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Regarding an information strategy

20 January 2010 by Mark

I’m wary that anything I may write herein will trivialize the catastrophe that frames these considerations.  That, certainly, is not my intention.

As a detached observer of the scenes currently unfolding in Haiti, it is hard not to wonder how on earth the responders at hand will ever manage to return some semblance of normalcy to that wretched, devastated place.  Every step, any step, forward is surely a testament to human decency.  That some sense might be made of the informational chaos unleashed by the earthquake, let’s hope that those organizations in the midst of it all are able to lower their drawbridges to each other just enough.  I take a keen interest in understanding how barriers to trust and cooperation might be overcome, and this situation seems to provide ample cause to put certain organizational/cultural differences aside.

Wired’s Danger Room discusses some of the data and information sharing efforts from the military side (imagery and such) and points toward two distinct “collaborative portals” that the U.S. Southern Command has put in place for the present response effort…two unclassified portals, one “for official use” and one for everyone else — the academics, the NGOs, the IOs, and the non-military U.S. government.  Classified or not, if experience and organizational inertia are anything to go by, it would seem that this represents a certain redundant measure of unnecessary redundancy.  But that’s only a superficial impression.

As it turns out, the tool set being put forward must be enduring a trial “under fire”, so to speak, since development and testing were still underway when the earthquake occurred.  Going live with a system the day after an event seems a bit late to build the trust and working relationships needed during such a time, but circumstances are what they are.  Still, “collaboration” is not a feature.  Either it will occur or it won’t, and those of us with an interest in the matter ought look to enable it where we can and limit the barriers that even our best intentions might put in our way.  From provisioning capabilities to reifying assumptions about information, the paradigms within which we might not even be aware we operate can be wholly unconducive to what needs to be achieved.

The problem of developing and maintaining shared knowledge is one of near immeasurable complexity, and only few will get it right, so I fear that one-offs and ad-hocery still continue to define constructive informational spaces.

Godspeed, the task is too important.

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Der Lebenskunst

8 December 2009 by Mark

Or, To the Art of Life.

I fear that what follows may reveal a level of seriousness either entirely appropriate or wholly insufficient for the purpose of meaningful living.  Of course, I don’t intend to bother with any kind of metaphysical treatments, but rather: Wherein do I find my comforts, my joys and pains, indeed my Grundlagen?  Whence comes my composure, and when do I fail it?  Am I able to rise beyond myself, and for the right reasons?  Perhaps the means of answering such questions are more worthwhile than the answers themselves.

Work has taken me out of town for a while and, absent the usual habits of home, I’ve tried to focus my available time on reading.  And not without consequences.  What is to be made of it, for example, when with each of Clamence’s mounting discrepancies I see the case being built against myself?  Not, of course, in every indictment, but as a thoroughly contradicted being.  Maybe I am too moved by literature, or perhaps the purpose I set as a concern is one of reflection, revision…and ambiguity.  Another way: Who is left to blame for shortcomings when mimicking the “art” rather than nurturing it in one’s self?  I daresay that in so doing, the pieces are all there, though the purpose is not.

Chacun exige d’être innocent, à tout prix, même si, pour cela, il faut accuser le genre humain et le ciel.

Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.

The quote I’ve placed at the top of the page — “Qui, cher monsieur, qui couchera sur le sol pour nous?” — is from the same book, and in it I find a profound solace; who, indeed, will share our burdens, in this lifetime, here and now?  And the answer:

Oui, nous en serons tous capables un jour, et ce sera le salut.

Yes, we shall all be capable of it one day, and that will be salvation.

That said, I continue to find myself reluctant (unwilling? unable?) to attach myself too strongly to any particular line of thinking…if for no other reason but that I’ve found there only the unsatisfying limitations of generalities.  Value, if there is such a thing, has always appeared in the cracks and creases of ideas, in their Gegensätze.  Or rather, if the loss of nuance associated with the realization, the politicization, of thought continues to be a disappointment, “so beweist das nichts anderes, als daß die Politik eben alles verdirbt.“ Along the way, I may have slipped inadvertently into postmodern tendencies, but that seems to be well enough under control.

