In favor of “peer progressives”: how, where, and why they’re good for TIMN (part 4 of 4)

This Part 4 picks up where Part 3 left off examining Steven Johnson’s Future Perfect (2012) — in particular, his concept of “peer progressives” since it helps flesh out the +N part of TIMN.

Again, here are the major areas where Johnson’s themes parallel and overlap with TIMN:

• Network forms of organization are on the rise.
• They and their proponents are altering all areas of society.
• Hierarchy and market forms of organization will endure, though altered.
• People will treat networks — not just governments or markets — as solutions.
• New political philosophies and ideologies will emerge.

And here are areas where his observations and speculations fall short of TIMN:

• TIMN implies that a new sector will grow around the network form. Johnson’s write-up does not detect this, though I suspect it would appeal to peer progressives.
• TIMN offers a quadriform understanding of society and its future prospects. The view in Future Perfect remains triformist — though a kind of triformist-plus.

Of those seven bullets, Part 1 in this series emphasized the first three, Part 2 the fourth and fifth, and Part 3 the sixth. This final Part 4 addresses the seventh.

Part 1 was laudatory about Future Perfect. Part 2 as well, but it hinted at criticisms. Part 3 was mostly critical, for it focused on shortcomings vis à vis TIMN. This Part 4 fields some final cautions and criticisms, but it also returns to offering praise.

Along the way, I discuss two recent articles that bear on Future Perfect and TIMN. One is by Max Borders on “Peer Progressivism vs. Network Libertarianism” in The Freeman (2012). The next is by Yochai Benkler on “Practical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and the Fallible State” in Politics & Society (2013). Both are helpful for thinking about Future Perfect and TIMN — but for very different reasons.

* * * * *

Toward quadriform societies — getting all four forms right

TIMN was inspired by observing the recent rise of network (N) forms of organization: How they work differently from older tribal (T), hierarchical institutional (I), and market (M) forms. And how the whole thing may be assembled into a theory of social evolution that spans the ages, from monoform (T-centric), to biform (T+I), to triform (T+I+M), and next quadriform (T+I+M+N) societies. According to TIMN, the information-age network form is strengthening civil society more than state and market actors, and will lead to creation of a new sector that is different and separate from the existing public and private sectors. But more than that, TIMN is about the balancing and compounding of all four TIMN forms and their respective realms, in a preferred progression over time.

That explains my enthused interest in Future Perfect: Johnson’s ideas about the rise of peer networks and peer progressivism slide marvelously into place in TIMN as harbingers of the +N form.

But it’s not a perfect fit. TIMN is about all four cardinal forms of organization, each with its own distinctive attributes, and none of them easy to define and set boundaries around. In general, Johnson does very well at discussing three of the forms: hierarchies (I), markets (M), and networks (N), as I discussed earlier. However, he deviates from TIMN principles at two points: One is where he brings tribes (T) into his analysis, and verges on conflating tribes and networks. Another is where he appears to turn too expansive in a defense of networks against a libertarian who wants to exalt markets. I must object on both accounts and try to clarify for the sake of TIMN. TIMN is averse to conflations and exaltations regarding any and all forms; it implies keeping them all in balance.

Harking back to tribes. While Future Perfect is mostly about networks vis à vis hierarchies and markets (three of the four TIMN forms), Johnson finally brings in tribes — the first and forever form in the TIMN framework. Thus he notes (p. 208) that despite the association of peer networks with advanced technology,

“from a certain angle, they can be seen as a return to a much older tradition. The social architectures of the Paleolithic era — the human minds formative years — were much closer to peer networks than they were to states or corporations.”

Indeed, he says (p. 209), the egalitarian allure of ancient hunter-gatherer bands and societies

“may explain why so many people have been drawn to participate in peer networks, despite the lack of traditional monetary rewards. There is something in the collaborative, egalitarian structure of these systems that resonates with the human mind, an echo of our deep history as a species.”

Moreover, Johnson claims (p. 210) that, thanks to this revival of tribe-like networking in our postmodern era, people no longer have to accept living passively in a mass society ruled by vast government and corporate hierarchies. People can now begin to imagine and create new alternatives.

Quite so, I’d say — but not so much as to obviate the distinction between tribes and networks. At least Johnson does not fully equate networks with tribes. As I’ve posted before (e.g., here), tribes and networks share some qualities, but they are different TIMN forms.

According to TIMN, it may be natural for early proponents of a new form to exhibit a kin-like camaraderie — i.e., tribe-like sentiments and behaviors. That happened with the rise of the +I and +M forms. And it may turn out to be especially so for the +N network form, since it is more collaborative and egalitarian than the institutional and market forms. Even so, peer tribalists, if I may call them that, are not the same phenomenon as peer progressives — and this should become more evident as the network form matures and becomes professionalized in the decades ahead.

Johnson rightly observes that peer progressives relish diversity, and favor expanding the reach of their networks into others’ networks. In contrast, true tribalists relish exclusivity; they want to expand only their own tribe. Moreover, contrary to peer networks, tribes are normally quite paternalistic in their decision-making, trust only kin, and favor single-minded uniform consensus. That’s not the nature of peer progressivism. Peer-progressive networks that have tribal qualities may eventually need to de-tribalize in order to mature.

For example, consider the postures that occur around American gun-culture issues. The NRA’s adherents, even those who are into building networks, resemble peer tribalists more than peer progressives. (Here is an interesting network analysis of the gun-control debates.) Indeed, the most tribalized issues in America — the “culture war” issues — tend to be ones where peer progressives don’t figure.

By noticing that a little tribalism exists among peer progressives, Future Perfect parallels TIMN even further. I just want to caution against conflating the two forms: tribes and networks. It’s important to notice their interactions, and their affinities, as Johnson does. But they are different TIMN forms, despite occasional hybrids — networks aren’t a new species of tribes, and tribes have their own socio-cultural realm to configure.

Avoiding conflations and exaltations. The above ends my remarks about the book that are drawn from the book. But I have one more point to add, prompted by one of the few book reviews I read. And it’s a point somewhat like the one above, which advised against conflating tribes and networks. This one objects to conflating markets and networks, which Johnson verges on doing in reply to a review by Max Borders that advocates “network libertarianism” over peer progressivism.

The book review that stirred up the most attention, and controversy, was Evgeny Morozov’s in New Republic. He roundly criticized Johnson’s book for, among other matters, exaggerating that decentralized networks often outperform centralized hierarchies. But, from a TIMN standpoint, I saw little value or accuracy in Morozov’s criticisms. Besides, Johnson offered a balanced rebuttal about the continuing importance of both hierarchies and networks, of both centralized and decentralized ways of getting thing done. [UPDATE — September 11, 2013: Tom Slee offers a somewhat-interesting and harder-hitting (but rambling) review titled “Sixty-Two Things Wrong with “Future Perfect”” at his blog here.]

Instead, a review by Max Borders on “Peer Progressivism vs. Network Libertarianism” in The Freeman (2012) is more instructive for TIMN (h/t Dick O’Neill). This review offers another fight over which form is better, which can outperform which — but this time the fight is about markets vs. networks.

Border defends libertarianism from Johnson’s critique by advocating “network libertarianism.” In so doing, Borders reiterates libertarianism’s uniform emphasis on markets as the best way to foster self-organization without central authority. He claims that peer progressivism hides an old affinity for the state as found in classic progressivism. More than that, he claims that what’s good in Johnson’s concept is actually more about markets than networks — indeed, he claims, peer networks are a species of markets. Here’s an excerpt that shows this:

““Peer progressivism” seems to be built either on one big misunderstanding about markets, or one big philosophical difference about authority. … [B]y libertarian lights a collaborative peer network is a species of market. I claimed as much in a tweeted reply to Steven Johnson himself. In his response to me … Johnson wrote: "@maxborders I think it's the reverse: markets are peer networks, as I say in the book; but not all peer networks are markets."” (source)

Uh-oh: Borders not only exalts markets over networks; he subsumes peer networks under markets. In reply, Johnson doesn’t exalt networks over markets, but he does subsume some markets under peer networks. That’s all I have of Johnson’s reply, but it’s enough to indicate that they’re both running afoul of TIMN principles. I’ve not yet settled on exactly how best to define each TIMN form, but I am sure of this: Beware of imperial definitions of any form that lead to a colonization of other forms.

In Future Perfect, Johnson normally views networks — peer networks, at least — as a distinct and bounded form of organization, different from hierarchies and markets (and maybe tribes too, if he were more aware of them). But in this remark he slips toward a very broad view of networks that has gained sway in recent decades — the view from social network analysis and network science that sees all forms of interaction as networks. If system of interactions can be viewed as nodes that have ties, then it’s a network. In this view, all TIMN forms are just different types of networks; the network is the mother and master of all forms.

