Monday, October 19, 2009

TIMN: some implications for thinking about political philosophy and ideology, cont. (2nd of 3 parts)

Two weeks ago, I posted a foreword and Part I on TIMN’s implications for political philosophy and ideology. Since then, I’ve amended Part I a bit, by editing a few words, adding a new paragraph to end the subsection on democracy, and another paragraph after the material about anarchism and libertarianism. If interested, you may click here to go there, or just scroll down to the October 3, 2009, post at the blog.


Now, here is Part II:

* * *

Part II. Looking around: American liberalism and conservativism from a TIMN perspective

Can TIMN help assess what seems to be ideologically amiss with liberalism and conservatism in the United States? Have both moved too far from being soundly triformist? Is one of them turning too tribalist (even monoformist) for its own and the country’s good? And what about a current policy issue — healthcare — that has liberals and conservatives all riled up, at odds over whether to go for a public (+I) or private (+M) option? Does TIMN imply developing the so-far least favored (+N?) option: networked non-profit cooperatives?

When I posed those questions after the end of Part I as an indication of what this Part II would be about, I wasn’t fully aware of how little I knew about liberalism and conservativism. Now that I’ve heard and read a bit more, I see that each involves so many varieties, nuances, and sensitivities, and so much unsettled history, that the gloss I provide here is barely that — a gloss.

Yet, I’m not trying to say anything new about either philosophy/ideology. I’m just trying to show, via all parts of this three-part post, that TIMN may be useful for analyzing political philosophies and ideologies — past, present, and future. I’m also trying to find — and to let others know — where TIMN directs the analytical eye, what it says to focus on. And I’m trying to do so without touting my own personal views.

What I think TIMN implies, and thus what this part is about, is the following:
  • Liberalism and conservatism used to be sensibly triformist.
  • They are no longer so — neither is the American system as a whole.
  • Conservativism in particular has veered into tribalism.
  • While the healthcare debate substantiates this, resolving it may also afford an opportunity to move in a new, more quadriformist direction.

Once in balance: Years ago, both liberalism and conservativism, despite their differences, used to be sensibly triformist, in fairly balanced ways.

The liberalism I’m familiar with, mostly associated with the Democratic Party, emphasized promoting government (+I) programs for lofty reasons that at times meant a large welfare state. But liberals also favored a good (+M) business climate, as well as health, education, welfare, and cultural (pro-T) programs that benefitted families and communities, especially the less-well-off ones.

By comparison, the conservativism I’m familiar with, mostly associated with the Republican Party, was primarily (+M) pro-business, mainly to benefit better-off people. At the same time, it called for small or limited (+I) government (but not for small corporations, another kind of +I entity), and few regulations. It also believed in family, culture, tradition, and patriotism — all fine (pro-T) values.

Neither philosophy/ideology was particularly imbued with religion. But both were loaded with values. While both were pro-democracy, liberals liked to talk mainly about justice, equality, and progress, conservatives about freedom, order, and prosperity. Liberalism seemed tilted toward promoting community and civil rights, conservativism toward individualism and states rights.

Those are gross characterizations. But hopefully they suffice to substantiate the following TIMN analysis: In America’s heyday as a triform (T+I+M) system, both liberalism and conservativism used to be thoroughly, sensibly triformist. Each had a distinctive emphasis — for Democratic liberals the +I form in government, for Republican conservatives the +M form in business — but each embraced all the forms. Moreover, each philosophy implied that the activities associated with each TIMN form should be kept in balance, and that their realms should be kept fairly separate. In addition, the politician-practitioners of both philosophies normally preferred bipartisanship over partisanship.

Thus, as triformist ideologies, both liberalism and conservativism used to be consistent with TIMN’s orientation to social evolution. TIMN does not — indeed, cannot and should not — imply which ism may be better. But TIMN would seem to imply that both were suitable for a liberal democratic system like America’s, since a broad spectrum of views, with plenty of civil to-and-fro, may well be desirable from an evolutionary standpoint. Neither was an extreme ideology that was maladaptive for America’s prospects for future progress.