At any rate, I sat alone at dinner this evening, reflective, contemplative — and at the next table an old man, alone, hunched over his bowl of soup.  The symbolism nearly ended me.

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Consolidation

30 November 2009 by Mark

A tendency that I continue to find somewhat puzzling — and hopefully it’s only an error in perception, but I seriously doubt it — is the evidently sincere notion held in certain places that undirected community interactions and willing cooperation across levels of organization can somehow be bundled and consolidated into singular activities, platforms, programs, etc.  It’s a tendency that assumes one size really does fit all, despite all claims and experiences to the contrary, or rather that there’s one solution to the problem…which may actually be the case if you have the luxury of framing your own challenges.  I’m going to venture, though, that most organizations (i.e. outward-facing organizations, in the sense that I’ve discussed on a number of occasions) do not enjoy an exclusive mandate or jurisdiction over the spaces within which they find themselves.  Thus, answering questions you’ve asked yourself is a fundamentally different process than coming to terms with the multiplicity of interests at play in an open system or environment, and leads to results betraying more flawed assumptions than the best intentions are willing to acknowledge.  A first assumption along that path, I dare say, might resemble a belief that *you* are so uniquely positioned to catalyze shared purpose among your associates that you can somehow avoid the same pitfalls and missteps encountered by everyone else who has tended toward similar hubris.

When it comes to growing partnerships and sharing responsibility for more just societies, the assumptions, processes, and tools set in place to realize these aims play a critical role in defining the nature of the relationships we seek.  In that regard, the outcomes that can be expected from non-hierarchical interactions are not just products of mutual intentions but of the conscious/subconscious/unconscious boundaries that arise in the process of social and technical design.  I’m only in a position to speculate, but it seems that many easy questions are often preferred to a few hard ones…the hardest perhaps relating to your own significance in a space that has slipped beyond your grasp.

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This post is not about “football”

17 November 2009 by Mark

Well, my intention with this post is to talk about something towards which I have a pretty inflexible disposition, in order to make a different point altogether.  First, though, in order to brace myself for the passionate responses this might elicit, it seems appropriate to come clean about all the bias I know to be bringing to the matter, and acknowledge that there is likely much more besides.  I will attempt to briefly contrast two forms of football, the American and the Rugby version (never mind the Association’s game…), and then see where that leads.

Regarding personal biases then, I should say that I consider a rugby match to be, in some way, a moral affair, i.e. that it is a venue for morally good sport, somehow distinct from the basics of athletic contest.  Gadamer wrote:

…the variety of mental attitudes exhibited in playing various games, and in the desire to play them, is the result and not the cause of the differences among the games themselves.  Games differ from one another in their spirit.

In my experience, this “spirit” in rugby adjudicates itself harshly, honestly, and — yes — justly.  I could expect of no one to share my sentiment, such as it is, on faith — since that is how I offer it.  And yet, mere aesthetic preferences seem generally insufficient to account for the devotion of the sport’s adherents.  That something similar could be said of any sport, on behalf of every fan, I am well aware…but remember, I want to dispense with my own prejudices!  Also, my dabbling in the gridiron game beyond high school (walked on, quit) does not speak in favor of objectivity.

At any rate, the sporting news — and ongoing debate — that triggered this present riff is concerned with a certain decision made by a certain coach that, for my purposes, highlights the critical differences between these two footballs.  In the stream of statistics, analysis, and talk — oh, how America has mastered the art of sports talk — a flood of noise entirely out of proportion to the two minutes of play it concerns, the essence of the game (or at least of this particular game) becomes that of a solitary chess master, calculating the risks and rewards of every move.  In this intentionally negative light, I see where most of my interest was lost.

