Incidentals (4th of 5): apropos terrorist mindsets (à la STA and TIMN)

This post compiles a string of comments about jihadi and related terrorist mindsets that involve millenarian thinking. Most reflect my interest in STA, particularly a hypothesis that the keys to terrorist mentalities lie more in their spatial than in their time or action orientations. Some comments also relate to TIMN, because they spotlight the dark tribalism inherent in jihadi thought and action.

An off-hand remark about “loner tribalism” — meaning a lone-wolf tribalist differs from a lone-wolf terrorist — may be the only brand new notion I have here. Otherwise, what’s here, amid broader references to the study of millenarianism, are notions about tit-for-tat reciprocity, the “hubris-nemesis complex,” and the phenomenon known as “running amok.” At the end are: a rant about tribalism vs. religiosity in the “war of ideas”; and a note about how yesterday’s anarchists who used dynamite, the high-tech weapon of their time, rationalized turning science against “the system” — claiming justifications that today’s terrorists may yet replicate.

I made many of the comments because the topic interests me. But also, I thought that participation might help me grope a way toward finishing part 4 of my languishing four-part series of posts about millenarian aspects of terrorism. Ever since I first made notes for part 4 — over a year ago? — I've intended to focus it on implications for strategy, specifically on the need to generate splits between the incorrigible hard-core millenarians and the tag-along tribalists who may coexist in a movement. But we’ll see. At least I got to raise that idea in these comments.

Most of the comments occurred at Mark Safranski’s marvelous Zenpundit blog in the context of guest posts by Charles Cameron on millenarianism. While I reprise only my own comments here, interested readers should see the original posts and ensuing discussions there for the inputs from not only Cameron but also other experts on millenarianism, such as Jean Rosenfeld (UCLA), “DP” (al Sahwa blog), John Hall (UC Davis), and by email, Michael Barkun (Syracuse). Their discussions are more illuminating than mine alone.

Apropos these matters, I also left some remarks at the ICSR’s interesting FREErad!cals blog in a post by Am Samm on “Preventing, er, Countering Violent Extremism comes to America: Part One” in January 2010. But I said nothing different there from what I said at Zenpundit.

* * *

Cameron’s series at Zenpundit kicked off in August 2009 with a post about “apocalyptic vision” that focused on Mahdism (the Mahdi being “Islam’s end-times savior”). I noted:

An important, very interesting set of points. But oddly, it’s a topic that keeps having difficulty gaining traction among analysts and strategists. I once tried repeatedly in small ways years ago to urge that Al Qaeda et al. be analyzed as expressions of millenarianism — as millenarians who have a strategic sense, and not just as political and military strategists who have a millenarian bent. But my little efforts proved to no avail and usually led to dismissiveness (accompanied sometimes with distinctions about Sunnis vs. Shias, and jihadis vs. apocalyptic millenarians, that were said to counsel against thinking that Islam can exhibit the millennialism that has often cropped up in Jewish and Christian histories). . . .

Some of my key points: For starters, read Norman Cohn’s Pursuit of the Millennium and Michael Barkun’s Disaster and the Millennium to become familiar with key themes and dynamics. Learn that the millenarian believes he/she faces not just relative deprivation (a favorite theme among conflict analysts) but absolute disaster (a more difficult theme for analysts to cope with). In addition, realize that the millenarian mindset is knotted up with urgent notions not only about social time (the “end times”) but also about the nature of social space (barriers everywhere) and social action (violent deeds to achieve divine breakthroughs).

. . . [O]ne point, perhaps too obvious, is to figure out how to drive wedges between the hard-core millenarians, who are not going to change their minds or relent, and the tag-along tribalists who amount to “accidental” millenarians. This might help us deal with dynamics within and among Al Qaeda, the Taliban and its various elements, not to mention Iranian actors. . . .

In September, I added an STA-related quotation:

. . . [A]n interesting attribute of millenarian religious groups is that they are often on the cutting edge in adopting new info tech, partly because it enables them to project their identity beyond previous capacities. As such, these groups reflect the kind of world view described by Marshall McCluhan and Quentin Fiore (1967?):

“Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of ‘time’ and ’space’ and pours upon us instantly and continuously concerns of all other men. It has reconstituted dialogue on a global scale. Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism. . . . Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. ‘Time’ has ceased, ’space’ has vanished. We now live in a global village. . . a simultaneous happening. We are back in acoustic space. We have begun again to structure the primordial feeling, the tribal emotions from which a few centuries of literacy divorce us.”

That is normally, famously quoted because of the “global village” notion. I offer it up today for its millenarian content. What’s important to millenarians is “time war” (Rifkin, 1987), not a “clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1993).

* * *

In November, Cameron posted next about “speak the languages, know the modes of thought.” In it he referred to Islamist views about reciprocity, and I wondered:

What catches my eye right now is the following point, which is a bit off your main theme today, but I’d like to ask for more about it anyway: “Which powerfully reinforces the idea that bin Laden views his jihad against the US in terms of measured reciprocity — a notion which should give us pause every time we take an action which we would not choose to have taken against us…”

What I wonder about is the nature of a mind bent on measured reciprocity vs. a millenarian mind . . . . Millenarians, I gather, aren’t much into measured tit-for-tat thinking. If they are, then maybe they really aren’t all that millenarian. They may think they are on a righteous, vengeful mission ordained by god — but it’s so tit-for-tat that it falls short of being truly millenarian.

Or is there a spectrum of combinations? I can imagine a millenarian using tit-for-tat thinking as part of a rationale for wanting to inflict apocalyptic punishment. But I can also suppose that it’s a mental game that a millenarian leader uses to help explain his views to attract new adherents. If so, who/what may be examples of minds that combine millenarian with measured reciprocity?

Cameron, Rosenfeld, Safranski, and others provided extensive answers about the meanings and roles of reciprocity in jihadi thinking, in comments left not only in this post but also in a separate follow-up post. This opened an opportunity to recall a cosmic tit-for-tat involving the ancient yet modern dynamic of hubris and Nemesis:

. . . I used to regard tit-for-tat as a game-theoretic way for players to promote a kind of stand-offish equilibrium based on mutual deterrence. Later I realized that real-life tribal societies often have codes of honor that, when wrongs occur, require tit-for-tat retribution by means of compensation or revenge. Yet, this mundane notion of tit-for-tat tends to move away from fostering equilibrium and deterrence, the more that the actors (players, tribes, whatever) expand their spatial and temporal horizons to include wrongs that allegedly occurred far away and/or long ago. Thus, historic enemies in rival big-city gangs or Middle-Eastern sects may be caught up in nearly eternal, never-ending patterns of tit-for-tat that are said to be ethically justified in terms of measured reciprocity, but that in fact begin to break the boundaries of being either measured or reciprocal.

The millenarians that you, Jean Rosenfeld, and others keep illuminating seem to be aiming for more than mundane: a cosmic tit-for-tat. This does not apply to all millenarians, of course, for some seem to have in mind the eruption of a new age that will not require unusual punishment and purification. But the notion of a cosmic tit-for-tat does seem to apply to a lot of millenarians across a lot of religions — bin Laden among them — who long for a violent, ferociously righteous retribution.

All of which reminds me of an older dynamic — a cosmic tit-for-tat in Greek mythology — that antedates the religious texts we’ve discussed: the ancient dynamic of hubris and Nemesis, whereby mortals who exhibit hubris (the vainglorious, prideful pretension to be godlike) are struck down by Nemesis (Zeus’s goddess of divine vengeance and retribution). Narcissus is a classic example (hence the concept of narcissism as a kind of hubris). In a sense, bin laden is playing Nemesis to Western hubris.

But doesn’t bin Laden also exhibit a kind of hubris? I think so; and if so, then we can push the ancient dynamic in a new direction and speculate that he has a “hubris-nemesis complex.” In this extraordinary mindset, an actor not only exhibits hubris but also seeks to play Nemesis against something else that he or she accuses of hubris. The result is a rare, invigorating, all-consuming fusion: a charismatic hubris-nemesis complex.