I understand the logic behind this view. It’s legitimate, scientific, insightful, and on the rise. But it’s created difficulties for my articulation of TIMN, because its bounded networks are not the same as their generalized networks, as I’ve discussed before. TIMN might be better served if another network-oriented term ever emerges to identify what TIMN is after.

Even so, Johnson’s definitional stance here does not strike me as a grievous violation of TIMN principles; he’s just slipping a bit between the two views of networks, while still sustaining a bounded view that is consistent with TIMN. It’s what Borders goes on to assert that provides the more cautionary tale. He exalts the market form, and folds peer networks under it, by using a grand definition of markets that I’ve not seen before. In his words,

“… What Johnson may not realize, however, is that we libertarian types have quite a liberal definition of markets. Indeed, most of us would define a market as any system in which a participant in said system can pursue some value through voluntary interaction. … [W]e are more interested in the voluntary nature of interaction and not whether the interactions are transactional per se. We have come use the term "markets" in contrast to "mandates."

“… To us, markets are big enough to include peer networks because the latter are also just systems of value creation. These peer networks are libertarian to the extent that joining is voluntary and exiting is fairly low cost. …” (italics in original)

Yes, many discussions about networks do emphasize value creation, and many markets lead to value creation as well. But that definition is so brief and expansive, omitting so much that is normally included in a definition of markets, that I sense it could engulf not only networks but also tribes and hierarchies too — for their members often have occasion to “pursue some value through voluntary interaction” despite having kinship or authority constraints around them. Thus, such a definition of markets is too monoformist for TIMN. By suborning other forms to markets, his definition would obviate TIMN as well as Future Perfect.

Borders is back on track when he says that “peer progressives and network libertarians agree about one thing: most government is too powerful and many corporations are too powerful.” My view of TIMN aligns with that too. But that doesn’t offset the conceptual muddle that his definition of markets starts to create.

Balancing all forms. Fast on track with Future Perfect and TIMN is recent research by one of Johnson’s key inspirations and sources: Yochai Benkler. His new article, “Practical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and the Fallible State,” in Politics & Society (2013) reports on the performance of various cases of “peer mutualism” (a rewording of his original phrase “commons-based peer production” that is akin to Johnson’s peer networks). It’s about efforts to organize solutions outside of state and market frameworks. A key question he addresses, then, is

“[D]o mutualistic associations offer enough of a solution space, to provisioning a sufficient range of the capabilities we require for human flourishing, to provide a meaningful alternative model to the state and the market across a significant range of human needs and activities?” (p.215)

His most successful cases include NGOs (esp. the IETF) that keep the Internet going, the Free and Open Software (FOSS) movement, and Wikipedia. And he reports approvingly that,

“They have fostered a broader, more general understanding that commons-based peer production, or distributed, voluntaristic, nonstate, nonmarket action provide a solution space for alternative models of approaching a wide range of social tasks.” (p. 230)

He commends other cases as well, including Kickstarter and Ushahidi, but turns critical about a case that depends heavily on government cooperation: the “Open Data” (aka Gov 2.0) initiative of the Obama administration. Thus,

“In combination, the open data and Wikileaks stories suggest a degree of caution about the potential and limits of anarchic, mutualistic solutions to core limitations of corporate or government power. States and companies, increasingly working together in a public-private partnership to retain dominance, can both subvert openness agendas and mount very effective combined assaults on anarchic models that severely constrain the effectiveness of the latter.” (p. 240)

Yet, overall, he finds that

Decentralized, commons-based, peer production systems offer a degree of freedom: a set of affordances and design interventions that allow certain public goods to be provisioned in ways that allow for new forms of bobbing and weaving between the constraints of the state and the market, but also the constraints of more traditional forms of social organization like the church, the union, or the neighborhood association. The point is not that these new models of organization are the apotheosis of free human association. We will almost certainly come to find out, if we do not already know, that these too are, or will become, imperfect; that these too have the potential to create, transmit, deploy, and abuse power. The point is that they provide a new degree of freedom in the design of human systems, …” (p.247)

Benkler’s view of peer mutualism is in keeping with Future Perfect and TIMN. He displays a realistic pragmatic sense of what peer mutualism may accomplish — he does not exalt the network form — and he recognizes that state and market forms will persist. Thus, while wary of “illegitimate capture by a cabal or to subversion by market or state actors” (pp. 245-246), he steadfastly argues that “Introducing peer production and mutualism is then aimed at improving and completing the imperfection of these systems, rather than replacing them” (p. 245). In a passing comment (p. 245), he even expresses hopes that healthcare and education will become new frontiers for peer mutualism — another implication that coincides with my past +N speculations.

Wrap-up comment: Future Perfect — between triformism and quadriformism

Parts 3 and 4 highlighted criticisms, and this final Part 4 has also drifted from focusing directly on Johnson’s Future Perfect. So, to close, I’d like to reiterate that, from a TIMN perspective, I remain very pleased with the book, and particularly its cardinal contribution: the concept of peer progressivism. It represents a solid step toward comprehending what +N may bring in the decades ahead. A mash-up of Benkler’s and Johnson’s concepts — commons-based peer progressivism — might prove extra-interesting.

Even so, Future Perfect does not offer a fully quadriformist vision. In line with TIMN, it does observe the rise of a new form of organization: peer networks. And it sees them as modifying if not transforming all areas of society — economic, political, social, cultural, etc. But it does not go far enough to detect the emergence of a new sector around the network form. Thus Future Perfect remains largely triformist — but it’s a kind of triformism-plus, and for that I’m full of praise. I’ll hope Johnson can do a revised expanded edition in a few years.

In favor of “peer progressives”: how, where, and why they’re good for TIMN (part 3 of 4)

This Part 3 picks up where Part 2 left off examining Steven Johnson’s Future Perfect (2012) — in particular, his concept of “peer progressives” since it helps flesh out the +N part of TIMN.

Again, here are the major areas where Johnson’s themes parallel and overlap with TIMN:

• Network forms of organization are on the rise.
• They and their proponents are altering all areas of society.
• Hierarchy and market forms of organization will endure, though altered.
• People will treat networks — not just governments or markets — as solutions.
• New political philosophies and ideologies will emerge.

And here are areas where his observations and speculations fall short of TIMN:

• TIMN implies that a new sector will grow around the network form. Johnson’s write-up does not detect this, though I suspect it would appeal to peer progressives.
• TIMN offers a quadriform understanding of society and its future prospects. The view in Future Perfect remains triformist — though a kind of triformist-plus.

Of those seven bullets above, Part 1 emphasized the first three. Part 2 addressed the fourth and fifth. This Part 3 turns to the sixth.  Part 4 will deal with the seventh.

Part 1 was almost entirely laudatory about Johnson’s concept. Part 2 as well, but it began to hint at criticisms. This Part 3 is mostly critical, for it focuses on shortcomings vis à vis TIMN.

But my purpose is not just to show shortcomings vis à vis TIMN. It’s also to show that peer progressives would benefit TIMN (and dare I say, benefit from TIMN) much more if they ever turn into full-on quadriformists.

* * * * *

Strong as his book is, Johnson misses some matters that would help bolster his case. While he keys off Yochai Benkler’s work on peer production, Johnson does not seem to know about the work of the P2P Foundation and the writings of Michel Bauwens, not to mention other P2P proponents. Johnson also neglects John Keane’s writings about “monitory democracy,” not to mention other writings that emphasize civil society. Indeed, Johnson seems to draw on and associate with a rather select set of currently prominent thinkers. Nothing wrong with that — but it may help explain why he has not cast his net far out toward the edges of recent thinking about peer-to-peer dynamics and their implications.

Yet it’s not just a few other edgy thinkers that Johnson misses. From a TIMN perspective, the analysis of peer networks and peer progressivism would benefit from anticipating prospects for (a) the emergence of a new +N sector, and (b) future evolution from a triform (T+I+M) into a quadriform (T+I+M+N) society. I discuss both prospects — and their lapses in Future Perfect — in the ensuing sections, spread over Parts 3 and 4.

Toward a new +N sector

Johnson correctly identifies myriad places where peer networks are taking hold, having effects. But he does so without trying to discriminate whether government, business, or civil society is being affected the most. While it appears that everything is affected, Future Perfect focuses on business and government more than civil society — and if anything, the book emphasizes economics the most. In these tendencies, he has lots of company; many analysts are doing much the same these days. But even though it’s a common tendency in today’s world, TIMN leads me to doubt it’s the most advisable (as discussed here).

TIMN is much more determined to show that, even though the rise of a new form may affect all sectors, some sectors may be more affected than others, as may their relative power and influence. More than that, TIMN implies that the growth of a new form leads to the creation of a new sector around that form. As I’ve written before (e.g., here and here, sometimes using realm instead of sector), that’s what happened with the T, +I, and +M transitions; and TIMN proposes that it’ll happen again with spread of the +N form. If I read Johnson correctly, he has not detected that prospect — he stresses across-the-board effects, almost indiscriminately, and does so mostly in terms of the existing public and private sectors.