My point, though, is slightly different.  The art of American football, so to speak, lies in the nearest possible approximation of a fundamentally unattainable design — in every play, along every route, in the timing of every run, pass, and block.  Insofar as the collective executes against the design, the game is realized.  Rugby, in this comparison, is vastly more fluid.  Its art is discursive, fundamentally imperfect, a constant negotiation of individual decisions against a shared goal with only limited room to accommodate design.  Each sport, then, depends upon, and is a product of, a series of affordances (enforced by rule, enabled from within, or based upon expectations) that become indistinguishable from, and indeed are essential to, the “spirit” of the game.  Thus, it would be quite unrealistic to assume the constitutive order of the one to be in any large measure transferable to the other, whatever similarities may at first seem apparent.

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Narratives

10 November 2009 by Mark

Coverage of the commemorative activities of the fall of the Berlin Wall, now twenty years ago, has been surprisingly insightful.  Surprising, because the meta-narrative of the thing has surely been solidified well enough to fit decently into any Western (liberal, democratic) tale of societal progress, etc.  While it is of course disingenuous to assert the inevitability of the Eastern bloc’s collapse, the appeal of the Drumbeat of Freedom is sometimes too compelling to resist, and goodness knows what all mythologies We, the Victors of the Cold War — and They, the Losers — have been confronted with to explain just the tail end of the 1980s.

Somewhere slightly below Reagan running a credit line the Soviets couldn’t match, or Gorbachev damning his regime with the irreconcilability of glasnost, perestroika, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, fits the story of the people’s discontent and the rise of Walesa’s unions.  His sentiments on the occasion (which of course also contribute to a certain Great Man history with a protagonist in his own image…and of course in that of his Holy Father) seem an indictment of the stories we like to tell of our History:

The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible. They now express gratitude to the people for having made the changes possible, but at the same time they present themselves as the fathers of German reunification. In truth, they were only accidental fathers of the fall of the Wall — forced into action by the masses.

It was, then, quite appropriate that the German Chancellor should observe of and to those in attendance at the old Bornholmer Strasse border crossing that each would have “eine lange Geschichte . . . über seinen Beitrag zur Freiheit.”  If there is something bigger in this story, I have difficulty seeing it, the thing to be reduced to a single historical thread, unwound and untangled to show its “true” meaning, separate and unique among all others.  There’s freedom, of course, from paranoid systemic control, but can we ever speak of it in absolute terms?  Are we not left with “this is better than that”, yet in a very real sense?  I’ll have to think on that one.

In the meantime, anyway, here’s a Berlin tune from a band I’m really digging these days:

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Tangentially Nobel-related

30 October 2009 by Mark

Earlier this month, the Nobel memorial economics prize(s) awarded to Ostrom and Williamson caused a bit of a stir, and for a variety of remarkable reasons, not the least of which is Ostrom’s career being ostensibly limited to the political sciences.  Reflexively hailing the merits of analysis whose influence stretches beyond traditional disciplines over “pure” research may ring superficial, but not because doing so is the conceit of prevailing preferences for multi-(everything).  Rather, embracing such a qualitative distinction seems to reinforce ideas that the noumena of human philosophy can be compartmentalized according to some defined range of subjects that must in turn be transcended for the sake of holistic knowledge.  By my limited understanding of these things, the governance phenomena that the two recipients have been both witnesses to – and also advocates of – do not raise issues of specialism vice generalism, but rather offer context between and among traditional constructions of knowledge to pursue the fundamental questions: What is, and what can and ought be?

Now, with that preliminary tangent in mind (and out of the way), I’d like to snatch out of context a brief phrase from Ostrom’s “Stockholm whiteboard seminar” which I came to by way of the indispensable Global Dashboard:

We’ve got to have institutions that match the complexity of the systems that are involved. . . Build enough diversity to cope with the diversity of the world . . . so that you don’t try to have a uniform top-down panacea that’s predicted to cure everything and instead of curing it, kills it.