Not all hubris-nemesis characters are millenarians (or vice-versa). But a bunch are: as literary archetypes, think Captain Ahab in Moby Dick; Satan in Paradise Lost. As real-life leadership examples, think Hitler, Castro, etc. (maybe even some of today’s talk-show hosts?). These are all rather millenarian figures, and in addition — to bring matters around to the theme of this and the preceding post — they all show interest in pursuing some kind of rather cosmic tit-for-tat. . . .

Source: Beware the Hubris-Nemesis Complex

* * *

Later in November, as a result of the Ft. Hood shooting rampage, Cameron posted his ”Analysis of the Hasan Slide Presentation” at Zenpundit (and simultaneously at the Small Wars Journal blog). My points — and here’s where running amok and loner tribalism enter the analysis — were as follows:

. . . Your analysis shines in contrast to other views I’ve seen lately. One deemed the presentation irrational — “just crazy” (commentator on Fox News). Another claimed it was dogmatic — a “crystallization of the SJ [Salafi-Jihadist] ideology" (a jihad-watchers’ blogpost). Yet, I’d say the presentation provides little to no evidence for those views [I was wrong about the latter]. I’m also surprised to see Hasan’s’ rampage at Ft. Hood being viewed (prematurely?) as possibly “a classic example of Fourth Generation war” (acc. to a DNI blogpost).

If I may shift to using a perspective that I like when analyzing mindsets — a perspective that says to look for underlying space-time-action orientations — I’d add and wonder about the following in conjunction with your points:

Regarding space orientations, the presentation conveys a tendency to structure matters — even to compartmentalize them — in terms of binaries and dualities, as you note: e.g., rewards and punishments, paradise and hell, God and country/state, Muslims and infidels. Of course, not everything is viewed in binary terms, but quite a lot. I’m wondering — and asking — whether such binary structuring, especially if a person thinks that ultimately all should be one under God, may add to the strain of coping with a mental balancing act in times of stress. I would think so. Your analysis detects the ambiguities in Hasan’s text. Perhaps coping with ambiguities is a lot harder for a binary mentality.

Regarding time orientations, the presentation reveals a concern with proper progression. As your analysis of the “timeline” reveals, the slides show that Islamic behavior may evolve in phases — from peaceful accommodation, to defensive jihad, to offensive jihad, depending on how Muslims are treated, and on the justifications for “abrogation” to proceed along the timeline. At the time of the presentation, Hasan does not himself appear to be far down this progression, as you indicate. But it’s interesting that he lays it out, a kind of warning.

As for action orientations, I have less to add. The presentation is thoroughly religious: Man should do God’s will. One phrase that catches my eye is on slide 49: “Muslims may be seen as moderate (compromising) but God is not.” . . . I’m supposing this remark is another clue.

Finally, your observations about “Hasan’s mind . . . as gradually becoming a sort of self-imposed prison, an echo chamber” remind me of the explosive reaction known as “running amok” in which a period of sullen underground brooding is followed by an outburst of sui-homicidal rage. Psychiatrist B. G. Burton-Bradley (1972), based on an analysis of amok-runners in Papua-New Guinea (the source of the term), once paraphrased their thinking as follows:

“I am not an important or ‘big man.’ Although poor, I have always had my sense of personal dignity and social identity. But I have had little else. Now even this has been taken from me and my life reduced to nothing by an intolerable insult. Therefore, I have nothing to lose except my life, which is rated as nothing, so I trade my life for yours as your life is favored. The exchange is in my favor, so I shall not only kill you, but I will also kill many of you, and at the same time rehabilitate myself in the eyes of the group of which I am a member, even though I might be killed in the process.”

Wow. That sounds like part of what happened to Hasan. Here, the meaning of the violence transcends its instrumental utility (an action orientation). It seems to be mainly about projecting an ego-identity (a spatial orientation), even more than about expecting to break through to a new future (a time orientation). Some terrorism has this quality. But so does most tribalism. Perhaps Hasan was expressing a kind of loner tribalism more than terrorism.

* * *

At the SWJ blog’s parallel version of the foregoing post, Cameron asked for clarification of the “loner tribalism” notion:

. . . It reflects a view I’ve held for some time . . . that a lot of Islamist and other kinds of religious terrorism expresses a demonic virulent kind of tribalism, more than the religion itself.

. . . [A] tribalist, including one who tribalizes any religion, is keen about expressing solidarity with a group identity; espousing a kinship of blood and brotherhood; distinguishing us from them; upholding codes of honor that make one extremely sensitive about respect, pride, and dignity; and calling for righteous vengeance against perceived insults. I’m detecting that Hasan yearned to defend his tribe (Muslims) more than to be a terrorist or jihadist (my understanding of what makes jihadists tick being more about the appeal of tribal than religious tenets).

. . . [H]e was thinking in Muslim terms, and he is a Palestinian Arab by background. But as someone (Shlok Vaidya?) noted, Hasan’s act was more like Columbine than 9/11. If so, that makes him, including his choice of weapons and the randomness yet categoricalness of his targets, quite “American” these days.

Similar recent perpetrators I recall in our country — e.g., that guy who shot the abortion doctor, the guy out to murder at the Holocaust Museum, and some incidents I don’t quite recall involving students or gang-bangers — were, I’d speculate, acting not so much as the lone-wolf terrorists they’ve been labeled, but rather as loner wannabe tribalists. What they most wanted was to express solidarity with a group identity that hadn’t quite accepted them, but that in their view needed defending against threatening others, even from the fringe where they tried to participate and belong.

Wasn’t Hasan like that? I do not mean to dismiss that he may have thought he was acting as a Muslim and Arab (note his clothing at the time), but he was into trying to be American too. Perhaps, in a sense, his premeditated violence served to amalgamate and harmonize all his multiple identities at once. At that awful moment, they were finally fused and proclaimed, rather than in conflict tearing him apart.

Thus my notion of loner tribalism — in part, a solitary, self-impelled effort to express identity and solidarity with a group to which they yearned but didn't quite get to belong.

Here’s an additional speculation: You, Jean Rosenfeld, and others have noted a lot of distinctions regarding varieties of millenarians, notably in discussions at Zenpundit. A distinction I’ve wondered about is between the true millenarians in a group/movement and the tag-alongs who amount more to “accidental millenarians” (to use a current adjective). The latters' mindsets tend to be more about tribalism (belonging to the group) than about millenarianism (blasting into a new future). If the distinction makes sense, the point would be to identify strategies and tactics to split the tag-along tribalists off and away from the hard-core millenarians. I’ve wondered about this a bit in regard to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now I’m wondering about it in regard to Hasan.

From what I’ve seen so far, Hasan wasn’t a full-fledged millenarian. His act was apocalyptic, and some of the beliefs he included in his slide presentation had millenarian aspects. But, at least until recently, he was not far gone in that direction. Could he have been pulled back? Hard-core millenarians cannot be pulled back; they can’t be dissuaded or soothed. But tag-along tribalists may be another matter. . . .

Of course, these thoughts will prove moot and misplaced if evidence turns up that Hasan had in fact morphed into a fully committed, connected jihadist. Yet, if he had made only tentative efforts in that direction, which appears to have been the case with other solitary murderers mentioned above, then the notion of a loner tribalist running amok may remain more accurate than lone-wolf terrorist.

* * *

Later in November, Cameron posted at Zenpundit about “The Duel of Ali ibn Abu Talib with Amru ibn Abd Wudd.” In January, I spotted a new comment about the nature of honor — which triggered the following outburst about tribalism vs. religiosity:

. . . [Y]our comment about honor (which is to tribes what power and profit are to states and markets respectively), prompt me to reiterate this:

Suicide bombing, particularly if it kills noncombatant innocents, is more an act of tribalism than religiosity. One ultimate purpose of religion — meaning all major religions, and especially the Abrahamic monotheisms of the world’s most terribly tribal area, the Middle East — is to enable people to transcend the dark side of tribalism. To the extent that religionists of any creed enact this dark side and claim it is righteous and honorable to do so, they regress into a craven, divisive, vengeful, demonizing, bloodlusting tribalism. Along the way, they take God’s name in vain; they distort their religiosity; and they depart from that ultimate religious purpose noted above.