Now out of balance: Today, both liberalism and conservativism — and the American system as a whole — look out of balance in TIMN terms. I’m not sure yet how best to do a TIMN analysis of the current state of these two ideologies, or of our system as a whole. But here are some tentative observations:

The former relative separation of the state and market realms — a good condition from a TIMN perspective — has given way to an increasing fusion and intermingling of government and business, and both isms seem to have become overly agreeable to that. Trends in campaign financing, corporate contributions, congressional lobbying, government contracting, and other manifestations of public-private coziness, along with an evident lack of regulatory supervision and oversight (esp. in financial matters), attest to this. At the same time — ironically, in light of this increased fusion — there is increased pressure to take sides politically in favor of either the public or the private sector, without much recognition anymore that both are essential and that their combination ought to be preserved in a balanced manner.

Thus the structural reality seems distorted toward +M more than ever, while the rhetorical reality is turning more tribal (pro-T) than ever, especially among conservatives. Both liberalism and conservativism have moved so far from being soundly triformist that both now look dysfunctional, in need of rethinking. But the nature of the latter ism distresses me more these days, so I focus my remarks on it.

Too much mean-spirited tribalism: Conservativism — not all of it, but a vast swath — has fallen under the spell of a fuming medley of libertarians, evangelicals, populists, independents, opportunists, and revanchists. It can still offer good points about favoring limited government, but many of its proponents sound increasingly anti-government, fraught with exaggerated fears of government control and expansion (and this is after a Republican administration wrought an enormous expansion in state surveillance and monitoring).

While conservativism’s stance on limited government thus looks somewhat out of balance, its economic and cultural dispositions look more so. Again, I’m still feeling my way on how best to do TIMN analysis, but it seems to me that conservativism has turned excessively libertarian in its approach to the market form. What’s happening to the tribal form seems of greater concern.

Many T-level aspects of American society are currently out of balance, if not out of whack. Most “culture war” issues — e.g., family values, abortion, immigration, guns, same-sex marriage, identity politics, affirmative action, school prayer, indeed perhaps everything that makes up the “culture war” — pertains to the tribal form. Add to this other kinds of news about urban and ethnic gang conflicts, teenage angst, broken families, religious cults run as charismatic chiefdoms, fixations on celebrities, cronyism in government and business, and the shrinking of the middle class; and it is easy to see that tribal (T-level) issues are not only rife in American society, but also that they have risen in prominence relative to issues that pertain more to the other TIMN forms, such as poverty.

Conservatives have tried to create and capitalize on “culture war” issues, far more than liberals. As a result, conservativism may be turning too tribalist for its own and the country’s good. This gets summed up, in my experience, by a remark I heard several years ago, when a talk-radio host yearned to “drive another nail into the coffin of liberalism.” What the hell? He seeks the death of a major American ism? He wants to bury a large part of the American political spectrum? Criticism is okay; so is having fun with hyperbole. But this struck me as an insensible plunge into a demonic kind of tribalism. And if America ever went that far to the right, even this leader would surely be among those whose pro-freedom, pro-individual ideals got demolished next. America cannot be truly American without having a broad political spectrum.

If I seem to pick excessively on conservativism, it’s because it offers the better examples of unbalanced tribalism. Curiously, many conservatives take pride in the success of their radio and television talk shows, and chide liberals for not being as good at this. Conservatives claim it’s because their views resonate better with mainstream American values. TIMN suggests a different analysis: It has little to do with the appeal of values; it’s because liberals are evidently not as adept at tribalizing, nor as intent on it.

And here’s another imbalance that TIMN leads me to detect and wonder about: Many policies that conservatives (and liberals?) would like to see enacted in connection with the “cuture war” — say regarding marriage, or immigration, or stem-cell research — mean imposing new government regulations on the tribal form. Yet, many conservatives, especially libertarian conservatives, remain opposed to regulations over the market form, even over a key culprit in the financial crisis: derivatives. If TIMN implies system dynamics as I’ve argued previously, then it probably implies that the regulatory interfaces between forms should be roughly equivalent, at least in degree. If so, then isn’t something amiss in calling for radical deregulation regarding one form, but revanchist reregulation regarding another? In the final analysis, it may well be that the focus should be less on too-much versus too-little, and more on what are the right and wrong kinds of regulation.

Healthcare as a +N challenge: Why is so much turmoil occurring in the United States? One key reason — I continue to believe, as I wrote years ago (2007, p. 5; earlier, 2005, p. 92)— is that:
“The United States, along with countries in Western Europe and Scandinavia, long ago developed triform T+I+M societies and are now on the cutting edge for creating quadriform T+I+M+N societies. This evolutionary shift explains some of the turbulence America has been experiencing at home and abroad.”