My observations and hypotheses about the creation of a new sector are scattered, and I’m not going to do much reiteration here. But as a reminder, a few key points seem pertinent: Since at least the 1990s a lot of theorists have remarked about the prospects for a new sector, and linked them (and it) to the spread of network forms of organization, strategy, and technology, especially among NGOs representing civil society. Peter Drucker named it the social sector — I still like that name — but others, each meaning something a bit different, have called it the third sector, citizen sector, civic sector, social-benefit sector, or commons sector. Whichever, it is likely to consist mostly of small agile non-profit organizations that pertain to civil society more than government or business, and that operate in networks with each other, as well as with traditional public- and private-sector actors. Indeed, one of the most interesting points made about this potential new (+N) sector is that it will be distinct from the established public (+I) and private (+M) sectors.

Against his background, I limit my focus here to just a few matters that peer progressivism is bound to have to take positions on in the future, according to TIMN: One is the role of civil society. The others are speculative possibilities: monitory democracy, and a commons sector.

Importance of civil society. Oddly, Future Perfect does not offer a single paragraph about civil society — a search via Amazon yields nary a mention — whereas there are pages and pages about government and business. Isn’t this a significant inexplicable shortcoming? An analytical imbalance?

In contrast, a new forward-looking conservative analysis by James Bennett and Michael Lotus, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century — Why America's Greatest Days Are Yet to Come (2013), recognizes that:

“[A] revival of civil society appears to be in store. New technology, which allows people to connect in new ways, is likely to lead to a revival of civil society in new forms. We expect this process to continue and to evolve rapidly. What we now refer to as “social media” are only early and primitive versions of the civil society-enabling technology we will be seeing in the years ahead. Nonetheless it is too early to say exactly how, and how much, new technology will revive and strengthen civil society.” (p. 41; h/t The Scholar's Stage blog)

Future Perfect might easily have said something similar — and been the better for it, in terms of foreseeing what may turn out to be important to peer progressives. As an aside, I notice that the authors of America 3.0 do not link their point to Edmund Burke’s great concept about the value of “little platoons” in civil society. That could easily be fashioned into a peer-oriented concept in favor of 3.0 conservatism — one that’d be attractive to eclectic peer progressives as well.

Possibility of monitory democracy. Future Perfect expresses hopes for “liquid democracy” — an information-age way to improve representation from inside the political system. But John Keane’s concept of “monitory democracy” —a novel way for civil-society actors to affect democracy from outside the political system — looks more apropos from a TIMN perspective, and it’s not mentioned.

Monitory democracy is entirely consistent with Johnson’s points about peer networks and peer progressivism. As I’ve discussed at length elsewhere, Keane grounds his concept on increases in monitoring roles played by NGOs and other actors representing civil society. As he states in his book The Life and Death of Democracy (2009):

“[T]he years since 1945 have seen the invention of about a hundred different types of power-monitoring devices that never before existed within the world of democracy. These watchdog and guide-dog and barking-dog inventions are changing both the political geography and the political dynamics of many democracies, which no longer bear much resemblance to textbook models of representative democracy, which supposed that citizens’ needs are best championed through elected parliamentary representatives chosen by political parties. From the perspective of this book, the emerging historical form of ‘monitory’ democracy is a ‘post-Westminster’ form of democracy in which power-monitoring and power-controlling devices have begun to extend sideways and downwards through the whole political order. They penetrate the corridors of government and occupy the nooks and crannies of civil society, and in so doing they greatly complicate, and sometimes wrong-foot, the lives of politicians, parties, legislatures and governments. These extra-parliamentary power-monitoring institutions include — to mention at random just a few — public integrity commissions, judicial activism, local courts, workplace tribunals, consensus conferences, parliaments for minorities, public interest litigation, citizens’ juries, citizens’ assemblies, independent public inquiries, think-tanks, experts’ reports, participatory budgeting, vigils, ‘blogging’ and other novel forms of media scrutiny.” (p. 14 here)

Keane makes clear that democracy’s proponents would be well-advised to start understanding and fostering monitory democracy. From a TIMN standpoint, I like Keane’s emphasis on civil society, for TIMN regards civil society as a growing source of monitory power vis à vis state and market actors. Also commendable is Keane’s point that monitory democracy brings new kinds of checks and balances; for TIMN is very much about each form being used in proper ways vis à vis the other forms — ways that would keep the forms and their realms basically separated, limited, balanced, and mutually regulated. Monitory democracy fits well with that.

Even so, Keane’s concept does not imply a distinct monitory sector, for a lot of monitoring will be done by actors in all sectors. Yet, he indicates that the prospects for monitory democracy may depend on people having “equal access to ‘the commons’” — a point germane to the next sub-section of this post. That too is far from his explicitly forecasting a new sector, much less calling for a commons sector. But developing what’s been called a “sensor commons” around peer networks of civil-society NGOs might well be in accordance with monitory democracy and peer progressivism, not to mention TIMN.

Monitoring will surely become a key function of a new +N sector. If Keane’s theorizing about monitory democracy is right (and if my theorizing about TIMN is too), then we are looking at a major area for the growth of peer networks and peer progressivism vis à vis civil society in the future.

Possibility of a commons sector. Nor does Future Perfect contain any reference to the idea of the commons. Elsewhere, it’s making a quiet but noticeable return, especially in regard to what are called the information commons and digital commons. And it’s doing so especially among progressives on the Left who look forward to developing a commons sector. They want it to be separate from the established public and private sectors, to grow to outweigh those sectors on commons-related issues, and to be based on P2P networks and associated principles about shared governance and stewardship.

As Jonathan Rowe once explained,

“It is significant, then, that an old term is reappearing to describe what is being threatened. It is "the commons," the realm of life that is distinct from both the market and the state and is the shared heritage of us all. Vandana Shiva, an Indian physicist and environmental activist, writes about the commons of water and seeds. Lawrence Lessig, an author and lawyer, describes the innovation commons of the Internet and the public domain of knowledge. Others are talking about the atmospheric commons, the commons of public squares, and the commons of quiet. …

“If advocates of the commons in its many forms were to embrace the concept as a defining theme, the result could be a new and potent political force.” (source)

While I’m not sure what to make of this unfolding prospect, I’ve learned enough (e.g., here and here) to see that it fits well not only with TIMN but also with what Future Perfect reports about peer progressivism. The book should have at least mentioned it. If it continues to hold promise and gain ground, peer networks and peer progressives seem likely engines.

Perhaps a reason it’s overlooked is Johnson’s affinity for libertarianism. Traditional libertarians are too dedicated to private property and ownership to favor the return of the commons. But Johnson is well aware of this, as noted in Part 1, and he observes that peer progressives are much more interested in sharing. Thus, why he does not pick up on the rising ferment around the concept of the commons is, for me at least, another shortcoming. Perhaps it seems too far to the Left for him. But the concept may well gain adherents across the political spectrum. (I’ve even tried suggesting that commoneers start experimenting with creating citizens chambers of commons. Isn’t that being somewhat peer-progressive?)

In short, Johnson’s book occasionally recognizes effects that bear on civil society, but his book does little with them and their potential implications. I’m not trying to criticize Future Perfect for missing a few examples, but rather for overlooking civil-society activities in a way that, from a TIMN standpoint, is tantamount to a theoretical lapse about matters that may prove crucial to his prognoses.

TO BE CONTINUED

In favor of “peer progressives”: how, where, and why they’re good for TIMN (part 2 of 4)

This Part 2 picks up where Part 1 left off, examining Steven Johnson’s new book Future Perfect (2012) and its parallels to TIMN — in particular, his concept of “peer progressives” because it helps flesh out the +N network part of TIMN.

Again, here are the major areas where Johnson’s themes parallel and overlap with TIMN:

• Network forms of organization are on the rise.
• They and their proponents are altering all areas of society.
• Hierarchy and market forms of organization will endure, though altered.
• People will treat networks — not just governments or markets — as solutions.
• New political philosophies and ideologies will emerge.

And here are areas where his observations and speculations fall short of TIMN:

• TIMN implies that a new sector will grow around the network form. Johnson’s write-up does not detect this, though I suspect it would appeal to peer progressives.
• TIMN offers a quadriform understanding of society and its future prospects. The view in Future Perfect remains triformist — though a kind of triformist-plus.

Of those seven bullets above, Part 1 emphasized the first three. This Part 2, after providing some elaborations that reflect those three, eventually covers the next two. Part 3 will turn to the sixth, Part 4 the seventh.