In my view, then, the interplay between tribalism and religiosity lies at the core of the “war of ideas” in this area. That so-called war has not gone well for U.S. strategists and their allies, in part because we have not known how best to grapple with jihadi narratives about the importance of being anti-imperialist and pro-Islamist on their terms. We have tried to show we are not so imperial and really do favor democratic development. And we have urged the displacement of extremist by moderate interpretations of relevant religious texts. But so far, all to little avail.

It’s time to rethink (again!) how to find our way through the “war of ideas” against Al Qaeda and its ilk: Narrative engagement along the political and religious lines noted above should continue, however slow and marginal their effectiveness. But I’d suggest fielding a new line about the relationship between tribalism and religion. We should attack the suborning of religion (any and all religions) to an extreme tribalism of the darkest kind. I’m not sure exactly how to accomplish this, but I’m sure it’s worth experimenting with. Figuring out how to ask the right questions, in depth and detail, relentlessly, about whether particular thoughts and actions are truly religious or just plain tribal may provide new keys to the battle over whose story wins.

Caveat: In proposing this, I’m not opposing tribalism in general, just the extremely dark kind. The tribal form of organization is fundamental to social evolution in all societies, past, present, and future. Getting the tribal form right matters; so does respecting its nature. I’m often just as worried about the dark sides of hierarchical institutions, markets, and networks. But in the case at hand, it’s the tribal form that’s in play, along with its implications for religion.

I’ve tried to argue for this view in various writings for some years now, but it never seems to gain much traction. Finding a clear convincing formulation still requires work. However, I detect a disincentive for proceeding in this direction; it is supposed to apply to the extreme tribalization of any religion. And that could mean that strategists in the “war of ideas” would have to decry tribalistic violence by Christian and Jewish sectarians along with Islamist ones, no easy task in today’s world. Meanwhile, I see that Lee Smith’s new book The Strong Horse (2010) may provide a supportive analysis, or so I gather from the excerpt — “Introduction: The Clash of Arab Civilizations” — recently published in the New York Times.

* * *

Finally, the irascible but illuminatory Fabius Maximus blog carried a post on “Are islamic extremists like the anarchists?” in December 2009. And I, still in a mood to comment on terrorist mindsets, hastened to impart that:

Today’s violent jihadis have two historical analogs that I like: one consists of the millenarians of the Middle Ages, which has received some attention at Zenpundit, notably via posts by Charles Cameron. The other analog consists of the 19th-20th century anarchists, and I’m delighted at the rare light you cast on this.

Many years ago we looked briefly at anarchists’ use of dynamite, the high-tech weapon of its time, as a possible analog for thinking about the potential appeal of nuclear terrorism for the kinds of terrorist groups that existed in the 1980s. Some themes we found in anarchist writings about dynamite that still resonate today included: using science against the system; empowering individuals to bring down the system; and breaking through to create a new time. The anarchists we looked at rationalized the usage of dynamite as a populist, scientific, moral, humane, and/or mystical-magical form of power.

Source: The Mindsets of High-Technology Terrorists: Future Implications from a Historical Analog (Rand, 1981)

In other words, if “they” can’t get us with their religion, they’ll try to get us with our science.

Incidentals (3rd of 5): apropos the future of conflict (and TIMN)

Some comments that fit in this five-part scrapbook pertain to the evolving nature of conflict. These comments include a couple of swipes at the “4GW” notion, followed by a reprise of John Arquilla’s and my view about the four ways of war associated with military history and social evolution à la TIMN — and I've inserted some additional remarks about the fourth way, our concept of swarming. I then tack on two comments about organizing for cybersecurity that reflect my view of the +N part of TIMN. In all this, there are a few — but only a few — observations that I’ve not made before.

* * *

I have long bridled at the notion of “Fourth Generation warfare” (4GW) and finally dropped a couple comments to that effect.

The first was at Adam Elkus’s keen blog Rethinking Security in September 2009, for a post he did in August doubting that conflict was becoming ever more fraught with “complexity” and likely to induce “state failure” here and there:

I quite agree that notions about state failure -- notably about states being eroded by tribal, market, and new network actors, as well as by internal corruption and incompetence -- have acquired excessive memetic momentum these past few years. My view remains that the state is far from finito. It’ll go through adaptations and reformulations, remaining essential for the construction and governance of complex societies.

Speculations about the decline of the state get tied to the rise of 4GW. It’s a concept I find attractive, but I’m continuing to have a problem with it: 4GW is presumably a postmodern kind of warfare. But I’ve yet to identify a wholly postmodern bunch engaging in 4GW in a violent manner. Instead, the ablest postmodern practitioners appear to be lobbyists, public-relation firms, and activist NGOs. Plus some cyber gangs dedicated to malevolent hacking.

But as for violent conflict, most (all?) of 4GW’s perpetrators so far -- to the extent that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, la Familia Michoacana, etc., reflect 4GW -- are laden with antique tribal and clan dynamics and engage in old modes of violence. In that sense, many of today’s exemplars of 4GW are primarily practitioners of PGW (pre-generation warfare, if I may?). The 1GW, 2W, 3GW, 4GW spectrum, as I understand it, leaves out this earlier mode, and recategorizes it under 4GW.

I wish I could find some clarification about this. I’m not asking for it here, but I thought I’d mention it because it relates to your able points: Many of these actors aim to reinstitute the state in some form.

I reiterated much of the preceding at Peter Hodge’s worthwhile blog The Strategist in November 2009 for a post he did criticizing the “generations of war” notion. But by then I could also add:

Recently, I came across an interesting timeline about 4GW that starts with the notion of a pre-formal generation of war: 0GW. It corresponds to my concern. To take a look, go here: http://timeline.dreaming5gw.com/XvX.php

Even so, I still find the whole 0-4GW spectrum problematic, and prefer other options.

* * *

I summarized the option I most prefer at the Chicagoboyz blog after learning about a post by Lexington Green in October 2009 that invited advice for a presentation on military history:

In a view that John Arquilla and I have elaborated before, the history of military organization and doctrine is largely a history of the progressive development of four fundamental forms of engagement: the melee, massing, maneuver, and swarming. Briefly, warfare has evolved from chaotic melees in which every man fought on his own, to the design of massed but often rigidly shaped formations, and then to the adoption of maneuver. Swarming appears at times in this history, but its major advances as a doctrine will occur in the coming years

If this formulation looks helpful and interesting, go here to download our old Rand study (it's free) on Swarming and the Future of Conflict. Chapter Two (pp. 7-23) is about the evolution of military organization and doctrine: melee, massing, maneuver, and swarming, with particular reference to the roles of information and information technology in the evolution of these four forms.

What that write-up does not show, except in a passing footnote, is that this formulation derives from a view of social evolution — a pet theory of mine (called TIMN) — which holds that, across the ages, societies have come up with only four major forms of organization: tribes, hierarchical institutions (as in states and their militaries), markets, and networks. Thus, early tribes are associated with melees, hierarchical institutions with the rise of massed formations, the rise of market-oriented societies with the turn to maneuver doctrines, and now the age of networks with swarming.

I did not elaborate there, but I’d note here that two other current notions of military swarming are deficient in our view: One has evolved around observations about “swarm intelligence” in nature (e.g., birds, bees, ants). It’s interesting, but it is more about decentralized flocking without any central command and control, rather than coordinated swarming as we understand it. Another view has grown around the notion of “network-centric warfare” (not to be confused with our notion of “netwar”). This view has taken swarming in a high-tech command-and-control direction having mainly to do with UAVs, leading to lots of corporate funding by the Pentagon. UAVs are important, but we'd rather see advances made at the soldiers’ operational level (e.g., in connection with Gant’s proposals for a tribal engagement strategy in Afghanistan). In any case, these two other schools of thought about swarming keep evolving in our direction.