That still sounds right to me, and I’d harp on it even more today: China’s recent rise owes to its successes in finally adopting the market (+M) form. In contrast, America’s disarray, if not decline, owes to its troubles adapting to the rise of the network (+I) form. To use a term coined by my former co-author colleague John Arquilla in another context, the United States and its chief competitor, China, are in an “organizational race” — but each of a different kind. And we Americans better get cracking, at home as well as abroad.

One crucial proving ground at home may well be healthcare. The current policy debate has liberals and conservatives riled up, at odds over whether to go for public (+I) or private (+M) options. But each side’s proponents seem stuck in their aging ideological frames, while the populist mobilizations at town-hall and so-called tea-party gatherings confirm that conservative rightists are turning more virulently tribal (T-bound) than ever.

Can TIMN offer any guidance regarding our healthcare options? I think it can, though my thoughts are tentative. First, I think TIMN means that both public (+I) and private (+M) options are needed. But I can’t prove this. I can see why liberals favor a public option, conservatives a private option. I can see that the healthcare and insurance markets may need reforms in order to fit better with TIMN. I can see that every conservative aspersion against the idea of a public option — e.g., government “death panels” — could be flipped around and cast back against industry. And I can say that it would be more American to have all kinds of options available — multiple choices — partly to help protect the less-advantaged. But I can’t be entirely sure, not even by looking at experiences in other triform liberal democracies, that TIMN means we definitely should have both public- and private-sector options, as they are normally conceived.

But I am sure about this: TIMN implies that a new (+N) sector is emerging — what Peter Drucker called the “social sector” and which I have written about in prior postings. I continue to sense that healthcare is one of the issues that will (and should) migrate into this nascent sector. If so, then it may be very important to include the so-far least-favored option: networked non-profit cooperatives. Despite current objections that such organizations have rarely succeeded in the past, and that they require larger memberships and resource pools than presently seem likely to arise, they may well turn out to be cutting-edge for healthcare, far into the future.

My sense of TIMN is that the tribal form rotates around maximizing pride; the institutional form, around maximizing power; and the market form, around maximizing profits. I’m still uncertain about the network form, but my latest notion is that it favors maximizing “stewardship” — a term I spotted while browsing a conservative blog, but that should suit liberal sensibilities as well. Isn’t healthcare about stewardship more than power or profit? If so, seeking a +N option makes sense, and nurturing networked nonprofit cooperatives may be a good way to do so.

Neither conservativism nor liberalism has shown how to incorporate the +N form. Yet, neither will be able to endure unless its exponents figure this out, while also rebalancing their dispositions toward the other TIMN forms. More likely, however, is that both these classic isms will by superseded by new ideologies that are more attuned to the new organizational dynamics of the information age.

- - - - -

Source note: Liberalism and conservativism are not my bag; nor is healthcare. So, to help prepare this post, I upped my attention level and acknowledge reading or listening to interesting materials from the following: David Brooks, John Derbyshire, David Frum, Neil Gabler, Hugh Hewitt, Steven Hayward, Bill Moyers, Sam Tanenhaus, and newscasters and their interviewees at Fox News, MSNBC, PBS, and NPR. I also benefitted from blog postings and related comments at Contrary Brin, Front Porch Republic, Spinuzzi, and ZenPundit, as well as from news articles and op-eds in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post.

Caveat: I am likely, once again, to edit this text after it has been posted.

[UPDATE — MARCH 26, 2014:  For a belated update on the status and content of Part 3, which I never finished, see this 2014 post here.] 

11 comments:

Kevin Carson said...

Excellent, David. One caveat regarding +M: as conservatives look at it, the "market" (or rather historic capitalism) is characterized as much by its institutional continuities with feudalism as by its genuinely market features. It's better understood IMO as a system of privilege and artificial property rights, with the propertied and managerial classes collecting enormous rents from artificial scarcity. It's only a market system insofar as a limited market price-clearing mechanism is allowed to operate within the interstices of state power. The conservatives are fond of "free enterprise" rhetoric, but the actual corporate economy they defend is overwhelmingly statist.

Clay Spinuzzi said...

David, could you speculate a bit on the difference between the values of TIMN vs. the organizational forms of TIMN? My sense is that these are different, with, say, +T values being implemented through +N organizations (e.g., white power groups on the Internet) or +I organizations (e.g., the Holocaust).