* * * * *

Peer progressives in action — all over the map

Johnson recognizes that the rise of the network form had spectacular expression in a series of political and social movements since the 1990s. Indeed (p. 48), “To date, the most prominent examples of network architectures influencing real-world change have been the decentralized protest movements that emerged over the past few years: MoveOn, Arab Spring, the Spanish revolution, Occupy Wall Street.” While Johnson’s book doesn’t mention TIMN (and why should it), the parallels are so close that in one spot it even reads like a paraphrase of our (Arquilla & Ronfeldt) earlier work on information-age conflict (as clarified here and in Appendix B here). That’s when Johnson quotes (p. 106) from his book Emergence (2001), saying about the anti-WTO Battle-of-Seattle protests in 1999, “that there can be power and intelligence in a swarm, and if you were trying to do battle against a distributed network like global capitalism, you're better off becoming a distributed network yourself.”

But those movements involved so many ideological and other tendencies that none offers a seminal expression of peer progressivism. The movement that finally did so was the one in 2012 to block a congressional bill known as Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). As Johnson puts it, “SOPA marked the single largest attack to date on the core principles of the Baran Web” by the established proponents of top-down Legrand Stars — the federal government and largest media corporations (p. 200). Indeed, “the SOPA rebellion made manifest the power of peer networks as a form of Digital Age activism” (p. 201). It helped that believing in peer networks was not a key value for either the Democratic or Republican political party — making it easier for a bipartisan consensus to form against SOPA, since neither party needed to claim it as its own victory (p. 203). As a result (p. 204), “The protests made perfect sense: they were the first great awakening of the peer-progressive movement.”

Yet, as Johnson wisely notes (pp. 48-49), “these grand spectacles … have turned out to be something of a distraction, averting our eyes from the more concrete and practical successes of peer networks.” The meat of his book is thus about problem-solving enterprises that have arisen because of the network form. Favorites include Wikipedia, Kickstarter, New York City’s 311 phone system, and ProPublica. Some are in the private sector, others the public sector; they arise in business, government, and civil society. Some are for-profit, others non-profit; some run by public employees, others by private enterprise. His point, much like TIMN, is that the peer network “is a practical, living, evolving reality, one that is already transforming dozens of different sectors.” (p. 52)

He admires New York’s 311 system at length (esp. pp. 63-66), for such peer-based solutions enable people to call attention to public problems. He’s also careful to discuss that it’s not a pure peer network, for the network has a headquarters. But it’s still more bottom-up than top-down — a hybrid of hierarchy and network that lets people share and pool information. Johnson speculates insightfully (pp. 72-73) that combining 311-like systems to identify problems with Kickstarter-like systems to solve them, plus introducing prize-backed challenges to attract participation in some situations, might go far to improve upon current ways of addressing civic problems in our communities.

Looking ahead from a peer-progressive perspective, Johnson anticipates major shifts in our political and economic systems. As for politics, peer progressives welcome transitioning away from the old Legrand-Star model of the state and its penchant for central planning; for they are ambivalent about hierarchical institutions. This includes representative democracies that are supposed to be bottom-up but have become quite centralized and top-heavy, and that let power be concentrated around ever smaller and less diverse groups. Indeed, he says, peer progressives tend to be Madisonian in their concerns that modern-day tyrannical nobles are gaining sway in our public and private sectors (pp. 155-157). Thus Johnson, like others, expresses hopes for the spread of “liquid democracy” and “participatory budgeting” as ways of expanding “the space of civic participation” at local and broader levels (p. 175).

As to future economic change, he draws mainly on the concept of “conscious capitalism” and the prospects it offers for making corporations run more like peer networks than fiefdoms:

“Conscious capitalism is what happens when peer-progressive values are applied to corporate structures.” (p. 182)

“The beauty of the peer-progressive approach to corporate organization is that it addresses many of the prevailing critiques of modern capitalism.” (p. 183)

What he likes is that conscious capitalism is about stakeholders more than shareholders, seeks out diverse sources of information, and encourages wide distribution of profits (pp. 178-180). He also commends that all the above is embodied in a new generation of employee-owned businesses, some of which operate as non-profit cooperatives (p. 187). Nonetheless, his optimism is tempered by wondering whether capitalism will really be transformed by learning to apply the lessons of peer networks to the social architecture of corporations (p. 195).

Johnson also discusses applying peer-progressivism to schools and their incentive structures. He thinks both teachers unions and libertarians — i.e., the agents of hierarchy and market methods — have faulty solutions in mind. Outcomes would be better if schools could be run like peer networks (pp. 191-190).

Thus, his array of examples shows that peer networks are taking hold all over the map, in all sectors of society: government, business, civil society. And that is principally what we wants to show. Moreover, by now, perhaps a year since he finished the book, lots of new examples could be added that seem eminently peer-progressive. For example, I’d suggest adding Code for America (CFA), the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), and NGOs promoting “networked humanitarianism” (such as iRevolution and ReliefWeb). Meanwhile at his blog, Johnson is keen about pro-peer-network research at NYU’s Governance Lab (GovLab). And just today, thanks to the PBS Newshour, I learned that Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley’s The Metropolitan Revolution (2013) reports on how numerous coalitional networks of city and metropolitan leaders from diverse sectors — and they sure sound like peer networks, including conservatives as well as progressives — are stepping up in innovative ways to fix political, economic. and other problems while federal and state governments pull back.

All this parallels TIMN, which holds that established activities and enterprises in all sectors will be modified by the rise of a new form, currently meaning the network (+N) form. But from a TIMN perspective, more is going on than across-the-board modifications and transformations in existing sectors. TIMN also implies the creation of a brand new sector.

But before turning to that, I’d rather focus first, and briefly, on a couple of points that extend from the preceding discussion about wide-ranging changes:

• People will treat networks — not just governments or markets — as solutions.
• New political philosophies and ideologies will emerge.

My findings about TIMN and Johnson’s findings about peer progressivism are largely in agreement on those two points.

Networks as solutions

TIMN has long maintained that, beyond today’s common claims that government or market is the solution, we are entering a new era in which it will be said that the network is the solution (e.g., here and here). Aging contentions that turning to “the government” or “the market” is the way to address particular public-policy issues will eventually give way to innovative ideas that “the network” is the optimal solution.

Johnson shows that peer progressivism says much the same — indeed, it’s one of his key themes:

Slowly but steadily, much like the creation of the Internet itself, a growing number of us have started to think that the core principles that govern the design of the net could be applied to solve different kinds of problems — the problems that confront neighborhoods, artists, drug companies, parents, schools. You can see in all these efforts the emergence of a new political philosophy, as different from the state-centralized solutions of the old Left as it is from the libertarian market religion of the Right. The people behind these movements believe in government intervention without Legrand Stars, in Hayek-style distributed information without traditional marketplaces. (p. 19)

“To be a peer progressive, then, is to believe that the key to continued progress lies in building peer networks in as many regions of modern life as possible: in education, healthcare, city neighborhoods, private corporations, and government agencies. When a need arises in society that goes unmet, our first impulse should be to build a peer network to solve that problem.” (p. 50)

This prospect amounts to a significant overlap with TIMN. I’ve tried to indicate elsewhere that it may develop in the context of the rise of “cyberocracy” and a “nexus state” in the future, but I’ll leave discussing that for another day, possibly in Part 3.

Toward new political ideologies and philosophies

According to TIMN (initially, 1996, pp. 30-33), as the network (+N) form takes hold, new political ideologies and philosophies will take shape around it. They will be network-oriented rather than tribe-, state-, or market-oriented, and they will arise across the political spectrum: Right, Left, and Center.

Johnson’s write-up shows agreement with this prospect, at least for the Center and Left parts of the spectrum — that’s what peer progressivism means. Here are a few apropos quotes:

“The fact that the peer network does not fit easily into traditional political categories of the Left and Right should not be mistaken for some kind of squishy, “third way” centrism. It is not the moderates attempt to use Big Government and Big Labor to counterbalance the excesses of Big Corporations. Living strictly by peer-progressive values means rethinking the fundamental structures of some of the most revered institutions of modern life; it means going back to the drawing board to think about how private companies and democracies are structured. It is … not a matter of finding a middle ground between Left and Right, but rather finding a way forward. This is why it is so important that these principles not be confused with simple internet utopianism. (p. 51)

In the following passage he tries to specify the kind of political agenda that peer progressives are disposed to have:

“But think about the specific values that we have seen associated with the peer-progressive worldview. Peer progressives are wary of excessive top-down government control in bureaucracy; they want more civic participation and accountability in public-sector issues that affect their communities. They want more choice and experimentation in public schools; they think, on the whole, that the teachers unions have been a hindrance to educational innovation. They think markets can be a great force for innovation and rising standards of living, but they also think corporations are far too powerful and top-heavy in their social architecture. They believe the rising wealth and income gaps need to be restored to levels closer to those of the 1950s. They believe that the campaign financing system is poisoning democracy, but want to retain an individual’s right to support candidates directly. They want lower prices for prescription drugs without threatening the innovation engine of the pharmaceutical industry. They are socially libertarian, and consider diversity to be a key cultural value. They believe the decentralized, peer-to-peer architecture of the Internet has been a force for good, and that governments (or corporations) shouldn't mess with it.” (pp. 205-206)

Johnson says that this set of values and positions may look like a mishmash, drawn partly from one political party and partly the other. Yet there is a coherent logic behind them:

“[T]hrough the lens of peer progressivism, they all come into focus, because the values flow directly from a core set of beliefs about the power and effectiveness of peer networks, in both the private and public sectors. The number of individuals and groups that are actively building new peer-progressive organizations is still small, but the values associated with the movement are shared much more widely throughout the population.” (p. 206)

In rather odd few paragraphs, Johnson mentions Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul, and unspecified persons in the Obama administration, as people who have done much to foster peer-network experimentation in political circles (p. 207). I understand his point — it’s a good one — but I wish he’d said more, and identified more than just those mentions.

