Lessons for the world?

Radical Disaffection Engendered by Elitist Groupthink? (Part #4)

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Is there any evidence of new thinking appropriate to the challenges of the times and the people who have to survive them? Within the prevailing groupthink modality, who is enabled to explore such thinking -- if indeed it can be recognized?

Upgrading democracy? Whilst it is extremely unfortunate that the media does not enable more fruitful reflection on polarized dynamics so questionably characteristic of competitive sport and business, the issue is how the deficiencies of democracy are to be more fruitfully acknowledged. How is an "upgrade" to be engendered -- to a democratic process which is increasingly "not fit for purpose"?

Why are such possibilities not more systematically explored in an information-based society confronted by the need to update technologies on a yearly basis, if not more frequently? Why is the challenge not framed in such terms, as separately argued with conference processes (Internyet Nescience? Self-referential upgrading of obsolete Internet conference processes inhibiting emergence of integrative knowledge, 2013).

Voting processes: The need for such an upgrade is curiously evident in the voting process itself. Much is increasingly made of the necessary switch to a cashless society and the requirement that the financial transactions be conducted electronically (even by those challenged by their complexity). There have been numerous scandals regarding the vulnerability of such systems to hacking. Many have lost their life savings through financial fraud enabled by the internet. Nevertheless it continues to be emphatically argued that the system is reliable.

At the same time it is argued that -- to avoid the risk of electoral fraud -- democracy requires that people go physically to a voting station in order to vote. This may well be enabled by controversial use of voting machines at such locations. There is no sense that voting electronically, from the convenience of the home or office, would avoid many abuses associated with the requirement for physical presence -- with all the inconvenience and cost that may be involved. How is the risk for financial fraud to be distinguished from that for electoral fraud? This is especially relevant to new claims that Clinton performed worse in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared to paper ballots and optical scanners (Trump election: Activists call for recount in battleground states, BBC News, 23 November 2016).

Does this not suggest a means to enhance voter involvement to counter the voter apathy so widely deplored? How can the vulnerabilities of electronic financial transactions be minimized when the immediate risk to livelihood may be disastrous for some? Does the risk of electronic voting not call for similar appreciation?

Deployment of US democracy elsewhere? In recognition of the divided nature of American society, the challenge has been unfortunately framed by many elites as the need for the informed to do battle with the ignorant -- namely those who have seen themselves better represented by Trump.

Elites righteously claim their mastery of the complexity of modern society and the systems of governance. The ignorance of others is deplored as an indication of their incapacity. Unfortunately for those assumption, the governance of enabled by the expertise of elites is proving increasingly inadequate to the crises of the times.

The lesson for the world, with the rise of so-called populism, is that this outmoded elitist mindset is likely to be deployed in response to those framed elsewhere as the enemies of the USA. It is the only process on which Americans feel they can rely in defence of their own interests. There is no quest for any other, nor any acceptable argument that such should be sought.

Rightful winners and Wrongful losers? Democracy currently cultivates the dangerous assumption that winners are right and that losers are necessarily wrong. Hence winners have the right to govern and losers must accept that or be deemed disloyal. In a complex society, the reactive responses of the disappointed losers -- first-order, knee-jerk responses -- are clearly not a source of fruitful insight. Those such as Chomsky have the capacity to articulate second and higher order responses, but seemingly choose not to do so -- unlike those such as George Lakoff (in archetypal disagreement with Chomsky), especially in his earlier analysis (Why Trump? The Huffington Post, 3 March 2016).

The commentary by Lakoff commentary on the outcome of the presidential election necessarily highlights further the metaphors that were in play during that campaign (A Minority President: why the polls failed and what the majority can do, AlterNet, 21 November 2016). Ironically however, as the title implies, he stresses that:

The loser, for the majority of voters, will now be a minority president-elect. Don't let anyone forget it... The majority, at the very least, needs to keep its values in the public eye and view the minority president's action through majority American values.

Despite his long-established skill in clarifying metaphors, missing seems to be his own recognition of the metaphor he is effectively using to frame the outcome, namely "majority is right" (despite being associated with the "left") and "minority is wrong" (despite being associated with the "right"). In so doing he fails usefully to transcend the dilemmas in question, especially those resulting feom the ambiguous significance of those terms. More problematic is his sense that the progressives (on the left, now held to be in the majority) have been "wrong" in failing to attend to his earlier analysis of the matter, which has now been proven to be "right".

As with the AlterNet medium in which his new analysis appears, there is a desperate attempt by those whose arguments have been called into question by the minority (who are "wrong"), to demonstrate that they were really "right" -- and that right will triumph. Trump is necessarily and unquestionably "wrong" (as with those he represents) and progressives (the majoirty) are necessarily and unquestionably "right". Presumably 90% of the American media will endeavour to recover their credibility through demonstrating this for the duration of Trump's presidency.

There is not the slightest sense that the "minority" may have been "right" in some way -- especially since they "won" according to the rules to which the "majority" subscribed -- and by which the "minority" would have been delighted had the "majority" "lost".

More curious, given the "majority is right" metaphor, is the sense in which Lakoff's view can only have been a minority view during the course of the campaign -- and therefore necessarily "wrong" according to his framing? Could Lakoff have framed matters more insightfully and fruitfully, especially if such views are usefully to be recognized as part of the problem? Given the dramatic case now made for climate change, how "right" is this concern given that it emerged as a view by which the majority was far from being persuaded?

Whilst first order responses are a necessary feedback process to be expected, in cybernetic terms governance now desperately needs articulation and comprehension of higher order responses -- to match the deceptive skills to which society is so vulnerable (Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink, Generic Agency Theory, Cybernetic Orders and New Paradigms, Kybernetes, 2015).

How is a system calling for appropriate governance to evoke adequate reflection on the interplay of first order dynamics -- especially from those who would prefer to play the simplest games? Democratic tennis? An encouraging indication is the theme of one journal -- Calm Thinking about Trump (Ashutosh Sheshabalaya, Lessons for the World from Trump's Win: an emerging market perspective on a presumed American cataclysm, The Globalist: rethinking globalization, 10 November 2016).

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