I'm interested in part because it seems to me that some of the events we've seen recently have brought together some groups with rather different values. One easy example is the health care protests, where seniors who fear Medicare cuts (+I, I think) were just as vocal as free-market folks or Birthers (+T, I think). But I think these protesters have largely been pulled together in temporary single-issue networks. I'm not clear on whether these networks have imparted +N values or whether they will, although I suspect so. I'm also not sure how durable these networks are, since their components are pulled together from different assumptions - e.g., if health insurance reform were constructed in a way that completely protected Medicare from cuts, would it flake off the support of seniors (+I), leaving only the +T and +M?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

David Ronfeldt said...

Thanks for leaving your comment, Kevin.  it speaks to whether the forms function separately, or in fusions -- a concern i keep having in my TIMN efforts.  Ideally, i'd get to address the kind of point you make in a chapter on the rise of the market form.  But at my current rate of progress, I'm not sure I'll get that far in an organized fashion.  If all could go well, my efforts would result in a manuscript that would have 10-12 chapters, with the following being what the table of contents might look like:
 
1. How Societies Progress: The Basic Story
2. Rethinking Social Evolution
3. Evolution of Tribes and Clans
4. Modern Manifestations of the Tribal Form
5. Evolution of Hierarchical Institutions
6. Evolution of Markets
7. Evolution of Information-Age Networks
8. Assembling the TIMN Framework: From  Monoform to Quadriform Societies
9. Structure and Dynamics of TIMN Evolution
10. Future Implications

Chapters 1-4 already exist in advanced draft form, in my RAND paper on tribes as the first and forever form.  Ingredients for Chapter 7 exist in scattered pieces, mostly in my writings with Arquilla, which add up to a good start.  Meanwhile, I'm using this blog to field materials that mostly pertain to prospective Chapters 8-10.

That means Chapter 5 on the +I form, and Chapter 6 on the +M form, aren't getting done.  I'd want them to be comparable to what I wrote about tribes, and that will/would require tons of reading and writing.  I have already acquired many of the books I should read for  doing these chapters, but so far they continue to sit around while I slow down.  At least I'm fielding some of the ideas here at the blog.\

So, in other words, I'm far from knowing exactly how I would end up writing about the rise and maturation of the market form.  I'm sure I would distinguish it from capitalism, as I've indicated various times.  And I would inquire into the extent to which the market form is and should be kept separate from the other forms.  I don't know for sure where I'd end up, but I'll be keeping your comment in mind as I keep wondering.  

In this vein, I've been reading downloads lately of the 2009 Reith lectures by Michael Sandel, and I really like some of the points he makes, including a complaint that "we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society."

Well, I better go figure out a reply to Clay's comment next.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

David, I certainly see your point about conservative tribalism, but your word choice fairly drips your contempt. I fear you have fallen prey to popular stereotypes, merely putting them in new-sounding forms. You quite clearly regard fringe phenomena in conservatism as legitimate parts of the discussion, while passing by large swaths of the liberal coalition.

I am most familiar with the social services, academic, arts, and evangelical cultures. Of those four, virtually everyone would point immediately to the evangelical as the most tribal. I find that to be emphatically not true. The other three use social control mechanisms far more often within their ranks, and are quite unaware of how prejudicial their framing and phrasing are.

I think your overall theory is quite valuable. You seem to be applying it by taking in information from a limited variety of sources, pondering it, and making observations. Such a method is easily prone to confirmation bias - it has no natural checks on it. It insulates itself very nicely from contrary explanations. You seem to be fair-minded enough to hold much of that problem in check. But the method itself has weaknesses that are seldom overcome by individuals.

David Ronfeldt said...

clay -- good points, good questions.

each TIMN form enshrines different values and amounts to a different moral universe. i’ve called them organizational forms, but they are more than topological designs. all the forms have layers (something like that), and the more a form develops, the more evident those layers: one way i’ve put it (in “networks and netwars”) is that each has organizational, narrative, doctrinal, social, and technological layers. another way (a la marx, or hegel?) is that each has its own superstructure, structure, and infrastructure. or to elude marx and hegel, i’d say each form is both material and ideational, inseparably so. and of course, each has both bright and dark sides.

that’s sketchy. but it helps me consider your question(s):

first, let’s note that TIMN is about the long evolution of societies. i didn’t mean for it to be a way to analyze small social entities and activities. if it can do that, it’s a bonus.