In any case, by pointing out that networks are increasingly seen as solutions and that new political philosophies and ideologies will take shape around the network form, he goes a long way to proposing that peer progressivism is about far more than reformist modifications all across the board — it means that something distinctly radically new is dawning.

If I ever get back to doing Part 3 of my unfinished series of posts on “TIMN: some implications for thinking about political philosophy and ideology” (beginning here), I’ll be able to say a lot more now than a year ago, thanks to Johnson’s adding peer progressivism to the lexicon for thinking ahead. Indeed, peer progressivism could do a lot for our country in the future. A conservative variety too, if it would just show up (and I’d suppose it should have a name other than peer conservatism). Possible alternatives — e.g., “network libertarianism” — would not be nearly as constructive from a TIMN perspective, as I’ll discuss in Part 4 of this series on Future Perfect.

Over the past 10 to 20 years there have been lots of comparisons of America to the fall of Rome. But TIMN points to a huge crucial difference between the two cases. Yes, they both involve the decay of hierarchical institutions. And both also involve a resurgence of tribalism, domestically and around the periphery. But only one of the two cases — America — appears to be declining in an era when a new form of organization is emerging: the +N form. And that can make a decisive difference, meaning America can renew itself whereas Rome could not. From a TIMN perspective, I'd like to think that is part of the promise of peer networks and peer progressivism.

CONTINUED HERE

In favor of “peer progressives”: how, where, and why they’re good for TIMN (part 1 of 4)

[UPDATE — July 1, 2013: Edited to note that this post is now appearing in 4 parts.]

[UPDATE — June 25, 2013:  Edited to note that this post is now appearing in 3 parts, not 2.]

A colleague recommended reading Steven Johnson’s new book Future Perfect (2012) because, he said, it is a lot like TIMN (h/t Dick O’Neill, Highlands Forum). And indeed it is. This post is about Johnson’s concept of “peer progressives” being consistent with TIMN, particularly the +N network part. His book shows that TIMN-like views are spreading better than I knew.

Indeed, I recommend that readers interested in TIMN who don’t cotton to my acronymic short-hand lingo go read Johnson’s plain-English book. It’s good for the long-range cause of TIMN-type thinking — despite shortcomings I’ll mention.

Here are the major areas where Johnson’s themes parallel and overlap with TIMN:

• Network forms of organization are on the rise.
• They and their proponents are altering all areas of society.
• Hierarchy and market forms of organization will endure, though altered.
• People will treat networks — not just governments or markets — as solutions.
• New political philosophies and ideologies will emerge.

But there are some areas where his observations and speculations fall short of TIMN:

• TIMN implies that a new sector will grow around the network form. Johnson’s write-up does not detect this, though I suspect it would appeal to future peer progressives.
• TIMN offers a quadriform understanding of society and its future prospects. The view in Future Perfect remains triformist — though a kind of triformist-plus.

This post discusses all that. Until now, the writings that parallel TIMN the most have been those of Michel Bauwens and others associated with P2P theory. Compared to each other, Bauwens is well to the Left; and Johnson seems to be moderately left-of-center, a liberal centrist. This pleases me, since TIMN depends on its kinds of notions spreading across the political spectrum. I’m still waiting for a comparable voice on the Right, but so far its voices don’t seem to “get” the network form to a great extent.

Apology to readers: This post is long and repetitive — becoming so much so in the course of drafting that I'm posting it in four separate parts. But my purpose isn’t so much to offer a readable review, as to compose a repository for my notes from the book, in part because I’m not sure what I might want to use anew in the future. For me, better to stash too much here now, than to have to go back and peruse the book again later.

* * * * *

Emergence of peer progressives

As in the case of TIMN (e.g., here and here), Johnson’s departure point is the rise of network forms of organization made possible by the new information technologies. By now, of course, that is the departure point for myriad writings about the information age. What’s singular about Johnson’s analysis is his focus on “peer networks” propelled by “peer progressives” — the latter term being his major contribution.

I and many other analysts have long wondered about the prospects for peer-to-peer networks in all areas of society. But to my knowledge this is the first time that someone has coined an attractive apt name for actors who believe in network forms of organization, strategy, and technology, and who also operate according to positive social values that amount to a new philosophical or ideological orientation. As Johnson explains in a recent post at his blog about the book,

“I wrote Future Perfect in large part to capture all the thrilling new experiments and research into peer collaboration that I saw flourishing all around me, and to give those diverse projects the umbrella name of peer progressivism so that they could be more easily conceived as a unified movement. But I also wrote the book with the explicit assumption that we had a lot to learn about these systems.” (source)

Here’s a string of quotations from the book that show Johnson’s take on the concept of peer progressives — who they are, what they believe:

“As I spent more time watching and thinking about this emerging movement, I began to realize that its political values did not readily map onto existing political categories. The people who most interested me were wary of centralized control, but they were not free-market libertarians. They believed in the power of competition, but they also believed that some of society’s most important achievements could not be incentivized with economic reward. They called themselves entrepreneurs but worked mostly in the public sector. They were equally suspicious of big government and big corporations.” (pp. xxxv-xxxvi)

“We believe in social progress, and we believe the most powerful tool to advance the cause of progress is the peer network. We are peer progressives.” (p. 20)

“The peer progressive believes that the social architecture of the distributed network is fundamentally a force for good in the world, on the order of other related institutions, such as democracies or marketplaces. And the peer progressive believes that the Internet has been the dominant role model and breeding ground for peer networks over the past decade or two.” (p. 110-111)

“After all, peer progressives have a very clear set of values that draw upon the older tradition of progressive politics. They believe in equality, participation, diversity. There's nothing laissez-faire about their agenda for progress. They take the social architecture of the peer network and direct it toward problems that markets have failed to solve.” (pp. 113-114)

“To be a peer progressive, then, is to live with the conviction that Wikipedia is just the beginning, that we can learn from its success to build new systems that solve problems in education, government, health, social communities, and countless other regions of human experience. … That is a future worth looking forward to. Now is the time to invent it.” (pp. 213-214)

In other words, peer progressivism is as much about network-oriented values as it is about organization and technology. It’s also about how values, organization, and technology all fit together. For peer progressives favor peer networks because such networks embody values that best suit such a form of organization: diversity, equality, freedom, democracy, sharing, pooling, openness, and collaboration along with competition. All this starts to fill in what Arquilla and I saw as the “narrative level” that networks require to function well (according to our Networks and Netwars volume, 2001, Ch. 10).

The value that comes up the most is diversity. Peer progressives value diversity so highly because seeking diverse inputs should assure smarter, more flexible, innovative thinking:

“The problem-solving capacity that comes from diverse networks is one of the cornerstones of the peer progressive worldview.” (p. 98)

“One of the key values of peer progressivism is intellectual and professional diversity; groups that draw on different conceptual frameworks consistently outperform more single-minded groups.” (source)

According to Johnson, peer progressivism is very future-oriented and will grow to become a unified philosophy that is new and original. It’s still nascent and inchoate, but it’s gaining enough impetus in enough places that it will eventually turn into a wave (p. xxxvii).

In all these regards, Johnson’s observations overlap nicely with TIMN and its implications for the emergence of the +N part. The concept of peer progressivism adds a new kind of focus for +N that I’ve been hoping to see crop up eventually somewhere.

Related concepts: networked individualism and cooperative individualism

Johnson wondered about other trendy terms for what he was observing (e.g., “net utopians” and “netarians”). But none seemed correct, so he coined and settled on “peer progressives.” Yet his term bears some relation to another recent term that he doesn’t mention: “networked individualism,” and its cognate “cooperative individualism.” Neither of the two is as apt as his term, but they help illuminate points that are embedded in his term yet not as fully laid out.

The first is from sociologist Barry Wellman, a scholar of social network analysis. His point is that Americans are “moving from a society bound up in little boxes to a multiple network – and networking – society” (source). I gather his is not meant to be a political concept, though it has some political implications. (For more, see his co-authored book here, as well as Clay Spinuzzi’s review here.)