For additional analysis of military swarming, see two spin-off writings by former Rand graduate student and colleague, Sean Edwards: Swarming on the Battlefield: Past Present and Future (Rand, 2000), and Swarming and the Future of Warfare (Rand, 2005). For an update on Arquilla’s thinking, see his article on “The New Rules of War,” Foreign Policy, March/April 2010, available online. Also try to get hold of his booklet Aspects of Netwar & the Conflict with Al Qaeda (Monterey, CA: Information Operations Center, Naval Postgraduate School, 2009; contact: infoioc@nps.edu). Insofar as social rather than military swarming is of interest, Arquilla's and my volume on Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Rand, 2001) remains timely.

* * *

I’ve set cybersecurity aside as a focus since my July post here on “Toward a collaborative community for cyber defense?” Nonetheless, I dropped two tentative comments that reflect the rising importance of the +N in TIMN.

One was at the at IntelFusion blog, for a post by Jeffrey Carr in August 2009 about his forthcoming book Inside Cyber Warfare. He noted he “changed the focus of my final chapter from ‘A Public Private Partnership’ to something that I think is much more vital: ‘Advice For Policy Makers From The Field.’” And he invited formal submissions for compiling that last chapter.

I didn’t aim to participate, but I sensed an opportunity to reiterate a point I like to make, even though I never seem to be effective at making it:

Part of the problem may be the very term you emphasized in the former title of your final chapter: “public-private partnership.” This concept sounds so sensible, and it slides into place so easily in recommendations everywhere these days. But perhaps it’s an aging legacy concept, more suited to the passing industrial era than to the emerging information age, even though the latter’s proponents keep embracing it (which I’ve done at times too).

Consider its meaning(s): It divides matters into public (i.e., governmental) and private (i.e., business), as though they’re the only two sectors that exist. Good governance then mostly means finding the right mix of public and private measures to enable government and business, plus sometimes an occasional nonprofit civil-society actor, to work hand in hand. And this usually ends up meaning key/big government agencies allying with key/big business corporations, often through subcontracting and outsourcing.

I doubt (and I hope others doubt) that this is the wisest direction to keep trying to go in. For one thing, the two-sector/public-private model is headed for obsolescence. An additional sector has been emerging for years now, though its nature remains unclear and it still lacks a good name (Peter Drucker called it the social sector — I like that name best so far — but others call it the third sector, the citizen sector, or the social benefit sector). Whatever, it seems to consist mostly of relatively small, agile, non-profit organizations that pertain more to civil society than to government or business, and that are suited to operating in sprawling networks with each other, as well as with traditional public and private actors.

While this deep re-organizational trend bears mainly on the future of social issues (e.g., health reform?), it may also be significant for cybersecurity, especially cyber defense. Indeed, the way I see matters, your Grey Goose project is in this new sector.

I’m not disputing that the big government and industry actors have crucial roles to play. They do, and they must improve at operating in partnerships. But we Americans are going to need a multi-tiered, multi-sectoral cyber defense system (or set of systems) that is not adequately denoted or properly motivated by the prevailing notion of public-private partnership.

The trite simulation of a “cyber shockwave” that CNN presented this month, with an array of big government and industry players on stage, gives me no heart that my point is likely to resonate any time soon.

* * *

Finally, I left a string of comments at Matt Armstrong’s MountainRunner blog in September 2009 for his post on “preparing to lose the information war.” My comments ramble, but I reiterate them here anyway, much abbreviated and combined from across the string, because I still think there may be a good idea embedded in them somewhere.

. . . [A] lot of concerns that plague public diplomacy/strategic communication also plague cyber security. The difficulties faced in both issue areas — e.g., definition of terms and aims, search for able top leadership, key agency location, inter-agency responsibility, public-private coordination, even the role of NGOs — exhibit lots of curious parallels.

To some extent, these parallels reflect broader problems of government in our times. But at a deeper level, the parallels may owe to facts that both issue areas are about “information” and that much is still up in the air about the significance of this concept/dynamic. . . .

Your comment above about data vs. information reflects the so-called information pyramid. as your remark implies, it has a broad base of raw “data” and “facts,” atop which sits a middle stratum of “information.” The next, still narrower, higher stratum corresponds to information refined into “knowledge.” Atop all, at the peak, sits the most distilled stratum, “wisdom” — the highest level of information. The pyramid implies that the higher levels rest on the lower, but that is true only to a degree. Each layer has some independence — more data do not necessarily mean more information, nor more information more knowledge (or wisdom). Also, it should not be presumed that the hierarchy is driven from the bottom by data; values and value judgements may intrude at all levels. Moreover, critics object sensibly that “information” should not be mistaken for “ideas.” [Read more at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR880/MR880.ch6.pdf]

This looks like a good way (or one part of finding a way) to frame my point that the cybersec and stratcomm areas have a lot of parallels and linkages, and your keen point that cybersec is often mostly about ops at the lower levels and pubdip (info engagement) about ops at the higher levels of this pyramid. . . .

Under current circumstances, I suppose that officials who deal with public diplomacy and strategic communication rarely if ever talk to officials who deal with cyber security. Moreover, current proposals in both issue areas for new czars, coordinators, offices, whatever, would continue to keep them quite separate. . . .

Now, if our musings about the tie-ins between the two issue areas are more sensible than people have considered, then maybe those two sets of officials should be relating a lot more to each other. . . .

This does not mean that the same person(s) should be in charge of both issue areas. But a range of implications may be advisable. At a minimum, perhaps there should be occasional joint meeting to figure out and act upon the synergies. At a maximum, perhaps a National Information Council (or put cyber in the name somehow) should be established, and both issue areas (plus others, like media policy, as you raised?) should be associated with it.

. . . I’m not taken with the notion that a new cybersecurity advisor should report mainly to the OMB and the National Economic Council; that’s too business-oriented for my sense of what’s at stake. And you are not happy (nor am I) with what’s been going on with the treatment of public diplomacy and strategic communications. The maximum implication I posited above may well be too much, but maybe there’s an interesting range yet to be identified.

[CORRECTED — October 16, 2011:  This post originally referred twice to "the +I part of TIMN" when it should have referred to "the +N part of TIMN".  Correction made.]

Incidentals (2nd of 5): apropos tribes vis à vis the other TIMN forms

The prior post concerned definitions of tribes as such. This post — serving, like all the posts in this five-part series, as a kind of scrapbook for bringing together comments I’d scattered elsewhere — conveys remarks about tribes in relation to the other TIMN forms. These remarks contain no new TIMN propositions, but they serve as reminders: that the TIMN forms have deep histories; that it is easy to conflate tribes and networks, but in TIMN they are distinct; and that societies benefit most from developing the forms in ways that keep their realms largely separate from and in balance with each other. This post also recalls the positive influence of Alvin Toffler’s writings.

* * *

A set of interesting posts appeared at the P2P Foundation blog — one of my favorite blogs — in August 2009 comparing the histories of Maghrebi and Genovese traders in the Middle Ages. The posts concerned a view, raised at another blog, that the Maghrebis exhibited an early kind of P2P/network approach to organization, the Genoveses a more market-like approach — and that this might explain why the latter proved more durable and successful as traders.

To quote P2P blog author Michel Bauwens: “Ignacio de Castro has written a fine trilogy on medieval p2p-like practices, that is somehow framed as a challenge to our p2p approach. It describes the practices of jewish maghrebi traders in the Middle Ages and their international support network, and wonders why they ultimately lost against their Genovese more ‘capitalist’ competitors. Ignacio asks: could the same defeat happen to contemporary P2P practices and communities?”

Bauwens voiced his doubts, and so did I. My point was that the Maghrebis were less an expression of the p2p/network form than of the tribal form — and that’s what explained the differing outcomes:

The Maghrebis do exhibit some P2P relationships. But it’s one thing to exhibit some relationships, quite another for those relationships to add up to a full, distinct system of thought and action. The key systems of organization that have developed across the ages so far — tribes, hierarchical institutions (like states), and markets — all contain some P2P relationships in varying respects and degrees. But we have yet to see a full-fledged, distinct P2P /network system emerge to take its place alongside those systems. That still lies ahead.

The Maghrebis appear to correspond far more to an innovative tribal system than to a P2P system. This is particularly so given the exclusionary behavior that accompanied their ethnic orientations. And it’s this tribal nature that ultimately limits them. The Genovese appear to have been less tribal. Thus, perhaps it remains an open question as to whether and how much it’s the tribal, the market, or the P2P orientations that explain the differing outcomes.