i have thought that TIMN could be used to analyze corporations, including by identifying tribal impulses within them. you saw this in a post at your blog this week where, in reviewing points drucker made about chinese diaspora business organizations, you observe that: “although these organizations are constituted as networks, their trust is tribal. Yet the organizational forms are in some ways contradictory, and dealing with those contradictions will soon mean developing the networks so that they can scale: sharing information and allowing outsiders in.” i like that.

more to the point, i’ve noticed TIMN tides pulsing through what you bring up here: the health care protests, and town-hall and tea-party gatherings. like you, i’m struck by their tribal nature, and by the ways they engage +I and +M postions. yes, they take advantage of +N dynamics, esp technologically. but i can’t regard them as a true +N force, in part because they reflect an old-fashioned middle-class populism, and i think a +N policy may depend on something these folks are not touting: a networked non-profit system.

as i was preparing this , i read an article by michael tomasky that might interest you. he says: “This conservative protest movement . . . has three powerful forces supporting it: bottomless amounts of corporate money; an ideologically dedicated press, radio, and cable television apparatus eager to tout its existence; and elected officials who are willing to embrace it publicly and whose votes in support of the movement's positions can be absolutely relied upon. The 1981 marchers and all the left-leaning protest movements with which we've been familiar over the years — and that serve in our minds as the models for street protests and political rallies — have typically had none of this kind of support. For the foreseeable future, what we witnessed on September 12, and over the summer at the town-hall events, is likely to be a permanent feature of the political landscape.”

this social netwar seems far more triformist (and revanchist) than potentially quadriformist. but i’d say yes to your question that parts are likely to “flake off” depending on developments. to read tomasky’s article, go to:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23150

you might also be interested in a blogpost elsewhere:
http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/coalitions-and-coordination-in-tea-party-organizing/

i’ve a term for the tea-party and town-hall activists: “tippies.” the alliteration fits; it also fits with cohorts like the Nine Twelvers, Tenthers, and anti-tax. but i’ve more in mind. i heard a conservative republican say the people at these gatherings are more radical-right than republican or conservative, and that they resemble a reverse-mirroring of the left-wing “hippies” of the 60s. also, a term like “tippies” connotes intent to serve as tipping points, to tip the system. but i suppose i will remain alone in suggesting such a term.

David Ronfeldt said...

AVI -- i keep hearing, from friends and others, that liberals are as tribal as conservatives. i agree with your point about “social control mechanisms” that operate to maintain solidarity “within their ranks” of parts of the liberal (not to mention conservative) cultures. but i don’t see the liberal coalition and its cohorts engaging in the degree of outward tribalism that i see coming from the conserative coalition and its cohorts (e.g., tea-party and town-hall activists). maybe that’s a function of the media i choose to browse. but i try to browse broadly.

a conservative libertarian friend of mine would have liked to see my post imply as much complaint about keith olbermann as about rush limbaugh. but in my view the two are not equivalent: limbaugh is movement leader; olbermann isn't. limbaugh is a tribalist who is trying to tribalize; olbermann is a court-jester gad-fly. i've heard plenty of partisan jibes from olbermann, but none so tribal as to call for the demise of conservatism.

anyway, thanks for stopping by and showing an interest. i’ll try to abide by your methodological cautions. sorry for my delay in replying. -- onward, david

Clay Spinuzzi said...

First, I like the moniker "tippies" - at least I like it much more than the contemptuous and counterproductive term "teabaggers," which has been used to avoid or talk around the meaning of these protests.

And I like and endorse the idea that different forms involve both organizational configurations and their concomitant values, expectations, etc. As you noted regarding that book review, I imagine these as cultural-historical contradictions that become embedded in multiform cultures and/or movements. These are going to produce some interesting dynamics, and I think one of the big challenges for multiform cultures/movements must be to keep cohesive.

You seem to imply that these forms need to mature. For instance, you say that "yes, they take advantage of +N dynamics, esp technologically. but i can’t regard them as a true +N force, in part because they reflect an old-fashioned middle-class populism, and i think a +N policy may depend on something these folks are not touting: a networked non-profit system." The form, but not the values. But you also say that "each form is both material and ideational, inseparably so."

If the two are inseparable, does this mean that the tea party and health care protests, being materially (dynamically) +N but not ideationally +N, are in a state of transition on the way to becoming "fully" +N? If so, at one point in the transition can a movement be considered ideationally and thus genuinely +N? If not, could you unpack the distinction a bit?