The second comes from activist David Bollier, an advocate of commons perspectives. Bollier’s concerns are eminently political, yet based on a forward-looking theoretical insight. It is that advocating for the commons

“asks us to transcend some of the familiar dichotomies of modern life – “public” vs. “private,” “individual” vs. “collective,” “objective” vs. “subjective” – and to begin to see these dualisms in a more integrated, blended form. “Cooperative individualism” is one shorthand that I like to use.” (source)

What they and fellow analysts seek — even more than Johnson — are terms that bridge and balance between individualism and collectivism, as well as between competition and collaboration, in ways attuned to the rise of network forms of organization. Kevin Carson, a P2P market anarchist, has added (here) that “stigmergic organization” is crucial, for stigmergy means interactive inputs by individuals that help coordinate and modify the whole: “So stigmergy is the highest realization of both individualism and collectivism, without either diminishing or qualifying the other in any way.” Good point — though the term does not seem suited to common parlance.

Also, while Johnson says his term reflects aspects of libertarianism and anarchism along with progressivism, he says little about two other isms that have long figured in discussions about progressive information-age actors: communitarianism, and more so, cosmopolitanism. Some peer progressives seem in tune with those isms as well. But little matter — Johnson’s term resonates the best, in my view.

Peer networks vis à vis (and versus) hierarchies and markets

Like TIMN — not to mention many other frameworks (source) — Johnson analyzes the rise of network forms of organization on their own merits and in relation to the two most established forms: hierarchies and markets. He is sensibly insightful regarding the evolving nature of all three forms.

As Johnson says (p. 194), “The conviction that peer networks can be a transformative force for good in the world is perhaps the core belief of the peer-progressive worldview.” And by “peer networks” he means much the same as what others (myself included) have meant by all-channel, peer-to-peer, full-mesh, rhizomatic, and/or distributed networks — not just any networks, but dense networks of fully interconnected peers, allowing for diverse values and views to be expressed, sorted, pooled, and processed.

To depict his point, he draws (p. 12) on a classic RAND publication by Paul Baran, the “father of the Internet,” that contrasts three network designs: centralized (single-hub, hierarchical), decentralized (multi-hub, heterarchical), and distributed (so decentralized and all-channel that no hubs appear). In a metaphor that runs throughout the book, then, Johnson associates the first design with hierarchy, calling it the “Legrand Star” after a misguided late-19th century French design for its state-run railroad system. And he associates the third design with peer networks, calling it the “Baran Web” since it corresponds to Baran’s original design for the Internet. Thus, much of the book is about areas of society where traditional hierarchies — Legrand Stars — are being outperformed and/or superseded by peer networks: Baran Webs.

In my TIMN view, that’s a good highly-readable metaphor for contrasting hierarchies and networks. But it’s also a bit misleading: Not all hierarchical institutions reduce solely to the Legrand-Star design; many today are closer to the decentralized design, for which he does not offer a metaphor. Moreover, many valuable types of networks don’t quite correspond to the Baran-Web design. Peer networks are very important, but it’s not yet clear which network designs will prevail where in the future. Even so, his theme is engaging, and his treatment is nuanced-enough to mitigate my quibbling.

In general, then, Johnson sees — and by implication, peer progressives see — that many large institutions are failing, and “being replaced by interlinked networks of smaller, more nimble units” (p.24). Indeed, according to a remark about the media landscape that applies to other areas,

“the simplest way to understand what has happened over that period is this: the overarching system of news is transitioning from a Legrand Star to a Baran Web, from a small set of hierarchical organizations to a distributed network of smaller and more diverse entities.” (p. 79)

Yet, much as peer progressives are disillusioned with “the older models of Big Capital or Big Government” (p. xxxvii), Johnson has carefully noted (here) that “we need to avoid the easy assumption that decentralized, peer-based approaches will always outperform centralized ones.” He is quite aware that pragmatic hybrid designs may be required in some areas, combining mixtures of bottom-up and top-down dynamics.

As for the other form in his triad — markets — they are not designated with a stand-out visual metaphor, but the book is as much about networks vis à vis markets as it is about hierarchies. Johnson finds particularly strong affinities between peer progressives and market libertarians, for he says (p, 28), with a nod to Friedrich Hayek, that

“True markets display almost all of the core principles of the peer-progressive worldview. ... To be a peer progressive is to believe in the power of markets.”

Yet, he clarifies (p. 29), peer progressives don’t have entirely the same views about markets as traditional libertarians. Peer progressives are as keen about individualism, but without being as anti-state. For peer progressives believe that states can be crucial for enabling and protecting individualism.

Moreover, peer progressivism does not claim that markets can provide answers to all needs and problems; where market failures arise, it prefers to look for network solutions instead:

“Instead of turning a blind eye to market failures, it assumes that these problems are widespread, and actively seeks them out as the central focus of its agenda. Instead of building a large government agency to combat the problem, it tries to build a peer network around it, a system of dense, diverse, and decentralized exchange.” (p. 30)

Furthermore, peer progressives have values that are at odds with standard libertarianism about private property, ownership, and motivation (pp. 129-131). Peer progressives prefer to keep ideas circulating, without worrying so much about ownership. That’s “because the open exchange of ideas is a core attribute of all peer networks” — peer progressives want to reward people not only for coming up with good ideas but also for sharing them (p. 131). In a way, then, the more a peer-network enterprise — e.g., Kickstarter, Wikipedia — operates like a gift economy, the better (p. 45-46). Financial rewards are not the paramount incentives. That’s partly why such enterprises are able to address and solve problems that markets previously fumbled. Johnson is particularly keen to note cases where “a diverse network working outside the marketplace establishes a worthy goal, and an even more diverse network sets out to find a way to reach it” (p. 149).

In short, even as peer progressives extol the virtues of peer networks, they still see virtues in preserving hierarchies and markets as ways of making societies function well. They tend to be more critical of hierarchies than markets, but they recognize that well-functioning societies require balanced combinations of all three forms of organization. All of which substantiates that Johnson’s points parallel and overlap with TIMN.

CONTINUED HERE

Terrorist mindsets: importance of spatial orientations — using STA to analyze the Boston Marathon bombers

Watching news and analysis about the Boston bombers led to wondering what might come up that bears on my episodic efforts to elaborate a framework about people’s space-time-action perceptions and their implications for how people think and behave — acronymed STA, for brevity’s sake. It is the other framework behind this blog, besides TIMN.

Would analysts find, for example, that the bombers felt diminished by life and wanted to show they’d become big (a spatial orientation)? Or that they had lost hope and sought a new future (in time)? Or that they’d felt powerless and saw bombing as a way to wield secret power (an action orientation)? These are the kinds of questions, categories, and narrative elements that STA instructs looking for and working with.

Lots of observations have indeed come up about the Tsarnaev brother’s space-time-action orientations. But what's striking is that spatial referents have been so prominent, more so than time and action. And that seems sensible and significant from an STA perspective.

For example, a roundtable discussion on CNN with Phillip Mudd, Jessica Stern, Fareed Zakaria, and two others whose names slip my mind emphasized that the Tsarnaevs had difficulties assimilating even though they seemed to fit in well; they came to feel marginalized and even humiliated, saw pathways blocked, and externalized their frustrations. Then they radicalized, after expanding their horizons and connecting to jihadi notions. Ultimately they boxed their minds off. Another time on CNN, Sherry Turkle opined that the older brother felt isolated and displaced, and developed a parallel life in secret.

On a PBS news-hour program, Jerrold Post and Jessica Stern observed that individuals who are isolated and lonely and feel they don't belong can use the Internet to connect up and bond with hatred groups. The Tsarnaev brothers, especially the older one, may have sensed loss; they may have felt like losers left by their parents, and become confused about their identity. They found they could consolidate their identity online, by learning that they are victims in a global struggle and that defensive jihad is the way to go, following recipes for action online.

[UPDATE — May 7, 2013: The pattern continued into the next week. On a CNN Sunday show chaired by Candy Crowley, a segment about the roots of radicalism assembled another set of expert observers: Zuhdi Nasser, Jessica Stern, Suhail Khan, and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. They too spoke mainly in terms of spatial referents — mostly regarding the separation, isolation, and exclusion that the Tsarnaevs may have felt. Nasser also noted the pull of the Islamic dream. Stern asked why some individuals are so vulnerable to the jihadi narrative, why they end up identifying more with the global jihadi movement than with their own neighbors. Travel abroad, the group agreed, can facilitate self-radicalization, as can the Internet. Yet, while the two may not have felt like part of the American fabric or the American dream, there was no evidence they were assimilation failures. Indeed, lots of people subscribe to extremist ideologies without acting on them; they do not turn to violence and claim that the ends justify the means. Several in the group advised that community leaders must promulgate messages of inclusion in order to counter jihadi narratives of exclusion. But, they cautioned, local narratives of inclusion will not work well if they posture that guys like the Tsarnaevs are not really Muslims, or if they are voiced amid heavy police surveillance.]

