 As
its name implies, the principal purpose of this weblog is to explore
ways in which we can achieve sustainability on Earth. Over the past two
years I have presented the ideas of at least two dozen writers,
philosophers, political economists, and dreamers on what this means and
how it might be attained, and I have proffered several of my own. For
those newcomers interested in exploring these ideas, please see my
environmental philosophy table of contents.
I thought it might be useful to take a step back and look practically,
rather than idealistically, at what needs to be done to 'save' a world
that shows increasing signs of crisis and inability to cope with it.
There are three ways to bring about major global change. Nature's way,
which is used only when absolutely necessary, is to introduce catastrophe: Pandemic disease, or major geological or atmospheric upheavals.
Pandemic disease is usually species-specific, designed to weed out a
species whose disruptive impact is so severe that it is destabilizing
the balance of all life in an area, or globally. Geological and
atmospheric upheavals are (usually) random events bringing about either
a sudden or gradual transformation in the ecosystem itself, to "shake
things up" and compel evolution to proceed in some new direction and hence stay agile. Note
that I'm not saying that earthquakes, tsunamis, massive volcanic
eruptions, ice ages and even asteroid impacts are planned events guided
by some deity. I believe, based on very compelling evidence, in the
scientific thesis known as Gaia theory that holds that all life on
Earth is connected in much the same way that all parts of a small
organism are connected, in pursuit of mutual and collective well-being,
and co-evolve through the laws of natural selection to that end as
changes occur in the body they share. So life on Earth has designed itself
to suit the realities of Earth, including the reality of continuous and
sometimes cataclysmic change. It is a very effective design that has
survived and adapted to at least five major extinction events and
thousands of smaller ones since life first appeared on the planet. This
design, though remarkable, is simply the result of trial and error, and
the resultant 'self-discovery' that extraordinary biodiversity is the
key to resilience in the face of harsh and unforgiving geological and
astronomical conditions and events. This design is tautological -- were
it not so well-suited and resilient we would not be here to observe or
debate it.
The second way to bring about major global change is revolution
-- the deliberate overthrowing of the old order and its replacement
with a new one. In the brief flicker of time that represents 'human
history' there have been many revolutions, but only two of them have
had enduring and global effect: The agricultural revolution that began
30,000 years ago and transformed human society from a hugely diverse
set of relatively autonomous gatherer-hunter tribes to a single
monolithic and astonishingly homogeneous global 'civilized'
(hierarchical and governed by laws) farming, property-owning society;
and the more recent industrial revolution that mechanized the means of
production and transformed us from a society in the service of
higher-ranking men to a society in the service of the machinery owned
by higher-ranking men. There have been many attempts to institute a
third global revolution to remedy the excesses created by the first
two, but they have been unsuccessful because of the vastly superior
power of the ruling elite, aided now by war and information machinery
that has rendered sheer numbers infinitely subordinate as a lever of
power to wealth and the machinery it buys for the wealthy. The only way
a third revolution would be possible now would be if the ruling elite
-- the 1% of Earth's human population that owns over 40% of its
resources -- were to succumb, along with the rest of us, to a natural
catastrophe that rendered them unable to deploy their war and
information machinery to stop it. Any natural catastrophe of that scale
would probably so destabilize human culture that the need for a
revolution in the resultant anarchy would become moot.
The third way to bring about major global change is incapacitation
-- rendering the old order unable to function by sapping what it needs
to survive. This is the method that disease uses to prey on fragile and
vulnerable organs, that parasites and venomous creatures use to weaken
and sometimes kill their (much larger) hosts, that terrorists use to paralyze their
enemies, and that innovative businesses use to undermine, render
obsolete and supplant bigger, less flexible businesses. For those of us
with neither the patience or religious fanaticism to wait for a global
natural catastrophe, nor the naivety to believe in a successful
'popular' revolution, this third way is the only way to change, and
save, our beleaguered planet.
Most of what has been written about change -- by political theorists as
well as business gurus -- is about revolutionary change. It is about
creating a sense of popular urgency for change. Writers on social and
business innovation, by contrast, are (perhaps subconsciously) writing
about change that incapacitates. Clay Christensen speaks candidly about
'disruptive innovation', the kind that catches successful businesses
off guard, just like a virus or undetected parasite, and brings it to
its knees. A huge amount of money and energy is being spent these days
-- on so-called 'anti-terrorist' programs, on physical and computer
security, on fighting file-sharing, on patenting anything even vaguely
innovative to prevent a competitor bringing it to market, on the search
for vaccines and cures for AIDS, BSE, Avian Flu etc., on anti-fraud
measures like Sarbanes-Oxley -- all designed to fight incapacitating, rather than popular, revolutionary, enemies. Actions that are aimed to incapacitate are called guerrilla
(meaning 'little war') actions. Since the Vietnam war debacle in the
1960s the very term has struck fear in the hearts of the power elite,
because they know that, in today's heavily concentrated, centralized,
interconnected, 'grid-locked' society, this is where they are most
vulnerable, most powerless to defend themselves.
