Malik Ahead of Change

How Crowd Psychology and Cybernetics Transform the Way We Govern
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-3-593-40904-7
Verlag: Campus
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, Englisch, 173 Seiten

Reihe: editionMALIK

Wars, revolutions and financial manias are not a necessity. There are ways to prevent them. There are ways to transform the way we govern to ensure a functioning society. What it takes is to be ahead of change - to anticipate change and prepare for it. For this, new methods and instruments are needed - and a whole new way of thinking. Crowd Psychology and Management Cybernetics lead the way.
We have the unique chance today to change something that appears to be an everlasting law: that mankind needs a complete breakdown before it can achieve further progress. We have this chance because today we have the tools to change it.
The crisis we are witnessing is far from over. And it has the capacity to become the worst crisis this world has seen in centuries. But it is not too late to prevent a disaster. The methods pursued until now, however, lead straight to it. Constantin Malik offers an alternative way in this book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Malik, Constantin

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Contents;8
2;German preface for editionMALIK;10
3;Author’s preface;12
4;Part I – Delay;14
4.1;1.Law and Future;16
4.1.1;1.1 Law’s delay;16
4.1.2;1.2 A future unknown;17
4.1.3;1.3 The danger of delayed law;20
4.1.4;1.4 Two sources of change – people and technology;23
4.1.5;1.5 System failure;25
4.1.6;1.6 New perspectives;26
5;Part II – Stability;28
5.1;2. Managerial Cybernetics;30
5.1.1;2.1 Complex systems and variety;31
5.1.2;2.2 The Viable System Model;35
5.1.3;2.3 Conclusions;52
6;Part III – Anticipation;54
6.1;3. Crowd Psychology and Socionomics;56
6.1.1;3.1 Crowd Psychology;56
6.1.2;3.2 Socionomics – the science of social prediction;70
7;Part IV – Preparation;114
8;Literature;156
9;Notes;160

Leseproben

" (p. 55-56)


3.1.1 The mirage of the dominance of human rationality

Man creates society. But he does so rationally – and even knowingly – only to a certain extent. Today we are taught to believe that what we see around us is the product of human will and reason. It is common doctrine that the achievements of civilization be it arts, the economy, our legal system or political institutions have been designed deliberately by man for man. In our current view there is still only very little room for accident and coincidence or for the concept of the evolution of social systems.

The origins of this notion which, following Friedrich von Hayek, I shall call constructivistic rationalism65, can be traced to the great French thinker René Descartes. To Descartes, reason meant the logical deduction from explicit premises, and he therefore accepted as true only those arguments, conclusions and propositions that had been reached in this way.66 Subsequently, Descartes’ followers applied his idea, which he himself had only used for philosophical considerations, to actions and, as a consequence, only such actions came to be accepted as rational that were based on demonstrable truth in the Cartesian sense.

This led to the erroneous conclusion that only actions that were true in this sense could be regarded as good and useful actions, and that everything else, everything »irrational «, could lead to any benefit for the human being. It was for this reason that tradition and history came to be thought of as unnecessary and were rejected as sources of human culture. Reason alone was supposed to enable the individual to assume responsibility for his future and lead to progress and prosperity.

This is not the place to explain in detail the tenets and consequences of the constructivistic approach. A brilliant treatise upon this can be found in Friedrich von Hayek’s Law, Legislation and Liberty. I mention it here simply because it is important to see that this approach, which has been dominating our thinking for more than three hundred years, is wrong in that it falls short of what actually happens in our world. It is not just man’s ability of rational thinking that shapes society.

There are also other forces at work that are beyond anyone’s ability to control. These forces are far older than man and he is still subject to them. Without taking them into account, full comprehension of our world is not possible. The supporters of that other kind of rationalism, which is called critical rationalism and of which, for example, Sir Karl Popper and Hans Albert are two of the prominent representatives, have always been well aware of that.