Society is a web of connections and transactions
I have to say thanks to my friend James Knight for on so many occasions of getting me out of my shell and dragging me kicking and screaming into the muddled but real world of social, political and economic commentary. The complexity of these subjects and their epistemic intractability means they are as open ended & contentious as they are significant. Below is my reply to some thoughts James had on using the arborescent and rhizomic networks seen in plant life as social metaphors. I think he will be commenting fully on these matters at a later date.
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Hi James,
Here are my comments!
I'm not quite clear how you are applying the arborescent and rhizomic metaphors to society. I think I can just see how you are applying the rhizomic metaphor: it would seem quite a good metaphor for the way people and groups of people and institutions are connected into a very complex network of transactional links through which ideas, information, materials, wealth and resources spread. If you could map this system of connections visually it would be staggeringly complex. I suppose those visual pictures we see of web connectivity [See above] are a close analogy, showing a power law distribution among the nodes in terms of their number of connections: Viz: there are many nodes with just a few connections and just a few with many, many connections - and that gives us our ~ x-n distribution graph. Such a picture displays a mix of centralized influences and decentralized influences and is evidence that the "market" and government are actually part of one and the same phenomenon and differ only in their degree of connection. (It's like when they discovered that radiant heat and light - apparently two very different phenomena as far as the senses were concerned - were one and the same). Given the way evolution has gone this is no surprise - it too has given us organisms that are a mix of central and decentralized networking and processing
So I think I can grasp that, but I'm not sure where the arborescent metaphor fits in. The rhizomic metaphor covers both central and decentralized influences - seemingly. Or are you thinking of the difference between very visible and public transactions versus the myriad minor & private transactions that take place between those minor nodes of connection? Ironically, if we take the links between trees themselves in terms of chemical and gamete connections we end up with a rhizomic looking network.
As you know I'm pretty anti-Matt Ridley and the kind of "libertarianism" he affects to promulgate: I find fault in his view of evolution which fails to see that given the rhizomal metaphor, informal unplanned evolution covers both government and the market. As I've already said evolution has given us organisms that display both centralized and decentralized processing. It's a straw man to characterize government as a failed or incompetent "planner"; because of chaos all collective identities, whether organic or societal, are forced into the role of being complex adaptive systems - that is they are opportunists who necessarily have to adapt to changing circumstances as those circumstances come up. Apart from God himself there are no long term planners - there can't be in a chaotic reality. It's clear to me that those centralized highly connected nodes are as much an aspect of evolutionary change as are the broad mass of little folksy nodes with few connections.
Those highly connected centralized nodes are needed, as is the spider in the middle of the web, in order to respond to systematic threats and changes that decentralized processing cannot respond to fast enough or perhaps even be aware of. Moreover evolution wouldn't work at all were it not for a highly organized regime of physical laws & influences that constrain and regulate what is possible; it is an error to think of evolution as a random process - far from it. In that sense evolution itself requires both centralized and decentralized inputs. As you know I'm very much for the market and its powers of innovation, wealth distribution & creation, but frankly I see subliminal & crypto right-wingers like Ridley misrepresenting the argument for the market. I really fell out with him when he started hobnobbing with conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck (just as Trump did with QAnon and Alex Jones). He was (perhaps unintentionally) playing into the hands of the far-right.
Political reality seems to be a curved space. As the far-right and the far-left both seek the dismantling of the state in favour of their ideologies which purport to aim for an ultimate decentralized folksy society, they seem unaware of the inevitable lurking opportunists in their midst who may seize on the chaos of social break-down to edge toward totalitarianism, the ultimate authoritarian version of the state, the ultimate "big" government. Thus, far-left and far-right meet each other as they converge from opposite directions. How ironic!
For Queen, Country and the Market!
Tim
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Some of those ideas I offered above are rather seat-of-the-pants and need a little more developing - in particular the idea that Market and Government are aspects of the same underlying phenomenon of transactional connectivity and an aspect of complex adaptive systems theory.
I had to take a much needed bash at right-winger Matt Ridley: He would likely object to the label right-winger, but that label has got more to do with the people and partisans he identifies with. The result is that it is possible to predict in advance, with a reasonable probability, what stance he will take on certain issues.....
Is he going to be critical of the Greens? Of course he is.
Is he going to favour living and let live re: CO2 emissions? Of course he is.
Is he going to be critical of the academic establishment? Of course he is.
Is he going to have trouble wrapping his mind round the relation of theory and observation? Of course he is.
Is he going to favour theories that Sars-CoV-2 was lab leaked? Of course he is.
Is he going to protest about pandemic lock-downs? Of course he is.
Is he going to be a Brexiteer? Of course he is.
Is he going to write for the Telegraph? Of course he is.
Is he going write for the Guardian ? Of course he isn't
Is he prepared to go on the show of conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck? Of course he is.
I'm not going to comment whether Ridley is right or wrong on these matters (He may or may not be right), but merely point out the predictability of his stance because of the tribes he identifies with. But I will, however, venture to comment that he made a huge mistake in hobnobbing with Glenn Beck - that's the crackpot stamping ground of the Donald Trumps of this world. But then, like Trump, Ridley has got to think of his constituency and audience.
ReplyDeleteHi Tim,
A couple of comments:
“I'm not quite clear how you are applying the arborescent and rhizomic metaphors to society”
Well, you haven’t mentioned one of the most important elements of my piece – the role of God as the seed planter, for the arborescent. I see God’s creation as a mix of the arborescent and the rhizomatic, but I’m still fleshing that out, as it’s complex.
Again, I think you’re being too hard on Matt Ridley with your – “I find fault in his view of evolution which fails to see that given the rhizomal metaphor, informal unplanned evolution covers both government and the market.”
He sits in the House of Lords, so presumably has some regard for the role of government. Although I agree he’s not without flaw.
“It's a straw man to characterize government as a failed or incompetent "planner"; because of chaos all collective identities, whether organic or societal, are forced into the role of being complex adaptive systems - that is they are opportunists who necessarily have to adapt to changing circumstances as those circumstances come up.”
I agree. Like most things, it’s a matter of balance and context. Sometimes the governments are failing, incompetent planners; sometimes they are able to centrally plan in ways that the local bottom up mechanism cannot.
I hope to blog my original piece soon.
Kind Regards
James
Re the Role of God: Yes I'll leave you to flesh that out. In fact if you are relating the rhizomatic to the unseen work of God then I think I understand what you are saying. That would mean, I take it, that the networks I'm talking about above classify as the arborescent part of the metaphor. I which case you've got quite deep theological well there to plumb. I suppose I was talking about the more superficial network (arborescent?) as it surfaces in our world.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many problems with macro-conspiracy theorism is that it posits secret planners & controllers with an all but omniscient omnipotence - we know that is impossible for any human (or Satanic) operator; for finite beings it's always "feedback-adapt-feedback-adapt-"....etc - both the market and wise government act operate like this. No Thousand year Reichs except in the minds of totalitarians!
I'm afraid to say I lost all patience with Ridley when he appeared on Glenn Beck's show; its highly ironic because conspirac6y theorists like Beck have to posit "super-planners" - a role that only God can play!
I think it's likely that, given there are pure teachings from the gospels that cannot be bettered because they are from God, those teachings will work their way into future human progression fractally, with unfolding symmetry, but to lesser degrees.
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