What is being challenged here, it seems, is a certain tendency to think that our interactions with circumstance can somehow be reduced to their purest, most significant form…and then managed in a linear, efficient fashion — by directive — with a minimum of repercussions to be contained.  Along such lines, where the reaction of the world, the Other, bears little resemblance to the plan envisioned, missteps were surely made in distilling the essence of the problem and not in the fundamentally misguided premise of the solution.

The orchestration of policy and governance arrangements that refuse to be bounded by existing governmental, organizational, or economic capabilities will increasingly require a certain release, a freedom, from our designs in favor of a willingness, and readiness, to embrace substantive contributions from outside “normal” channels of power for their own sake and on their own merits.  When we recognize the need to go “beyond” – beyond the discipline, institution, nation — it is a recognition of the insufficiency of our constructs rather than of the knowledge itself.

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Theoretical peace?

9 October 2009 by Mark

It has just been announced that President Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, for his administration’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

This is a remarkable decision, and though I’m just about as entrenched an Obama supporter as a common citizen can be, it may not be remarkable for the right reasons.  Champions of diplomacy as a (the?) primary vehicle of statecraft, particularly those who are eager to criticize the previous U.S. administration’s tendency to rely upon the inevitability of unilateral force, must recognize that diplomacy will be judged by its results, both in the near term and within the historical narrative.  By this measure, Obama’s recent successes at the United Nations provide the most obvious gauge, and plaudits are generally owed to the public and hidden efforts that made these moves possible: scaling back an aggressively-positioned missile capability, forcing increased scrutiny towards questionable nuclear proliferation, and committing to a two-state policy in Israel/Palestine.

Nevertheless, there remains more than one plank in the eye of American policy.  Two American wars still rage, and those affected by them — civilian populations and combat troops — can surely attest that this is not the face of peace.  Neither, obviously, is the alternative, yet such is the nature of the beast.  Fleeing from the responsibilities to justice that are inherent in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq is simply unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances that have led to the present state of uncertainty.  Once some ascertainable notion of peace becomes apparent in fact, the honor will be a matter of course.  As things stand, I fear that the Prize is yet unwarranted, for the burden of state lies in reality.

Update: It should be noted that Martti Ahtisaari was awarded the prize in 2008 for “his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.”

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Bibliophilia, more or less

29 September 2009 by Mark

I’ve had this post in mind for a while, actually since reading this clever piece on what our bookshelves might say about us.  Having procrastinated long enough, and having mentioned to two good friends just yesterday that I was thinking about this, it seems like as good a time as any to take a short stroll though my books and see where I stand.  By no means would I think to claim that my library is particularly broad or particularly deep, but it does have a few gems that are well worth sharing.  Or, better yet, my personal attachment to some of these books may just be irrational, and thus I’ve convinced myself that writing about them would interest someone, anyone, other than myself!  At any rate, I take a certain joy in being able to share these items of my education with guests, so why not in this space as well?

Library

The bottom shelf pretty much represents what you’d expect to see from a would-be political theorist: an overview of the Continental canon (that is, looking at it now, weighted rather heavily towards modern texts that I have yet to take the time to really understand…Wittgenstein and Heidegger come to mind).  The two large volumes toward the left, Weber’s Economy and Society, and its neighbors represent my fascination with the sociologist during graduate school.  Noteworthy there is a first English printing of Mommsen’s historiography.

American history and political thought take over much of the next shelf, along with all the apologia one might need to realize how un-settled the case for the nation has always been.  Earnest debate eloquently written…marvelous.  My copy of The Federalist Papers is just to the left of the four black volumes; de Tocqueville is slightly to the right.  Above these, various volumes of European and Middle Eastern history.  Were it not for an off-hand suggestion by a tutor during my first week at college, I may never have come to be fascinated by the history of that region, or have even made it beyond my first year.

Fictional literature has collected itself around the edges, and is mostly represented by a narrow selection, which is to say: Camus, Mann, and Conrad can be found here.  And from among these, it was Der Zauberberg that provided me with the one truly profound reading experience.  I turned to the novel during the summer after leaving Princeton, while I was working in the Wyoming mountains and had yet to imagine any particular direction that my life would take.  Despite the intervening years since my first introduction to Hans Castorp, I need but close my eyes to hear him sing of the Lindenbaum as he rushes headlong into uncertainty.

