacture which was +not only to be based on the association of the workers in each factory, +but also to combine all these associations in one great union... +[Economic planning was done centrally, but bottom-up. The workers of a +particular factory were the experts on how that factory could best +contribute.] + +<P>The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the school of +conspiracy, and held together by the strict discipline which went with +it, they started out from the viewpoint that a relatively small number of +resolute, well-organized men would be able, at a given favourable moment, +not only to seize the helm of state, but also, by a display of great, +ruthless energy, to maintain power until they succeeded in sweeping the +mass of the people into the revolution and ranging them round the small +band of leaders. This involved, above all, the strictest, dictatorial +centralization of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary +government. [These ideas of the Blanquists were reinvented barely a +dozen years later by Lenin. Too bad he didn't appreciate Engels' +critique! In Lenin's defense, the conditions in which he worked, under +the brutal oppression of Tsarist Russia, were different from the +relatively free conditions in Paris.] And what did the Commune, with +its majority of these same Blanquists, actually do? In all its +proclamations to the French in the provinces, it appealed to them to +form a free federation of all French Communes with Paris, a national +organization which for the first time was really to be created by the +nation itself. It was precisely the oppressing power of the former +centralized government, army, political police, bureaucracy, which +Napoleon had created in 1798 and which since then had been taken over by +every new government as a welcome instrument and used against its +opponents--it was precisely this power which was to fall everywhere, +just as it had already fallen in Paris. + +<P>From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the +working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old +state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered +supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the +old repressive machinery previously used against it itself, and, on the +other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by +declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment. +What had been the characteristic attribute of the former state? Society +had created its own organs to look after its common interests, +originally through simple division of labour. But these organs, at +whose head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance +of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants +of society into the masters of society. [The government is ``at the +head'' of social institutions, but fundamentally no different from any +other. The sort of ``decentralization'' that transfers control from a +government agency to a private company is irrelevant to democracy vs. +autocracy.] This can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary +monarchy, but equally so in the democratic republic. Nowhere do +``politicians'' form a more separate and powerful section of the nation +than precisely in North America. There, each of the two major parties +which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn +controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on +seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the +separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their +party and on its victory are rewarded with positions. It is well known +how the Americans have been trying for thirty years to shake off this +yoke, which has become intolerable, and how in spite of it all they +continue to sink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption... [If the +part about shaking off the yoke seems less familiar and truthful to the +modern American reader than the part about professional politicians, +remember that Engels wrote this passage in 1891, at the height of the +activities of the Knights of Labor, and just five years after the +Haymarket massacre and rebellion in Chicago that are still remembered +worldwide as the workers' holiday, May 1.] + +<P>Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state +from servants of society into masters of society--an inevitable +transformation in all previous states--the Commune made use of two +infallible means. In the first place, it filled all +posts--administrative, judicial and educational--by election on the +basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of +recall at any time by the same electors. And, in the second place, all +officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other +workers... + +<P>Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled +with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. +Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship +looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of +the Proletariat. +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<H2>Governmental / Private Is Not Central / Decentral</H2> + +<P>I shall have little to say about this obvious point. In the United States, +such educational initiatives as the Head Start program are federally funded, +and standards are set federally, but the programs are controlled and +administered separately by each school district. By contrast, the +assignment of telephone area codes to cities is done centrally, but by +private companies: originally by AT&T and now by a consortium of telephone +operating companies. + +<P>In practice, mixed approaches are most common. Government agencies +such as the Food and Drug Administration set minimum standards that private +companies must meet, but the private companies have room for initiative +within those standards. It is worth noting that private companies sometimes +<EM>encourage</EM> government regulation, because every company in an industry may +know how to make a safe product, and may want to make a safe product, but +may be afraid that some competitor will undercut their prices by making +unsafe products. + +<P>The theory of the ``free'' market is that over the long run, consumers +will reject bad ideas, and so businesses will be forced by market pressure +to provide good products without government regulation. Adam Smith wrote +about these ideas in a time of small industry and personal craftsmanship. +But in the era of monopoly capital, and of complex technology, people's +lives are strongly affected by economic decisions over which they have no +market influence. The most dramatic recent example was the Savings and Loan +catastrophe in the United States, in which deregulation paved the way not +for healthy competition but