* * *

Plenty else is going on these days that warrants commentary about modern expressions of the tribal form and its mixture with the other TIMN forms. But in comments left elsewhere, I only got exercised about the rise of the “tippie” movement (my term for referring to the tea-party and town-hall activism, along with associated Truthers, Tenthers, Nine-Twelvers, and anti-tax activists — so many words starting with the letter T).

This occurred at the Spinuzzi blog — another favorite — in an October 2009 post titled “Some tentative thoughts about a networked rhetoric.” Clay Spinuzzi is an expert on rhetoric, and in this post he wonders whether TIMN “has given us a starter framework for understanding types of rationality in different societies, and by extension, a way to conceive of effective logic within each.” With references to everything from Stephen Toulmin to the town-hall protests, Spinuzzi proposes, among other ideas about the evolving nature of rhetoric, that “institutions expect a woven argument; networks deliver spliced arguments.”

My comment:

I quite agree that each of the four TIMN forms may be associated with a different type of rationality and thus logic and rhetoric. It’s a point worth continued development. . . .

What I’ve seen at the town-hall meetings looks more like a pro-tribal than a pro-network (or pro-institutional or pro-market) rhetoric, as I use those terms. The people I’ve seen speak out seem to be longing more for tribal than for information-age network answers. Nonetheless, at the same time I think you are quite right, and are saying something interesting, to observe that the town-hall participants, in voicing their tribalism, reflect a “networked rhetoric,” as distinguished from a classical, more linear, logic-oriented rhetoric that stems from its institutional origins.

What I would suggest you consider is the following: relate the underlying structure of this kind of rhetoric to the kinds of concepts found in social network analysis. Maybe the rhetoric and its ingredients could be depicted in terms of a network map showing nodes and links, with some hubs. This would result in quite a different depiction from a classical, more linear, even pyramidal logical layout, I’m supposing.

A couple of possible insights from going in this direction: It may help explain why, if counter-arguments seem to take out a few nodes and links in a raging rant, it doesn’t matter much to the ranter. He/she just shifts to another node/link in his wide-ranging rhetoric. Whatever sticks, works. Better to spray than to take narrow aim.

For additional commentary, see Spinuzzi’s reply at his blog, as well as our exchanges in the comments section of my October post here on implications of TIMN for political philosophy and ideology (which I have yet to finish).

* * *

Clay Spinuzzi has also posted a series of worthwhile book reviews at his blog. A review in November 2009 was about a favorite book of mine, Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave. Spinuzzi noted the overlap with TIMN. So I remarked that:

It’s good to be reminded of Toffler’s inspiring early work. He’s partly the reason why, staring at the wall in my office in the late 1970s and wondering what I really should be doing, I decided I should work on implications of the information revolution. It took me another ten years to get moving, but I kept reading Toffler the whole way.

As for my TIMN efforts, along the way I found no academic literature on social evolution that anticipated the future rise of a network-based realm. But such anticipation was widespread in other literatures. TIMN coincides with ideas like Peter Drucker’s (1993) and Jeremy Rifkin’s (1995) that a third, “social” sector is emerging alongside the established public and private sectors. Futurist Alvin Toffler’s (1970, 1990) “waves” — a First Wave when hunter-gatherer societies gave way to agrarian societies, a Second Wave that led next to industrial societies, and now a Third Wave of information-based societies — fit like transitional phases in the TIMN progression. Similarly, Japanese futurist Shumpei Kumon’s (1992) analysis posits that modern society has evolved from first creating a state and then a market system, to now creating a system of network organizations. In addition, some complexity theorists, like Yaneer Bar-yam (2000), offered interesting studies on the historical evolution of hierarchies, the prospects for networks, and the emergence of a current transitional phase of organizational hybrids.

So, yes, I’m an admirer of Toffler and pleased that his work can be fit into my own. Yet, as I recall, he hardly if ever used the term “network” in his writings about waves? He preferred “adhocracy” as I recall.

Later, in a January 2010, Spinuzzi posted about books he would review next, including two others by Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi. So I added, with another take on the tippie movement, that:

Your series on the Tofflers' writings keeps reminding me how much of their work I liked. One point they made, as you note, was that the growing divide in America was not between Left and Right, but between Second and Third Wavers. Perhaps this applies to the "tippies" (tea-party, town-hall, etc. folks).

* * *

Meanwhile, Joseph Fouche’s blog The Committee of Public Safety offered an insightful post titled “Scope and the Tribal Mind” in December 2009 that ranged across all the TIMN forms. In his essay-like analysis — drawing on ideas from Friedrich von Hayek, Jared Diamond, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb — Fouche observes, to my delight, that: “Many of the contortions produced in modern life in the West [are] caused when one TIMN form is imposed upon another. Marxism produced a massive imposition of the Institution on Market and Tribe (and nascent Networks). Neo-liberalism compounded this imposition by extending the reach of the Market back into the Institution and Tribe. The result has been a compounded weakening of both Institutions and Markets, leading to the rise of a revaunchist Tribalism of the most negative sort. . . . Defining the proper scope of each TIMN form is becoming ever more necessary.”

My observation — only the final part is excerpted here — was as follows:

Good job, throughout your post, of considering the interactions among the TIMN forms, and the needs to separate and balance them so that they reinforce each other in positive ways. To add a couple points, I’d note that professionalization is/was supposed to reduce the role of tribes inside institutions. Markets may seem less prone to tribalism than institutions; but markets do turn tribal when corporations push for brand identity and people fall for consumer fads.

I laud your conclusions that “Many of the contortions produced in modern life in the West is caused when one TIMN form is imposed upon another. . . It may be that stricter demarcations should be drawn between the different TIMN forms. . . Defining the proper scope of each TIMN form is becoming ever more necessary.” I keep wondering how best to clarify this myself, though I’ve tried a bit -- and will continue trying -- in some postings at my own experiment with blogging.

Fouche’s points about tribalism pertain to comments above regarding the tippie movement and next about the market form.

[UPDATE — February 27, 2009: In a new blogpost, titled “Death by tactics,” Fouche warns today, with reference to TIMN, about tame and wicked social problems leading to “Institutional collapse, often accompanied by decreasing exposure and even wholesale withdrawal from Markets and Networks. Complex Institutions collapse into simpler Institutions and even Tribes. The wait is then on for a political formula that will produce a new Institution that can successfully meet the current combination of internal and external demand.”]

* * *

I’ve yet to write much about the market form from a TIMN perspective. But my sense is that its application has deteriorated in America in part because of excessive penetration by and fusion with deleterious, self-aggrandizing tribal forces — e.g., crony capitalists, compromised politicians, hyperlibertarians. And I blurted as much at Mark Safranski’s ZenPundit blog — another favorite — when it posted an enthusiastic guest review in November 2009 of Howard Bloom’s new book The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Revision of Capitalism:

. . . Bloom’s take on capitalism seems quite millenarian, in keeping with the original nature of the concept of progress.

But I’d like to ask whether Bloom distinguishes between the market system on the one hand, and its expression through capitalism on the other hand. My own view is that the market system rocks, but capitalism often sucks. This is especially the case where capitalism is rigged to favor particular elites and practices in ways that depart from the ideals (or at least best practices) of the market system.

That Bloom may not make such a distinction is indicated by his point that “Meanness is punished in the long run by the capitalist system.” I’d say that isn't right. Meanness gets punished not by the capitalist system per se, but by efforts to return it toward a market system.

Unfortunately, I was told, the book contains no such distinction. I continue to seek writings that do.

Incidentals (1st of 5): apropos definitions of “tribes” (and TIMN)

While I’ve been remiss at advancing TIMN and STA here for several months, I was more active than usual posting incidental comments elsewhere. This “incidental” post begins a belated set of five semi-organized catch-up posts — reprises — to log some of those comments left elsewhere, in case I want to re-use them for advancing STA or TIMN here in the future, and/or in case they can help others think better about TIMN and STA.

A few of the comments — like the first one below — reflect new reading or other research on my part. Most just reiterate points I’ve made before, mainly in other posts here, but sometimes a new angle is added.