I'm especially interested in how you might reapply this question to, say, the Zapatista netwar, in which the Zapatistas and NGOs with radically different goals and ideologies formed a network. Does a true +N formation need to become ideologically homogeneous, at least in terms of the +N values you describe? If so, doesn't that rule out several apparent networks discussed in your earlier work, networks that appear to be quite ideationally heterogeneous? If not, how does that work?

I hope these questions don't sound pointed! I really am trying to think through how these work. In reading your response, I realized that my notion of +N has been predicated on the idea that networks are necessarily ideationally heterogeneous. So I'm rethinking that assumption myself.

Re liberal tribalism, perhaps certain aspects of identity politics might apply? I'm thinking of Sen. Reid's recent statement in which he compared Republican opposition to healthcare to earlier opposition to civil rights. But I'll leave that one for AVI to take a stab at.

mark said...

Hi David,

Well, I think in terms of political correctness, particularly the extreme forms that are fashionable in some academic circles and among the activist base of the Democratic Party, there's ample tribalism present among liberals.

Granted, when you get to the point of Andrea Dworkin style gender-feminism, queer theory or radical Afrocentrism, there's not much that is "liberal" about those philosophies in the normal sense of the term. They're strident and authoritarian in their analysis and their prescriptions. Nevertheless, they have found a secure place among the Democratic Left in a fashion similar to that which extreme fundamentalist Christians of various stripes inhabit the GOP.

Andrew Luetgers said...

will the network supplant the other forms or support them? Just wanted to share this story as an example of how the network form works to do both at the same time. Perhaps it is more versatile because it can adjust to conditions working despite or in concert with gov + biz and real tribes.

A great story from idealist of two children saved from trafficking via key connections made through their network. It is a beautiful microcosm of the network the institution and the tribe in play.

Andrew Luetgers said...

oops forgot to add the link for the above mentioned story...

http://www.idealist.org/blog/2010/01/09/a-good-email-to-start-the-year/

David Ronfeldt said...

ALL (CLAY, MARK, ANDREW): Here’s a sketchy wrap-up effort to deal with some of the issues you raised months ago. It’s been so long, you may not notice. So I’ll try to email you that I’ve finally done something about replying.

- - -

CLAY: According to my view of TIMN, esp. the emerging +N part, I continue to doubt that the tea-party and health-care protest movements are “in a state of transition on the way to becoming ‘fully’ +N.” They, as well as the earlier Zapatista-related NGO movement, all draw on +N dynamics. But I don’t see that these specific protest movements per se are evolving solidly that way. Yet, as I’ve noted before, I stil think networked activist NGOs are harbingers of the rise of a +N realm across a range of issues (e.g., environment). And I still think a large part of health care -- but not the protest movement in the news -- may migrate into a +N realm.

There should not be any requirement for +N actors, much less a possible +N realm, to be “ideologically homogenous.” After all, none of the other TIMN forms/realms are. In specific instances, yes, okay. But not as a general systemic phenomenon. A spectrum is likely, I’d suppose. And just as +I and +M are associated with a range of ideological leanings (e.g., statism and capitalism, respectively), so will +N give rise to some new kinds of ideological leanings. If so, what needs to be figured out is the real basis for the rise of a distinct +N realm -- and I’m working on a post about that.

It’s still a problem for me to specify exactly when “in the transition can a movement be considered ideationally and thus genuinely +N.” But I surely could not have done that in the past for the other TIMN forms, were I to have lived long ago and been early at noticing their rise.

- - -

MARK:

A valid point and good examples: lots of ideological tribalism and clannishness across the political and cultural spectrums. I remain more upset about what I see on the Right than on the Left, but that’s partly just me, and I don’t mean for it to bias TIMN’s development or application.

- - -

ANDREW:

Thanks for the pointer. A heart-warming report. And it led to my learning about Action Without Borders. AWB looks like an emerging +N activity.

As for your question, my view remains that networks like this will not “supplant the other forms” and that evolutionary success will come from learning how best to “support them.” That’s inherent in TIMN, as I’ve tried to elaborate in prior posts and will surely have to continue trying to figure out.

- - -

ALL: I intend to get into these matters further in my part-3 post in this series.

Thanks for stopping by and being interested. Onward.