What I like about all this — what prompts this blog post — is the plethora of spatial referents, more than I’ve seen before in discussions of terrorist incidents. These experts’ observations are full of key words and phrases that represent grist for an STA hypothesis that a person’s turn to terrorism depends mainly on changes in his/her spatial (S) orientations.

Of course, the experts’ observations are just that — expert observations, fashioned from afar. Thus I can’t be sure of their reliability; little direct evidence is available about the bombers’ mindsets — nothing like systematic diagnostic interview materials. But let’s work with what’s at hand, even though it may turn out to reflect the experts’ mindsets more than the bombers’.

Reprise of points about space-time-action orientations in terrorist mindsets

It’s been a while since I addressed STA. So let me remind interested readers that there is no single paper (much less a book) that lays out the STA framework. But I’ve done blog posts about it, briefly describing how/why it occurred to me (here), and what some basic elements and dynamics are (here). I’ve also shown that STA orientations figured in aspects of the Occupy! movement (here). More to the point, one post’s appendix began to lay out what terrorist mindsets look like from an STA perspective (here). I also opined that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter deemed a lone-wolf terrorist, was more of a loner tribalist bent on running amok in ways that illustrated spatial orientations à la STA (here).

For readers who want some quick explanatory background, however, what may be most useful is an excerpt about terrorist mindsets from a 2009 post on “Millenarian terrorism — an STA perspective (3 of 4): modern parallels to chiliasm, importance of spatial orientations” (here). It still shows what I’m after, and applies quite well to analyzing the Boston bombers, by emphasizing three general points as follows:

“My first point is that many analyses of terrorism — religious and millenarian terrorism included — tend to emphasize just one of the three STA dimensions. But the more an analyst elaborates, the more it becomes clear that all three STA dimensions are embedded in his or her analysis.

“Often the initial emphasis is on time perceptions— e.g., loss of hope, a new vision of the future. But it could be on space or action perceptions. Here, for example, a scholar emphasizes an action orientation — the loss of power:

“It is this sense of a personal loss of power in the face of chaotic political and religious authorities that is common, and I believe critical, to Abouhalima’s al Gamaa-i Islamiya, Timothy McVeigh’s circle of militia activists, and most other movements for Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, and Hindu nationalism around the world. The syndrome begins with the perception that the public world has gone awry, and the suspicion that behind this social confusion lies a great spiritual and moral conflict, a cosmic battle between the forces of order and chaos, good and evil. Such a conflict is understandably violent, and this violence is often felt by the victimized activist as powerlessness, either individually or in association with others of his gender, race, or ethnicity. The government — already delegitimized — is perceived to be in league with the forces of chaos and evil. (Juergensmeyer, 2000, p. 224)

“But look at the details. There is chaos, a separation of good and evil, an association of one kind, a league of another kind — all spatial factors. Moreover, the world is awry, heading into a cosmic battle — time notions ... . In short, one STA dimension is stressed, but all three show up, in a rather jumbled fashion.

“Which leads to my second point: All three STA dimensions are important. Scholars and other analysts could do a better job of analyzing mindsets if they attended to all three in a systematic manner, so as to dissect — to deconstruct, disassemble, reverse engineer — them in detail. This could also help clarify which and what kinds of other models, including the relative-deprivation and absolute-disaster models, work best.

“And that brings us to my third point: While all three STA orientations are significant, the space orientation — the orientation that often gets the least attention — may be the key to understanding the appeal of terrorism. This may be particularly so for disaster-driven millenarian terrorism, even though it is defined by/as a time orientation.

“Consider this: People who have made statements about becoming a terrorist refer to having lacked an identity, feeling small and humiliated, facing obstacles and barriers, and feeling lost after moving abroad. Then they gain a new sense of worth from finding new connections. They see how the world is split between good and evil — in a duality that must be overcome. They regard an outside power’s presence as an invasion that must be expelled. They want to regain what was lost or stolen. They want to extend the borders of Islam — as God’s soldiers, not an organization’s. They want the sacred to rule over the secular — indeed, to deny any such dichotomy. And whereas they used to feel marginal, now they are part of something that has cosmic importance.

“These are all spatial referents. I could list time and action referents as well. But my point is that the number and variety of spatial referents is really quite large — larger than I’ve seen analysts notice. Thus, spatial orientations may deserve a lot more attention than they’ve received. The keys to understanding terrorism’s attraction to some mindsets may lie more in their space than in their time or action orientations. (This may also apply more broadly to the tribal mindset, which is so emphatic about upholding solidarity, respect, pride, honor, and dignity — all spatial values.)”

In my view, that all still applies today.

Write-ups about the Boston bombers that illuminate spatial orientations

I don’t know why so many analysts — at least the ones who’ve caught my attention — have emphasized spatial more than time or action referents in discussing the Tsarnaevs. But I think the tendency began some time ago, perhaps with Hasan, and may have something to do with the fact that these perpetrators have been outsiders in one sense or another. Perhaps analysts tend to gravitate naturally toward spatial referents when analyzing the mentalities of immigrants and other kinds of displaced persons. I can only speculate. But whatever the reasons for the emphasis on spatial referents, it sure provides grist for the STA framework.

To further illustrate the significance of spatial referents in current analyses — and to offer further material for the hypothesis that terrorist mindset’s are based mainly, at least initially, on spatial more than time or action perceptions — I have at hand two pertinent articles.

One is by Amy Zalman, an expert on narrative matters and strategies. I’ve underlined some of the key words that clearly correspond to spatial referents.

“In contrast to terrorists of the past century, today’s may not be physically isolated from the rest of the world in training camps. And they are not psychologically isolated from the world by other members of a radical group driving toward the same goals.

“They are isolated, instead, in an imaginative construct of their own. They pick from the information available to them, those bits that help them make sense of the world and their role in it.

“So, the contemporary global terrorist lives in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, if he (or she) moves around the world, as Tamerlan Tsarnaev did, and is exposed to multiple cultures, he is actually exposed to more ideas than someone may have been many years ago. He could be a cosmopolitan.

“Yet, rigidity of mind, a profound sense of displacement or other feelings of dissonance and the ability to personalize digital information sources means he more likely lives in a narrow, self-reinforcing narrative that closes off alternative ways of viewing himself or the world.

“There is nothing more challenging to uproot than another person’s worldview. One way not to do it is with “counter-narratives” that simply oppose or offer alternatives with no connection to the cultural or ideological fabric of an extremist’s worldview. Nevertheless, this was the general premise of the “war of ideas” for the last decade.” (source)

Notice also an article by Scott Atran, an anthropologist who studies religion and terrorism. It focuses on organizational matters — networks! — but also attends to mindset matters. He includes “goals” (a time orientation) and “modes of action” (an action orientation), but then emphasizes spatial points. Again, I’ve underlined some key words that are spatial referents.

“ ... Three key elements characterize the "organized anarchy" that typifies modern violent Islamic activism: Ultimate goals are vague and superficial (often no deeper than revenge against perceived injustice against Muslims around the world); modes of action are decided pragmatically on the basis of trial and error or based on the residue of learning from accidents of past experience; and those who join are not recruited but are locally linked self-seekers -- often from the same family, neighborhood, or Internet chat room -- whose connection to global jihad is more virtual than material. Al Qaeda and associates do not so much recruit as attract disaffected individuals who have already decided to embark on the path to violent extremism with the help of family, friends, or a few fellow travelers.

“Like the young men who carried out the Madrid and London attacks, most homegrown jihadi plotters first hook up with the broad protest sentiment against "the global attack on Islam" before moving into a narrower parallel universe. They cut ties with former companions who they believe are too timid to act and cement bonds with those who are willing to strike. They emerge from their cocoon with strong commitment to strike and die if necessary, but without any clear contingency planning for what might happen after the initial attack. ...

“But the popular notion of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West is woefully misleading. Violent extremism represents not the resurgence of traditional cultures, but their collapse, as young people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity that gives personal significance. This is the dark side of globalization. ...

“Especially for young men, mortal combat with a "band of brothers" in the service of a great cause is both the ultimate adventure and a road to esteem in the hearts of their peers. For many disaffected souls today, jihad is a heroic cause -- a promise that anyone from anywhere can make a mark against the most powerful country in the history of the world.” (source)

Those two articles speak well to this post’s themes about STA and the importance of spatial perceptions in terrorist mindsets. But there are also insightful analyses that emphasize the other two STA orientations: perceptions about time and agency. For example, consider the one by Mark Juergensmeyer that says “Don’t Blame Religion for Boston Bombings” (here) — along with the one by Timothy Furnish about “The Ideology Behind the Boston Marathon Bombing” (here), which does indeed blame religion (h/t Charles Cameron).