The question of the morality of incapacitation is an interesting one.
In military history, guerrilla attacks were first met with astonishment
and moral outrage -- not to wave your flag and tell the enemy you were
coming was dishonourable, shameful behaviour -- like hitting an
opponent from behind without notice is 'unfair' fighting. But such
subterfuge proved so successful that it quickly changed the
centuries-old rules of war. In Europe's assault on the First Nations of
the Americas from the 1400s to the last century, it was not military
might that conquered the natives but the devastation of invisible
European diseases inflicted, sometimes deliberately but mostly by
accident, to deadly effect. Using guile in an 'honourable' fight is
still considered somewhat cowardly, but in business and in political
activities against enemy states, covert, incapacitating strikes are
commonplace and respectable. Industrial sabotage ("eco-terrorism") is
considered a high crime, but character assassination, slander and other
forms of political sabotage are accepted as a normal part of "the dirty
business of politics". The view of its morality often differs depending
whether you are the perpetrator or the victim, and whether your
morality condones the "ends justify the means" behaviours that are
increasingly endemic in modern society.
Let's set aside our ambivalence about the morality of achieving change
through incapacitation, and look for a moment at how the process works.
Whereas revolutionary change
begins with the overt act of creating a sense of urgency, finding
champions, creating and communicating a vision, and empowering people
to act, incapacitating change efforts begins with stealth -- the
element of surprise is often critical. The media and the public fail to
understand such actions, because they are unpopular
-- there is almost always a public backlash. The internal combustion
and steam engine put those poor hard-working horse-and-buggy owners out
of work. Bush lied about WMD and people died. Even in Islamic countries
the actions of 9/11 were so morally abhorrent that Bush could destroy
Afghanistan and leave it in anarchy and ruins and be praised for it.
The point is, unlike revolutionary actions, incapacitating actions
aren't meant to be popular, they're meant to be effective.
So what is the process for bringing about incapacitating change? If the book on Leading Change were to be written by Christensen instead of by Kotter, what would it look like? Christensen's books have been about anticipating and defending
against incapacitating change rather than leading it, but his books, if
you read them from the innovator's perspective, do lay out the process:
- Identify the vulnerabilities: Fragility, overconcentration,
ignorance, arrogance, lack of diversity, centralization, lack of
redundancy, popular disgust, anxiety, dissatisfaction or apprehension,
ill-preparedness, lack of agility, overcomplexity (left hand doesn't
know what the right is doing), lack of imagination and creativity, etc.
- Acquire resources stealthily: Put together what you need
without letting your target know you're doing so, or even what you are
capable of doing with them.
- Develop solutions that exploit the vulnerabilities.
- Rigorously assess the likelihood of those solutions working
effectively (incapacitating the incumbent power), and deploy only the
high-probability solutions, quickly, before the incumbents have time to
react and defend themselves.
Not a plan for a revolution, for sure, but a process that the experts
in business innovation claim has repeatedly worked to 'undo' powerful
players in the business marketplace. This is all about displacing
power, and there is no reason it shouldn't work just as well in the
political and economic arenas as it does in the business arena.
I'm an old-fashioned guy, and so, although this 4-step process looks
astonishingly like the methods used by Bin Laden, the Enron fraudsters,
the CIA in Latin America, the funders of suicide bombers, the New American Century wackos, and the
still-unidentified Capitol Hill anthrax mailers, I'm personally averse
to violence and causing suffering, and would prefer to find more
peaceful methods to incapacitate corporatists, war-mongers, polluters,
workplace slave-owners, abusers of women, children and animals, and
others who are contributing to the multiple crises facing our world.
There is no reason why this 4-step plan cannot be used non-violently.
When the PC supplanted centralized, mainframe computers, and hence made
the Internet, and the free exchange of radical ideas possible, no
violence was involved, yet the result was the incapacitation of systems
that hoarded knowledge and impeded connectivity, and set knowledge and
connectivity free for the people. No revolutionary change process was
used, yet the result was revolutionary.
Next week, part 2 of this article will explore some non-violent ways we
can incapacitate the power elite, using this 4-step process, and
introduce 'innovations' that make our world a better place to live. The
focus will be on new technology, new infrastructure, new models and new
processes that replace the vulnerable ones that are the causes of so
many of today's global problems -- and ensuring that these replacements
are Open Source, and stay in the hands of all the world's people.
Cartoon from Mutts, by
Patrick McDonnell. If you don't see what it has to do with the article, you weren't reading very carefully.
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MADE IN CANADA
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