* * *

I remain a fan of Steve Pressfield’s blog “It’s the Tribes, Stupid!”, and of Jim Gant’s paper posted there on “One Tribe at a Time.” Pressfield’s blog and Gant’s paper comprise a singularly significant effort to urge attention to the enduring, strategic significance of the tribal form of organization — in their case, regarding the conflict in Afghanistan. I’m pleased and proud that my past writings have assisted their efforts.

Gant’s paper (not to mention Pressfield’s blog) has been controversial. It advocates a bottom-up, pro-tribal strategy in Afghanistan, whereas many mainstream analysts prefer a top-down or a middle-out strategy, or else a different kind of bottom-up strategy. A large part of the controversy has revolved around competing views about the definition and significance of “tribes” in the region.

Renown for Gant’s vision has spread through write-ups in the New York Times and Washington Post. Pros and cons have been debated in various posts and comments at the Small Wars Journal (SWJ) blog, as well as in scattered posts at other blogs, e.g., Combined Arms Center, Free Range International, Captains Journal, Blackfive, and Al Sahwa. Relentless criticisms have arisen at such blogs as Registan.net, Ghosts of Alexander, and The Security Crank. Gant has fielded effective, thoughtful replies to many issues in comments he has fielded in posts at Pressfield’s blog as well as at the Small Wars Journal blog.

Interesting as all this is from a TIMN perspective, I have kept my distance. However, a Small Wars Journal post praising Gant’s paper prompted a critic to recommend an interesting counterpoint paper — “My Cousin’s Enemy Is My Friend: A Study of Pashtun Tribes” — issued by an Army-related research center in the Human Terrain System (HTS) at Fort Leavenworth. That and other matters eventually led me to leave the following TIMN-related points in a December 2009 comment in the SWJ post noted above:

By now, I’ve read both Major Gant’s paper and the Leavenworth/HTS paper noted above. As one who has tried to learn a lot about tribal forms of organization, ancient and modern, I think Gant’s paper is on the right track, aiming in the right direction.

The HTS paper makes useful points too. But do they truly contradict or counter Gant’s?

The HTS paper finds that “‘tribal engagement’ should not be pursued in Afghanistan like it was in Iraq, mainly because tribes in Afghanistan are quite different from those in Iraq.” That’s surely true, but to my knowledge no one (Gant included) is perceiving or calling for an exact replication.

The HTS paper also finds that “tribe” is an inadequate concept for analyzing Afghanistan, and that terms that emphasize what’s “local” would be better. This may be true to an extent in some areas. But exclusion of the term “tribe” and its complete replacement by “local” is entirely inadvisable.

The seeming disparity between the two papers derives partly from the fact that the HTS paper uses a narrower definition of “tribe” than does Gant’s. In the HTS paper, the term refers to a group of kinfolk who espouse a shared identity, have a chief, act as a unified group, and have informal but reliable modes of governance, as in Iraq. As the HTS authors point out, much of this does not apply in Afghanistan. But that shouldn’t be the key point.

There are many tribal areas around the world, including in Afghanistan, that do not exhibit such tight, structured solidarity. Yet, they are still rife with tribal dynamics. Kinship bonds, codes of honor, ancient narratives, ties to the land, respect for elders, and collective longings and identities still matter to a significant degree. And people caught up in such dynamics often shift their ties flexibly and pragmatically, alternating between fusion and fission. This may mean that, compared to Iraq, Afghanistan is loosely, qualifiedly tribal -- but it’s still rife with tribal kinds of patterns and dynamics. The HTS paper repeatedly substantiates this, even as it denies that Afghanistan reflects an idealized tribalism.

The HTS paper identifies alternative terms that it deems more appropriate than “tribe”: e.g., “qawm” (an Afghan term), “faction,” “solidarity group,” and “patronage network.” Yet, these are still tribe-like concepts. And the discussion about these alternatives still shows that large parts of Afghanistan remain fraught with classic tribal dynamics, albeit of a rather fractured, tempestuous sort that may not be unusual in high-conflict zones.

Gant may have been fortunate as to the specific tribe and chief that he got to work with. But even so, his paper is keenly attuned to the nature of tribal patterns and dynamics, in terms of both theory and practice.

With this in mind, I remain convinced that selectively, sensibly working with and through “tribes” should be made into a strength of U.S. strategy there. Seeking to repair and restore positive tribal patterns should be helpful.

(As an aside, I note, apropos the two sentences on p. 5 relating to fns. 3 and 4 of the HTS paper, that the authors misread my 2007 Rand paper on tribes. It does observe that tribes precede states in the long sweep of social evolution, but I never claim that tribes per se are primitive. The authors also appear to prefer a questionable view that tribes arise historically often only after states intrude into a region. Thus the HTS report seems to reflect a bias in current anthropology to disavow tribes as a general concept.)

* * *

While wondering about such matters earlier in November 2009, I spotted a post at an unfamiliar blog, Strategic Social, that aspired to define a “tribe” as “any group of people united by their recognition of organizational hierarchy within their group, who share a cultural identity and make up a unique speech community.” At least this blog was trying to raise attention to the significance of tribes in various areas of society. But this definition of the concept seemed misguided, and I blurted as much:

As one who’s interested in concepts about tribes, occasionally scouts the Net to see what others are saying, and finds myself here for a change, I’d like to offer a quick passing comment:

I like the fact you recognize that tribes are a modern as well as ancient form of organization. But in my view, it’s not wise to start a definition of tribes with a reference to organizational hierarchy. That’s not what’s most important about tribes. Tribes may or may not have much hierarchy; hierarchical institutions are a later form to arise from social evolution. I’d suggest moving the other parts of your definition up front. I’d also suggest broadening the “speech” part, maybe make it “symbolic” instead.

After this led to a defensive rejoinder, indicating my comment would have little to no effect, I tried to elaborate:

It often makes a difference what is placed up front in a definition, especially when there is no statement about the weights of different components. But even if you fix that, I’d still propose that it’s inadvisable to define tribes in a way that leads the eye first to hierarchy. The consideration you gave to another pattern — consensus — may apply better to the nature of classic tribes.

According to your definition, with its lead-off emphasis on “organizational hierarchy,” wouldn’t the Catholic Church or a Special Forces unit qualify as a “tribe”? Do you mean for that to be the case? Also, one of your examples of a tribe with a hierarchy — Survival International — isn’t really a tribe; it’s an NGO that represents tribes, not a tribe itself. Its own web pages offer a definition of “tribes” that says nothing about requiring a hierarchy. I would suggest opting for a definition that can identify the tribal qualities that may persist in such organizations . . . but that does not allow for turning all such organizations into examples of tribes.

The “power structure” of a tribe resides less in a hierarchy it may have than in the codes of honor and other codes of conduct that are embedded in the tribe. A tribe’s people are not primarily “united by their recognition of organizational hierarchy” but rather by their sense of identity, kinship and solidarity (as in the second, far-more-essential part of your definition). Furthermore, your definition of hierarchy posits “a decision making apparatus that creates rules members must adhere to in order to remain in good standing with their tribe.” But that’s more like a definition of an administrative, judicial, or bureaucratic hierarchy than a tribal hierarchy. For everyday matters, classic tribes have a cultural apparatus (the best term?) that sets codes and rules, more than a political decision-making apparatus. If issues arise that require a tribal council, then some hierarchy may well come into play — but so do norms for consensus.

Apropos this, you note that you “would be interested in any examples you or anyone else had of people organizing independent of leadership/hierarchy.” I presume you mean in reference to tribes. But is that really a key question? Instances of leadership or hierarchy normally crop up sometime somewhere in most all forms of organization, tribes included. and it’s conventional for modern analysts and strategists to go looking for leaders and hierarchies in all organizations. But according to the literatures I’ve scoured, classic tribes may not even have full-time chiefs, just the episodic “big man” depending on the matter at hand. And chiefs, when present, may not wield much hierarchical power. Where tribal chiefs do exist, it’s crucial to recognize them (as in conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan); but it’s also crucial to recognize what lies behind them (e.g., Pashtunwali codes). Beyond that, the more a hierarchical chiefdom is present and enforced atop a tribe, the more that society lies somewhere between being a tribe and becoming a state or element of a state.