Und seine Zweige rauschten

Als riefen sie mir zu…

Up opposite the decanter, in two volumes, is the first English printing of The Magic Mountain, along with a German first edition of the prophetically anti-fascist Mario und der Zauberer.  These, quite surely, are the prizes of my library.

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Hear, hear.

17 September 2009 by Mark

I’ve been catching up on some reading tonight, and have been struck by two gentlemen whose credentials are the ultimate vouchers for their claims.  While their position is hardly novel in either academic theory or political discourse, it seems worth at least a moment to reflect on the fact that they are both retired Marine generals.  On Sept. 11, Charles Krulak and Joseph Hoar denounced — in the strongest terms one can expect from their station — the apologetic being foisted upon the conscience of free people by architects of torture.

Krulak and Hoar’s rejection of the logical fallacy invoked in defense of these policies, which requires little more than perfect hindsight, is surprisingly subtle, considering the prevailing canard of absolute security.  But, their purpose seems to be more fundamental.  They recognize that something greater is at stake.

Rules about the humane treatment of prisoners exist precisely to deter those in the field from taking matters into their own hands. They protect our nation’s honor.

The laws that were cast aside in all this, the Geneva Conventions, are neither the thorns of surrendered sovereignty nor the shadows of bygone imperialism.  They are, to the best of our ability, the balance between the just and the unjust.  Though we may wish to see ourselves the judge in our own case, by what should we be measured if not by the standards of our own providence?  Fear, these writers have reminded us before, is the surest means to forget oneself.

It is perhaps appropriate, in this context, to consider Richard Goldstone’s piece in today’s New York Times.  Writing from his position as lead UN investigator of recent conflict in Gaza, the jurist’s primary interest is to

hold accountable those who violate the laws of war.

The means by which this challenge is met will always suffer from a contentious relationship with the subjects of global conflict, of course.  Nevertheless, the task is paramount.  If friends are either unwilling or unable to give account of themselves as they would have given of their enemies, we risk

a deeply corrosive effect on international justice, and reveal an unacceptable hypocrisy.

This, I dare say, threatens to be a needless assault upon the edifice of free societies.

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A personal reflection

16 August 2009 by Mark

Recently, after visiting my elderly grandmother, I stopped somewhere that I had not passed since I was a child.  This time, the emotions that had eluded me years ago caught me quite off guard, and have returned often in the intervening days.  To say that this has had a sobering effect would be an understatement; indeed, the juxtaposition of my modest, though ultimately privileged, youth with the narrative of earlier generations has been humbling.  The place in question is a small memorial wall to the side of a cemetery entrance in a quaint southern German town.  There is no flag that can be flown here, no great cause to validate the sacrifice, no heroes to be carried off into history, leaving but names in stone to remember sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers.  As memories of the fallen fade with a passing generation, may the tragedies that led to this not be forgotten.

Memorial Wall

Among the names is that of my grandfather, who did not return from Russia.

Hermann Baur

Visiting this place some six decades on, I recalled the only two occasions that I’ve seen my father’s steady composure break, if only for an instant, betrayed by no more than a slight crack in his voice and a brief pause to collect his thoughts. The first time, he toasted to the birthdays of his mother and stepfather, and shared a story of receiving his first 50 Pfennig to go to a traveling movie show. The second time, he spoke of the strength of his mother’s generation, when lives and families had to be rebuilt after the war left too many chairs unfilled.

Quite frankly, I don’t really know what to make of the stories that find themselves twisted up in one of history’s great calamities…perhaps they are just that, tiny droplets of misfortune in an ocean of war’s misery.  Certainly, it is easier to consider family history separate from the greater narrative of the times.   In any case, this void left in my father’s life may help explain his unwavering loyalty to me, and for that I still struggle to find the proper thanks.

Posted in Personal | 4 Comments »

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