for widespread theft. (Did the United States +learn its lesson? No; right now we are having a similar scandal about +``derivatives'': a form of legalized gambling with stockbrokers as the +bookies. The news media now wish us to believe that the money lost by +cities and pension funds has just vanished, instead of finding out who has +gotten richer. Why didn't we learn? Because the deregulation enthusiasts +in the government, while they speak the language of Papert and Resnick to +``prove'' that deregulation helps the economy in general, are really promoting +their own class interests rather than those of consumers.) But even when +deliberate theft is not at issue, how can a consumer, for example, +realistically be expected to check on the safety standards of different +airline companies? We can't watch the mechanics work on the airplanes, and +most of us wouldn't know how to judge their procedures if we did see them. +But government <EM>can</EM> check. + +<H2>Led / Leaderless Is Not Central / Decentral</H2> + +<P>In Resnick's book, the word ``leader'' is repeatedly used to mean ``controller.'' + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>Most strikingly, the students' strategies were almost always +centralized, relying on a leader to make decisions. Fadhil centralized +control at the spaceship: ``If a robot finds gold, it sends a signal to +the spaceship. Then, the spaceship sends signals back to the other +robots, telling them where to go. The spaceship would be constantly +monitoring all of the robots.'' Benjamin suggested that ``the leader robot +should send the others in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel.'' +Ramesh had a similar idea: ``One robot is in charge, sending all these +robots out. Where most gold is found, it sends more in that direction. +And where the gold is not found, you eliminate that direction...'' +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>As with many emergent programming ideas, this use of language is +appropriate in its original context, but not as a metaphor for human social +behavior. Robots do not form societies; they obey programs. For robots, a +``leader'' can only mean one who gives orders. But that's not true for human +beings, as John Holt reminds us in the passage I quoted near the beginning +of this paper. Here is an example of how Resnick gets in trouble by +thinking that leadership means giving orders: + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>Conspiracy theories are another example of centralized thinking. +For almost every perceived problem in society, people look for a clearly +identifiable culprit to blame. Something is wrong with the world +economy? Blame the Trilateral Commission. Traditional family values +are on the decline? Blame the producers in Hollywood. In general, +people tend to focus blame on a centralized cause rather than sort +through the complex, interacting factors that underlie most social +phenomena. +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>This passage is misleading in two ways. First, equating leadership, +even coercive leadership, with conspiracy is a red herring. The passage, +despite its lip service to complexity, seems to leave us with a choice of +only two extremes: Either we eliminate human agency and self-interest from +our world view or we must be paranoid conspiracy theorists. Blaming +Hollywood, at least in part, for the rise in violence in our society is <EM>not</EM> +like blaming the Trilateral Commission for the state of the economy. Paul +Goodman understood the middle ground; the second paragraph of what follows, +from <CITE>Growing Up Absurd</CITE>, makes the key point: + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>In American society we have perfected a remarkable form of +censorship: to allow every one his political right to say what he +believes, but to swamp his little boat with literally thousands of +millions of newspapers, mass-circulation magazines, best-selling books, +broadcasts, and public pronouncements that disregard what he says and +give the official way of looking at things. Usually there is no +conspiracy to do this; it is simply that what he says is not what people +are talking about, it is not newsworthy. + +<P>(There is no conspiracy, but it is not undeliberate. ``If you mean +to tell me,'' said an editor to me, ``that <CITE>Esquire</CITE> tries to have +articles on important issues and treats them in such a way that nothing +can come of it--who can deny it?'' Try, also, to get a letter printed in +the <CITE>New York Times</CITE> if your view on the issue calls attention to an +essential factor that is not being generally mentioned.) +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>The second flaw in Resnick's analysis is that he equates leadership +with coercive leadership. Most of the StarLogo programs in his book +demonstrate emergent techniques working out admirably for the ants, +termites, and so on that he simulates. But one of his simulations shows how +the individual actions of independent agents can combine to produce a result +that nobody desires: In a mixed community of turtles and frogs, the desire +of each individual to have at least a few same-species neighbors leads +eventually to a complete segregation of the two groups into ghettos, even +though each individual would be happy to live in a mixed community, even as +a member of the minority in that neighborhood. + +<BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>This turtle/frog scenario was inspired by the writings of Harvard +economist Thomas Schelling. In an article titled ``On the Ecology of +Micromotives,'' Schelling (1971) notes that the ``micromotives'' of +individuals can lead to ``macro'' patterns that are not necessarily +desired by any of the individuals. At a cocktail party, for instance, +men and women might end up in single-gender conversation clusters, even +if everyone would prefer mixed-gender clusters. And a residential +neighborhood might become more segregated ethnically or racially than +any individual would find desirable. +</BLOCKQUOTE> + +<P>Resnick goes on to explain the mathematical principles that make +these undesired results emerge from the situation. But he stops there, +without suggesting a solution. That's because the obvious +solution--leadership--would work against his desire to equate human society +with ant society. In the example of unintended segregation, people who +understand how the result emerges from the individual behaviors could teach +other people to understand it also. Then, neighbors could voluntarily agree +not to behave in the way that makes the segregation emerge. At the same +time, members of a local majority who understand the risk could be led to go +out of their way to make their minority neighbors