Conclusions

Groupware Configurations of Challenge and Harmony: an alternative approach to alternative organization (Part #12)

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The focus on configurations of challenge and harmony as modelled by the range of tensegrity structures would appear to offer possibilities neglected by the weaknesses in communication net experiments in social organization. Of particular interest is the manner in which 'challenge and harmony' internalise 'they and we' dichotomies in new patterns of dynamic stability. This also moves the debate beyond the somewhat sterile 'hierarchical systems versus organizational network' perspective.

The special role of the computer in setting up and, if necessary, supporting such configurative communications indicates possibilities for a range of fairly well-defined experiments which could be undertaken in a computer conferencing environment. Such experiments could clarify some very interesting problems of comprehension and re-conceptualization in relation to the manner in which organization functions are perceived, whether individually or collectively, in order to maintain the stability of the configuration. Further work could well focus on the nature of non-dualistic complementarily in a wide range of traditional sets (e.g. gods, virtues, etc. even in mandala form) or their contemporary counterparts (e.g. values, needs, problems, etc), and how these are to be comprehended as sets. For it is from the stability, for a group, of less probable conceptual configurations that new forms of alternative organization could emerge - even if only for those who can maintain whatever conceptual discipline is required for a given degree of complexity.

Clearly this paper suffers from lack of precision and concreteness, but there is possibly even a Nonfigurative element in advancing this topic by tangential investigations which thus delineate the central focus without attempting premature closure within an inadequate framework. The possibility for experiment is however very concrete.

Information received as this was going to press in 1979, indicated that the Hexiad Project, launched in 1979 to link such alternative communities as Findhorn (Scotland). Arcosanti (USA), and Auroville (India) with computer conferencing assistance, has been deliberately based on the above tensegrity structure of R Buckminster Fuller (ref. 24, page 430) - an unexpected practical confirmation of some of the views expressed in this article. (A description of the project will appear in a future issue of Transnational Associations).

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