Relevance to peace

Computer-aided Visualization of Psycho-social Structures (Part #12)

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The interactive graphics technique provides a means of handling complexity. The question now is: in what way does this contribute specifically to the knowledge and value requirements for peace. To some "complexity" is a guarantee of peace. Johan Galtung suggests a general formula for peace based on increasing the world entropy, i.e. increasing the disorder, messiness, randomness, and unpredictability by avoiding the clear-cut, the simplistic blue-print and excessive order. [35] There is a distinction however between a degree of complexity which produces overload, and irrational and uncoordinated responses, and that which requires many known relationships to be taken into account. Complexity may provide peaceful behavioural niches which act as protective bulkheads. Without a clearer picture, however, it is impossible to determine whether the protection is adequate or equivalent to sheltering in dense dry undergrowth from an approaching bush fire.

The problem is how to lower the degree of complexity, but at the same time to beware of simplistic proposals for change by those who believe they have an adequate model of the complexity.

The notion of a peaceful society has come to resemble the mythical, calm "stable state" noted by Donald Schon which is to be reached after a time of troubles. He suggests that belief in it is a belief in the unchangeability, the constancy of central aspects of our lives, or belief that we can attain such a constancy. This belief is institutionalized in every social domain, in spite of acceptance and approval of change and dynamism. It is a bulwark against the threat of uncertainty and instability. Given the roulity of change, the belief is only maintained through tactics of which me are largely unconscious so that our responses am spasmodic responses of desperation and largely destructive. He is concerned with developing institutional structures and ways of knowing for the process of change itself i.e. "beyond the stable state". Current proposals to institutionalize stability are generally efforts at restoring the institutional status quo ante which is identified as the best approximation to the stable state.

The problem of peace is therefore not so much one of producing a new formula for combining existing organizational building blocks. This could only result in another unsuccessful compromise in a long series. There is no evidence that the insight is available to design a peaceful society in which systematic violence is absent. There have been many proposals, but there is no evidence. We have no reason to assume that political societies will prove to be regulable at any level which me would regard as acceptable. Many species have perished in ecological traps of their own devising. We may already have passed the point of no return on the road to some such abyss.8 As an example, a test experiment could be envisaged in which a "peaceful community" is designed and set into operation with all the resources and disciplinary skills available - there is a high probability of failure within one generation or at least the introduction of rules which do violence to the original values in terms of which the community was designed. As evidence for this one may note the failure rate of communes, the second generation problem of kibbutzim, the urban disaster constituted by "planned" communities, and the difficulties associated with harmonizing relations in an isolated group of people over time periods exceeding a few days. The probability of failure increases with the diversity of psychological types, interests and cultures represented. Proposers benefit from the fact that by definition they cannot produce evidence for the success of their proposal and it is probable that they will not be there when it bears its fruits.

One reason why it is difficult to design a society is that the model used is by definition not sufficiently complex or detailed to take account of all the loose ends which will emerge and cause friction leading to violence. It is difficult to build up a picture of the dynamic interactive effects of sub-sections of the model. Most difficult of all is taking into account the individual as a developing, creative, and as such essentially unpredictable, entity for which we know our models are inadequate.

For the above reasons, it seems Useful to suggest that peace is an ecological problem, namely a problem of harmonizing the interrelationships in society between a developing individual and his evolving environment. It is instructive to use the insights concerning the less ambiguous natural environment ecology (with respect to which we are objective), to draw attention to problems and opportunities in connection with the psycho-social environment ecology within which we are thoroughly embedded.

Peace is here conceived less as a state and more as a very complex evolving set of relationships in which the latter bear some harmonious relationship to one another. The two key questions are: evolving towhat, and what is harmonious. As in the case of the natural environment, there is no immediate answer to these questions -- there is insufficient understanding of the relationships and the nature of psycho-social development. Simplistic proposals for change and control may be assumed to bear the same relationship to the failure of the psycho-social eco-system as do pesticides to the failure of the natural eco-system. The psycho-social system will resist "redesign" but it is as yet impossible to say when the resistance is beneficial and when it is unfortunate and to be overcome.

The general problem of psycho-social ecology may be considered in terms of the different types of ecology mentioned in an earlier section, namely:

• organizational ecology i.e. the harmonious evolving interrelationships between organizational units
• conceptual ecology i.e. the harmonious evolving inter-relationships between theoretical formulations, value and belief systems
• problem ecology i.e. the harmonious evolving inter-relationship between problems
• psycho-ecology or psycho-dynamics i.e. the harmonious evolving inter-relationships within a person's psyche.

In each case, if one uses primitive models for a complex eco-system, many discontinuities will appear. If one organizes or reifies in terms of the primitive models, then such discontinuities will take the form of violence -- whether physical or structural. The system will be spastic. [34]

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