feel at home. This is not +telling people where to live by force of law, but it <EM>is</EM> leadership. + +<H2>Mindful / Mindless Is Not Central / Decentral</H2> + +<P>Resnick's central pedagogic point is about what he calls the ``centralized +mindset'': People expect every phenomenon to be the result of deliberate +planning. We ascribe social organization to insects, for example, when +really each insect is separately following simple, built-in rules of +behavior. Religion is the same mistake applied to the creation of the +world; according to the centralized mindset, if there is a world, there must +have been Someone who planned it. One way of expressing Resnick's point is +that people expect phenomena to be the result of mindful behavior, whereas +really many phenomena result from mindless, automatic processes. + +<P>As with several of the points discussed earlier, I think that this +dichotomy between central, mindful, deliberate, conscious, planned behavior +and decentral, mindless, automatic, unconscious behavior is completely +appropriate in describing insects, traffic jams, and even neurons in the +human brain. But it is inappropriate when applied to the interactions of +human beings. One example is that Resnick gives a rather idiosyncratic +description of the history of psychoanalysis, a description that I believe +all the researchers he mentions would reject, because he equates ``Ego'' with +``conscious, central, rational'' and ``Id'' with ``unconscious, decentral, +irrational.'' It's true that in psychoanalytic theory the human consciousness +is <EM>part of</EM> the Ego, but it's a very tiny part; most of the Ego (and +certainly the part interesting to psychoanalysts) is unconscious. + +<P>Neither Papert nor Resnick would say ``planning is bad'' in so many +words. Indeed, both explicitly disclaim that position. Nevertheless, their +merging of the ideas ``centralist'' and ``planned'' is what leads both Papert +and Resnick to embrace laissez-faire capitalism, deregulation, and the +exaltation (as in Adam Smith) of individual greed, as the alternative to +Soviet-style oppression. + +<P>Instead, Papert and Resnick would do better to study examples of +democratic, decentral social structures that are nevertheless planned, +mindful, and humane. I've already mentioned the Paris Commune as an +example; another that I like is the Society of Friends (the Quakers). The +Friends are the group that has most carefully developed the process of +decision-making by consensus instead of by vote; <EM>everyone</EM> must agree to a +proposed change of policy. Decisions affecting the members of a particular +Meeting House are made by those members directly. Decisions for the Society +as a whole are made bottom up; after consensus is reached at each Meeting, +representatives are sent to regional and then national or international +meetings to seek a wider consensus. If there is no wider consensus, the +issue is sent back to the local Meetings for further discussion. + +<P>When decisions are made by consensus and by direct participation of +all members, there are no political parties and no professional +politicians. It's hard to change a major policy if everyone must agree to +the change, but when the policy does change, the new policy is carried out +wholeheartedly by the entire membership. (This is what was wrong with +Soviet planning: not that large scale plans were made, but that those plans +were made top-down, by decree, and presented to a rank and file with no +commitment to the plans.) So, for example, in the United States before the +Civil War, the Society of Friends was very late in joining the movement for +the abolition of slavery, because for many years they had no consensus about +slavery. But once the Friends did decide to join the movement, they quickly +became a leading organization in the struggle, because all of their members +joined the fight with energy and dedication. And of course it matters that +the decisions of the Society are, because of the consensus process, always +principled decisions, in sharp contrast to the <EM>quid pro quo</EM> that is typical +of virtually all governmental processes. In the language of this paper, the +Society's decisions are democratic because they are both decentral and +profoundly mindful, not at all like the ``invisible hand'' of Adam Smith's +marketplace of individual greedy entrepreneurs. + +<H2>Conclusion</H2> + +<P>All of this is obvious; in some ways I'm embarrassed to be writing a paper +saying so little. But it seems not to be obvious in Massachusetts. Seymour +Papert and Mitchel Resnick will both, I think, be distressed to see +themselves presented as allies of the right wing Republican Party in the +United States. (Indeed, Papert harshly criticizes then-President George +Bush's educational plans in <CITE>The Children's Machine</CITE>.) But their arguments +support the right wing; they express themselves in the vocabulary of the +right wing; and ultimately they embrace the main economic standard of the +right wing, namely, that what matters is the efficiency of a nation's +economy on average, rather than the position of the poorest members of a +society. + +<P>You see, those ants and termites achieve their successes for the +group as a whole through behaviors that sacrifice many individual members of +the group. If everyone looks for food randomly, rather than according to a +plan, some individuals will, by chance, find a new food supply that benefits +the entire group. But other individuals will, by chance, not find food at +all, and will starve. For the process of evolution, by which insect +behaviors develop, all that matters is the survival of the species; it's +perfectly okay for individuals to die needlessly. And that is precisely the +Republican position about human beings; in fact, they're happy to have a +class of poor people--what Marx called the reserve army of the unemployed--as +a weapon to use against labor unions. + +<P>What makes Papert and Resnick's position both ironic and dangerous +is that their newfound political allies, the ones from whom they learned the +vocabulary of ``economic freedom'' and deregulation, are promoting freedom +<EM>only</EM> for capitalists. The same politicians, in the United States right +now, are hard at work taking away reproductive freedom from women, +establishing a state religion, chipping away at the constitutional +protections against unwarranted search and seizure, and attacking freedom of +speech. Papert and Resnick, whatever their personal beliefs, are +contributing to this attack on freedom by helping its architects pretend +that Science is on their side. + +<P><ADDRESS> +<A HREF="index.html"><CODE>www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh</CODE></A> +</ADDRESS> +</BODY> +</HTML> |