I’m reminded of a documentary about a bad-ass low-life motorcycle gang in a city back East that was organized as a club and had an elected president who ran meetings and organized club activities. True to classic tribal dynamics persisting into the modern era, the president noted that he really didn’t run anything and couldn’t enforce anything on his own; anybody could do pretty much as he or she pleased, as long as they remained true to the club. So much for the importance of organizational hierarchy; it’s there, but not in the way or to the degree your definition presently poses. Tribes tend to be anti-hierarchical as much as, if not more than, pro-hierarchical. Indeed, your definition may fit a warlord and his clan better than a classic tribe.

I hope this helps clarify aspects of the tribal form for other possible readers.

- - - - -

In this post and others in this series, I have corrected capitalization and other orthographic errors that exist in my comments as originally posted elsewhere. Also, in many instances I abridge or excerpt only part of my comment.

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.

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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.] 

Baseball trilogy (3rd of 3): religion — “God invented baseball”

[UPDATE — March 12, 2013: In keeping with this post’s themes, the stimulating new book by John Sexton, Thomas Oliphant, and Peter J. Schwartz, Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game (2013) upholds that “Baseball evokes in the life of its faithful features we associate with the spiritual life: faith and doubt, conversion, blessings and curses, miracles, and so on. For some, baseball really is a road to God.”]

[UPDATE — July 24, 2010:  For a marvelous and marveling read, see David B. Hart, “A Perfect Game: The Metaphysical Meaning of Baseball,” First Things, Aug/Sept 2010.  It considers baseball a game of “immense spiritual horizons” and “oddly desolate beauty” whose “philosophical grammar truly is Platonist” and whose “possibilities of religious interpretation are numberless.”]

[UPDATE — June 1, 2010:  See the compilation of quotations in the article, "Baseball is religion without the mischief," National Catholic Reporter, Sept. 18, 1998.  Also see the book by Gary Graf, And God Said "Play Ball!": Amusing and Thought-Provoking Parallels Between the Bible and Baseball (2006).]

[UPDATE — March 6, 2010: Uh-oh, there's an interesting article in Christianity Today by Mark Galli supposing that "God created football." Fortunately, I see nothing in it to surpass the idea that "God created baseball."]


Suddenly it’s October, the playoffs are underway, and my favorite teams are still in the fray. Now seems like a good moment to complete my trilogy of blog posts on baseball. The first was about tribalism, the second about strategy. Here is the third, on the most sensitive matter of all: religion.

* * *

A few years ago, as I was turning into a baseball fan, a friend informed me that “God invented baseball.” Aha! I had already sensed that baseball was not just another mundane sport. But I hadn’t dared to look that deeply into its soul.

For a while I thought my friend was the source of this revelation. But no, it traces back to Michael Olesker, writing in the Baltimore Sun in 1983: “There are days when you know that God invented baseball to give us all a sense of eternity . . .” And the insight has been handed down ever since, but without much clarification.

So, I’ve been wondering, what are the ways in which the nature of baseball may reflect the nature of God? Here’s what I’ve discerned so far:

First and foremost, baseball does indeed symbolize eternity — in both time and space. Theoretically, a game could go on forever; it is not ruled by a clock. The outfield extends forever as well. Sure, there’s usually a fence or a wall out there, but its location is man-made. A soaring ball is never out of bounds; it points to the heavens.

Moreover, baseball stadiums constitute houses of worship — cathedrals of sport. Their fields are not the simple rectangles or ovals of other sports, but inspirational diamonds. They have a center of worship: the pitcher’s mound. They have a central axis, almost like a nave: the path the ball travels from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. Beyond that, they have inner and outer zones, and invite the congregation to peer out into eternity. In baseball, a stadium’s majesty stems from its asymmetry and open-endedness. Other sports have stadiums and arenas that are numbingly symmetrical and enclosing.

There is even a “miracle” built into the layout, as someone stated in the Ken Burns series on baseball. It’s the 90-foot distance from home plate to first base. A couple more feet in either direction, and the game would be very different, far less balanced between offense and defense. And like a true miracle, it has stood the test of time, having everlasting value despite the game’s physical and technological advances.

Then, notice that once a game begins, the players must go one by one. They are virtually born (at home plate), and if all goes well, each gets to visit a holy trinity (first, second, and third base), be saved (by being called “safe”), and finally be reborn (by returning to home plate). Along the way, they must stay on the paths of righteousness (the base paths), lest they stray outside and violate the law.

Thus, baseball is a spiritual as well as physical endeavor, for individuals as well as teams. But while the battle often goes to the stronger, the outcome is never certain. Sometimes, something so impossible occurs — like fumbling an easy catch — that it seems an “act of God” has entered into a game.

Isn’t that all quite theological? In God's image? Showing the Way? Even many of the Ten Commandments seem to be in effect:

• Consider the ones about having no other god, worshipping no false idols. In baseball, only the game itself is worshipped. If a player indulges in a hubristic display of narcissistic egoism, as so often seen in man-made sports, he is cast off the field, perhaps out of the garden. Some plays are even meant as sacrifices for the team, setting aside the self for the sake of a higher good.
• Recall the Commandment to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest? Well, baseball features a seventh-inning stretch, when people may reverently sing “God bless America.” A pretty clear parallel.
• Honor thy father and thy mother? Baseball is renowned among sports for being handed down through the generations — especially for sons recalling their fathers taking them to ballgames.
• Thou shalt not murder? Baseball’s culture is averse to winners running up disrespectful “killer scores” — they’re immoral in baseball.
• Thou shalt not steal? Okay, base stealing does occur, to great delight and dismay. But it occurs openly, in plain view, subject to the rules, and does not involve bearing false witness.

To enforce all this, there is a god-like agent on the field: the umpire. But while all must respect and obey him, no one worships him; he is no false idol. And paradoxically, his judgment may be the greatest source of human error on the field — like when he gets a call wrong. Is this not evidence that God works in mysterious ways?

Finally, notice that baseball’s origins remain shrouded in mystery. No longer is it believed that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday, as a spin-off from English cricket or rounders. Recent evidence points in other directions. But it all remains so obscure and indeterminate that surely a Higher Power is involved? How else to explain that a sport so simple yet profound has come to grace our American land?

For all these reasons, I choose to accept that God invented baseball and bequeathed it to us. And in doing so, I must hope that I have not taken God’s name in vain. Too many people from too many religions are already doing that these days over other matters. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all just studied baseball instead?

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Recommended reading: Bradd Shore, Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning (Oxford University Press, 1996) — esp. Ch. 3, titled “Mind Games: Cognitive Baseball,” and Ch. 4, titled “Playing with Rules: Sport at the Borderlands of Time and Space” — for its discussion of space, time, and action orientations in connection with baseball, in one of the few instances where an anthropologist speaks to all three of my “STA” interests.

Acknowledgements: Delightful appreciation to the following for helpful comments on an earlier draft: Bob Bridges, Matt Ronfeldt, and Brian Wilcox. I’m especially grateful to Brian for telling me about the saying in the first place.

Notice: I’m likely to continue editing this piece after it is posted here. I’ll indicate where, if I enter any major changes or updates.

TIMN: some implications for thinking about political philosophy and ideology (1st of 3 parts)

[UPDATE — October 10, 2009: I've amended Part I a bit, by editing a few words, adding a new paragraph to end the subsection on democracy, and another new paragraph after the material about anarchism and libertarianism.]


TIMN implies that it may be a good idea for Americans to start becoming quadriformists, perhaps progressive ecumenical neo-limitarian quadriformists, who are looking ahead to the age of networks. Better that than falling for today’s monoformist and biformist blowhards who rant against government and for the market, while trying to tribalize people so that they turn more divisively partisan than ever.

But if those are to become punch-lines of this post, there are other points that should be made first — above all, this one: The key isms and ocracies that are scattered across the history of political evolution all amount to expressions of one or more of the TIMN forms. And that will be the case far into the future as well. Figure out TIMN and you can figure out the past, present, and future of political philosophy and ideology.

