However, the academy is populated by innovators who make it their life's work to analyze, criticize, and disobey this received wisdom. However, this has been going on long enough that there is a record that can be evaluated, and the long-term viability of these innovations has been found wanting. Tom Wolfe wrote about this memorably in "The Great Relearning," (TGR) which looks at the unintended consequences of AIDS brought about through the sexual revolution. Now these unintended consequences are brought about by the complexity of the social system, especially when contrasted with the human mind - the key insight being that the complexity of the social system is much greater than the human mind can comprehend. However, if people concentrate on evaluating these consequences, then patterns can be discovered over time. These semi-unpredictable dynamics over time take on the character of evolution, containing certain elements of predictability and unpredictability. Viewed from this perspective, The Holy Bible contains the life lessons from previous generations being passed down from forefathers who love their children and don't want to see them get hurt. However, passing down tightly argued "proofs" tend not to be convincing or memorable to children, so these lessons have been passed down in the form of stories. What makes these stories valuable and worth preserving is their viability over time and their value in constructing viable societies. So rather than religion competing with evolution, religion actually depends on and explains evolution insofar as it articulates regularities and lessons.
With the advent of powerful computers, the contours of these complex social systems can begin to be articulated. Jay W. Forrester, in his "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems," begins to articulate some of the lessons learned from evaluating the consequences of policy implementations. First, social systems are inherently insensitive to most policy changes that people choose in an effort to alter the behavior of systems. This indicates that changing social systems is much harder than it might first appear, which explains the failed social experiments described by Wolfe in TGR. Second, social systems seem to have a few sensitive influence points through which behavior can be changed. Moreover, the places where social systems can be influences tend to be non-intuitive, so ways in which society can actually be changed appear to be unimportant, and ways that appear to be obvious tend to be ineffective. Third, social systems exhibit a conflict between short-term and long-term consequences of a policy change. So policies that appear to be beneficial and effective in the short-term may in fact turn out to be costly and ineffective over the long-term. Conversely, policies that appear to be counterproductive and costly in the short-term may turn out to be beneficial and effective in the long-term. These observations can prove especially problematic in a democratic age in which emphasis is place on the intuitively convincing and short-term rather than the proven and long-term. This might help explain why failed policies continue to be repeated, precisely because they "seem" right.
Forrester developed a simulation methodology that captured what he meant by "complex," which is important because mostly such terms go undefined and unspecified. Forrester defined complex social systems as marked by nonlinear, stock-flow, and feedback causal relationships. Each of these are confusing to the human mind, and together they can be mystifying. Recently, network relationships should be added to this list. However, the policy consequences remain the same: these system features are ignored to a society's peril. And the ongoing record of failed social experiments indicates that people should be more circumspect of social innovation - that is, conservative. Wolfe ends his essay by saying that this process of realizing the value of and relearn these lessons will be known as The Great Relearning, "if anything so prosaic as remedial education can be called 'great'."
With the advent of powerful computers, the contours of these complex social systems can begin to be articulated. Jay W. Forrester, in his "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems," begins to articulate some of the lessons learned from evaluating the consequences of policy implementations. First, social systems are inherently insensitive to most policy changes that people choose in an effort to alter the behavior of systems. This indicates that changing social systems is much harder than it might first appear, which explains the failed social experiments described by Wolfe in TGR. Second, social systems seem to have a few sensitive influence points through which behavior can be changed. Moreover, the places where social systems can be influences tend to be non-intuitive, so ways in which society can actually be changed appear to be unimportant, and ways that appear to be obvious tend to be ineffective. Third, social systems exhibit a conflict between short-term and long-term consequences of a policy change. So policies that appear to be beneficial and effective in the short-term may in fact turn out to be costly and ineffective over the long-term. Conversely, policies that appear to be counterproductive and costly in the short-term may turn out to be beneficial and effective in the long-term. These observations can prove especially problematic in a democratic age in which emphasis is place on the intuitively convincing and short-term rather than the proven and long-term. This might help explain why failed policies continue to be repeated, precisely because they "seem" right.
Forrester developed a simulation methodology that captured what he meant by "complex," which is important because mostly such terms go undefined and unspecified. Forrester defined complex social systems as marked by nonlinear, stock-flow, and feedback causal relationships. Each of these are confusing to the human mind, and together they can be mystifying. Recently, network relationships should be added to this list. However, the policy consequences remain the same: these system features are ignored to a society's peril. And the ongoing record of failed social experiments indicates that people should be more circumspect of social innovation - that is, conservative. Wolfe ends his essay by saying that this process of realizing the value of and relearn these lessons will be known as The Great Relearning, "if anything so prosaic as remedial education can be called 'great'."
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