* * * * *

Part I. Looking back: TIMN’s applicability across political systems and ideologies

In my understanding, TIMN is not an ideological framework. It may contain some centrist precepts; but it is not inherently leftist or rightist, at least not in today’s terms. Yet, TIMN can be used to analyze — to dissect, categorize, even to pass judgement on — most (all?) major political philosophies and ideologies across the ages.

All political systems and ideologies fit somewhere in the TIMN framework. The shapes that societies have taken, such as monarchies, empires, and nation-states, and the isms and ocracies that leaders have created — e.g., feudalism, absolutism, nationalism, mercantilism, capitalism, fascism, and socialism, as well as theocracy, aristocracy, and democracy — can all be reduced to particular configurations of, approaches to, or variations on the bright and dark sides of the TIMN forms. They are the paradigmatic nuclear forms, not the isms or ocracies built around them.

Toward a TIMN analysis of capitalism: As examples of how TIMN illuminates key differences among history’s isms and ocracies, consider mercantilism and capitalism: Mercantilism means efforts by government (+I) authorities to control commercial (+M) actors. In contrast, capitalism means that the +I and +M realms operate apart, with the latter often outweighing the former. In TIMN, mercantilism arose centuries ago as a transitional phase in the evolution of biform (T+I) into triform (T+I+M) societies. In contrast, capitalism developed as an achievement of full-fledged triform systems that idealized free, fair, open economic exchanges and gave rise to liberal democracies with competitive political party systems.

TIMN also offers a way to distinguish among the positive and negative varieties of capitalism: A capitalism that conforms to proper (Smithian?) market principles — not to mention a capitalism that also yields a thriving middle class and reinforces democratic politics — is different from and more desirable than a capitalism distorted by tribal or hierarchical forces. Such distortions may occur where enterprises are fraught with (T-type) cronyism or suborned to (+I) statism, or where the market (+M) realm is rigged to favor monopolistic corporations and oligarchic elites, or to allow unbridled speculation, profiteering, and an excessive concentration of wealth.

This is why I sometimes say that TIMN is pro-market but not necessarily pro-capitalist; for capitalist practices may turn out to contradict the best of +M (not to mention T, I, or N) principles.

Toward a TIMN analysis of democracy: Democracy is often viewed as a marvelous modern achievement, along with capitalism. And that is indeed true for liberal democracy, which characterizes triform (T+I+M) societies as a result of the infusion of the market form and its principles into and alongside the hierarchical institutional form in the political realm.

But TIMN suggests thinking more broadly about the evolution of democracy, and leads to noting that this particular ocracy is not just a unique end-state of late modernity. Each of the four TIMN forms is associated with a different kind of democratic tendency:

In tribal (T) systems, moments of direct democracy appear in tribal councils, clan gatherings, and similar assemblies where anybody and everybody who is invited can speak up. However, once a decision is made, strict conformity is normally expected; minority rights and dissenting opinions lack legitimacy. Ancient Athenian assemblies, Pashtun jirgas, and old American town-hall meetings represent examples, to varying degrees.

In hierarchical institutional (I) systems, top-down command is the norm. Yet, many hierarchies accommodate limited, bottom-up inputs and quasi-democratic deliberations, for example by inviting open discussions in controlled settings, or allowing elections of pre-approved candidates to some tiers in a pyramid, within doctrinal confines. Medieval England’s Council of State and the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals seem to reflect this (or do they reflect the old tribal-council dynamic too?). In modern eras, even Leninism claimed to allow a “democratic centralism” within a single-party state. Today, the idea of “consultative dictatorship” remains appealing in parts of world where elites continue to reject liberal democracy.

Triform societies where market (+M) principles have altered the nature of the (+I) state provide the archetypes of liberal democracy. As Charles Lindblom observed (1977, p. 116): “Not all market-oriented systems are democratic, but every democratic system is also a market-oriented system.” Hallmarks of the spread of +M principles into government include competitive political parties and elected legislatures. TIMN’s implication is not so much that liberal democracy per se makes a nation stronger; it’s that once a level of complexity is reached, a nation cannot turn stronger without turning liberal-democratic. China, as a newly triform system that today is more a consultative dictatorship than a democracy, will eventually become a major test of this proposition.

According to TIMN, the rise of the network (+I) form will lead to new kinds of democracy (not to mention autocracy). And they’ll be radically different from the legislature-centric designs that define today’s liberal democracies. Indeed, lots of speculation has already occured about what such new, more participatory democracies may look like in the future. I may elaborate on that in section III of this post. But for the moment, I note it only to keep making the point, on TIMN’s behalf, that democracy has threads in all the forms.

Thus, democracy is not solely an expression of just one modern configuration of TIMN. All the forms can be applied in more democratic, or more autocratic, ways. And whether a society turns more democratic, or less, depends on what’s happening with all the forms and their potentials in that society. This may have cautionary implications for foreign-policy strategists who think other countries can and should be pressured to become liberal democracies (but, to maintain this post’s focus on philosophy and ideology, I must leave the strategy implications of TIMN for a possible future post).

Toward a TIMN analysis of extreme ideologies: As further examples, note that both the great modern totalitarianisms — communism and fascism — emphasized hierarchy and imposed powerful, centralized (+I) states, but were otherwise distinctive. Soviet communism sought to subdue local ethnic (T) sentiments in favor of internationalism, and to eliminate private (+M) businesses. In contrast, European fascism stoked ethno-nationalism (T) and fostered strong but subordinate (+M) capitalist enterprises. That’s why fascism represents a more modern (nearly +M) system than communism, and why it is an error to conflate communism and fascism.

More to the point, extreme ideologies normally exalt one TIMN form above the others; they do not seek balanced combinations. Consider anarchism, for example: Anarchists may crave individual freedom and extol direct action against tyranny, but they do not want a world rived by endless chaos. Instead, classic anarchism contains a yearning for tribe-like ways of life, free of statist hierarchies and capitalist markets. Anarchists espouse respect for individualism and community, for voluntary association and mutual aid. They believe that kin-like sentiments suffice to motivate self-organization. They favor consensus decision-making, communal sharing, and cooperative work. They desire a primitive kind of democracy: anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist, free of bosses and based on local councils. This intent to live simply and autonomously, in harmony with nature, harks back to hunter-gatherer and agrarian models, early in the TIMN progression. Thus, in many respects, anarchism is essentially a monoform neo-tribal (T-type) ideology.

In comparison, libertarianism exalts free-market, mini-government principles for the sake of personal liberty to a degree that makes it into a nearly monoform ideology too, but of a decidedly +M orientation. Thus, as often noted, left-wing anarchism and right-wing libertarianism have much in common, but they each idealize a different TIMN form, while disdaining the same (+I) form.

This is not to say that anarchism or libertarianism is strictly monoformist. The adherents of each have plenty to say, pro and con, about all the TIMN forms, and about how society is being served or corrupted by beliefs and practices associated with each form. But dedicated anarchists and libertarians process their views mainly through their preferred form — for anarchists the T form, for libertarians the M form — and inevitably return to emphasizing it in philosophical/ideological ways that, overall, remain nearly monoformist. At least that’s what I keep seeing and hearing.

Recap and segue: These examples show that TIMN, spare as it is, provides a way to parse — to deconstruct and compare, even to praise or criticize — the isms and ocracies that have played prominent roles in political and evolutionary theory. That’s my limited objective for this part of this post. I hope I’ve met it, even though there are other significant isms and ocracies that I haven’t even mentioned so far, such as clientelism, corporatism, pluralism, plutocracy, and meritocracy — and oh yes, liberalism and conservatism. But I’m sure that they too can be subjected to TIMN analysis.

* * * * *

TO BE CONTINUED, AS FOLLOWS:

Part II. Looking around: 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? I’m still working on this part, and I’ll post a separate announcement when it’s ready to be inserted here. Maybe next week.

Part III. Looking ahead: What’s next – way out there? Commonism? Neo-limitarianism? Cyberocracy? Any hope for quadriformism? I’m still working on this part too, though some of it was drafted years ago. I’ll post a separate announcement when it’s available here.

Onward.

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