Juergensmeyer argues that, especially for lone-wolf terrorists, religion is not so much a cause as a cover for trying to overcome powerlessness and become powerful — an action orientation (which he also emphasized in a quote I used way above). But when he turns to why the older Tsarnaev turned to terrorism, spatial referents play a big role (and again I’ve underlined some key words).

“Then what about Tamerlan Tsarnaev? He was clearly a troubled young man. He had dropped out of college, was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend, was separated from the woman with whom he had fathered a child, was ineligible for US citizenship because of the assault record, and had abandoned his dream of becoming an Olympic boxer. Worse, he had no social support network. He told one colleague, “I don’t have a single American friend... I don’t understand them.” It was then that he began to be more deeply involved in radical religious and political ideas related to the family’s war-torn homeland of Chechnya. ...

“Still, for Tamarlan the notion of being a part of a great battle seemed appealing. ...

“Hence the defense of a religion provides a cover for violence. It gives moral license to something horrible that the perpetrators had longed to do, to show the world how powerful they really could be, and to demonstrate their importance in one terminal moment of violent glory. Religion doesn’t cause the violence, it’s the excuse for it.” (source)

Furnish barely dwells on the Tsarnaevs. He is intent on making a broader point: that religion — Islam more than any other, and especially its apocalyptic strain Mahdism — is a motivator of terrorist violence. Furnish is a rare expert on this topic, and his points run against the grain of conventional punditry (for further illumination, see Charles Cameron’s posts at Zenpundit).

How did the Tsarnaevs move from Mahdist videos to maiming and murdering in Massachusetts? A number of analysts and commentators have opined about the Tsarnaevs’ “self-radicalizing.” However, self-radicalization” is a fatuous concept. First, what does “radical” mean in this context? I would submit that it means to accept, internalize and, ultimately, act upon the belief that violence in the name of Islam is not only justified but mandated. This is not a “radical” concept in Islam, ... More than any other world religion Islam lionizes violence, even in the modern world ... . Indeed, it’s probably more accurate to call Muslims who eschew violence “radical,” ... . Thus, no Muslim terrorist “radicalizes” himself but, rather -- as we see with Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- is more prone to engaging in terrorism and violence as he (or, less frequently, she) becomes more observant of traditional (in particular, Sunni) Islam and then falls under the influence of Internet teachers ...

“ ... [W]hat struggle is more epic than the eschatological one in which Islam will, according to hadiths, eventually take over the world?

Unlike the legions of Muslims who believe in the Mahdi but are content to wait passively and piously for his arrival (if they’re Sunni) or return (if they’re Twelver Shi`i), but like AQ [al Qaeda] and some other Sunni groups, the brothers Tsarnaev fused jihadist and Mahdist thought in an attempt to “hotwire the apocalypse.”” (source)

Furnish’s points are mainly about time and action orientations, not spatial ones. But they are worth including here. They show that time and action orientations are significant too — and of greater interest in some perspectives. They also show that analysts should attend to nuances. I particularly like his point that radicalization in this case is tantamount to traditionalization —the Tsarnaevs were connecting not to a brand new space of thinking, but to a deeply ancient one. Moreover, his analysis shows that sectarian Muslims may share similar views about the coming of the Mahdi (a time orientation), yet differ over whether to wait passively or push for it (alternative action orientations). In other words, though it may be interesting whether one STA dimension or another dominates, the entire STA profile must be delineated in order to fully understand a mindset.

Wrap-up comments: suggestions for developing STA as theory and tool

So I’ve made my key point: that the Boston bombers provide grist for STA, especially for the hypothesis that spatial orientations play leading roles in the formation of terrorist mindsets. Now here are some additional points for thinking about STA and trying to develop it as theory and tool. Lots more will have to be done to develop STA if it is ever to become attractive and useful.

First, a digression: I’ve long used the word “action” — the A in STA — to get at whether, how, when, and why people think they can, or cannot, affect the world around them. But as the years have passed since the STA framework first occurred to me in the 1960s, social scientists have increasingly used “agency” to refer to much the same thing. Indeed, Wikipedia now has three entries for the term, depending on whether one’s concern is with agency in philosophy (here), in sociology (here), or in theory about structure and agency (here). Thus, since the the term action has never seemed entirely suitable to me, I may henceforth substitute agency at times. Some readers may prefer it.

1. Mapping the spatial terrain — As implied by the underlining of key words in quotations above, it seems advisable to design a coding scheme based on key words and phrases, and relations among them — sort of a narrative network analysis. As noted in a prior post (here), my reading of the literature indicates that the basics should include mapping the following:

• The actors, objects, and structures — their identity, distribution, scope, and strength — defining the space(s).
• Connections and pathways that link them.
• Layout in terms of centers, distances, and horizons.
• Divisions, or partitions, into realms, domains, and layers.
• Organization of the above into whole spatial systems.

Ultimately, something like that would also be needed for all three STA dimensions.

2. Charting changes in spatial orientations — Analysts should be on the look-out for how spatial orientations evolve over time. For example, an STA proposition that seems consistent with what’s in this post is that the Tsarnaevs went through a phase of compression-diminution, followed by a phase of enlargement-exaltation — sort of an upside-down spatial variant of the once-famous temporal J-curve theory (Davies, 1967) whereby rising expectations followed by dashed hopes leads to revolution.

As noted in a prior post about spatial matters (here), this resembles an explosive reaction known as “running amok” in which a period of sullen underground brooding is followed by an outburst of homicidal rage. Psychiatrist B. G. Burton-Bradley (1972), after analyzing amok-runners in Papua-New Guinea (the source of the term), described such brooding 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.”

That sounds like part of what may have evolved with the Tsarnaevs — an emotionally-intense cognitive process, spread over time, that has much to do with STA dynamics, and little to do with grand beliefs that get attached about religion, ideology, or whatever.

There are surely lots of other such propositions waiting to be identified as well. After all, the literatures about globalization, the Internet, and radicalization are full of propositions about effects on and changes in people’s spatial perceptions, not to mention their time and agency orientations as well.

3. Modeling STA as a dynamic progression — This post focuses on spatial orientations, but STA instructs inquiring into all three dimensions in order to gain a full picture of the cognitive underpinnings of a person’s (or group’s, or culture’s) mentality. STA further instructs charting changes in all three dimensions over time, along with overlapping interactions among them. It’s bound to be a complex compound process.

My preliminary view is that, in cases like that of the Tsarnaevs, especially the older brother, the spatial orientations shift and re-consolidate first, then the time orientations, and finally the notions about agency. Evidence is lacking to be sure about this, but it seems a potentially interesting hypothesis. It’s also an hypothesis that should be approached with context and nuance in mind. For example, in the past some immigrants who shifted that way turned to communism, whereas today the lure is to jihadi terrorism — quite different outcomes, for quite different people in different eras.

Coda: Rethinking narrative strategy — Beyond and apart from the Boston bombing case, my view of STA (not to bring in TIMN as well) is that it has implications for the weaving of narrative and counter-narrative strategies. I can only hint at this intuition as a way to wrap-up this post, but it’s already hinted in quotes above from Zalman and Atran:

“There is nothing more challenging to uproot than another person’s worldview. One way not to do it is with “counter-narratives” that simply oppose or offer alternatives with no connection to the cultural or ideological fabric of an extremist’s worldview. Nevertheless, this was the general premise of the “war of ideas” for the last decade.” (source)

“But the popular notion of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West is woefully misleading. Violent extremism represents not the resurgence of traditional cultures, but their collapse, as young people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity that gives personal significance. This is the dark side of globalization.” (source)

STA implies paying detailed attention to the space-time-action elements that may figure in narratives and counter-narratives. Those elements may be crucially important in determining a narrative’s effect — just as important as the grand ideas that are said to be at stake, like freedom and democracy. Get the STA elements right or wrong, and you get the narrative strategy right or wrong.

- - - - -

[UPDATE — December 16, 2013: Boston Globe journalists have provided a long comprehensive report about “The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev” that focuses on family history and dynamics. It starts by emphasizing that:

“One decade after they arrived bristling with expectation, the Tsarnaev family had imploded, each member marked by some personal failure within a culture they never fully understood or adapted to. Only two of the Tsarnaev children would graduate from high school, and none of the four ever found their footing outside the troubled family circle.”

While both brothers’ lives were beset by blocked and broken dreams and family disconnects, the older appeared to suffer from some schizophrenia or paranoia (not to mention narcissism) as well:

“As their relationship grew closer, Tamerlan confided in Larking his troubling secret about the voice inside his head. Tamerlan told him that he had been hearing the voice for some time, and that he had a theory of what might be afflicting him.

“He believed in majestic mind control, which is a way of breaking down a person and creating an alternative personality with which they must coexist,” explained Larking. “You can give a signal, a phrase or a gesture, and bring out the alternate personality and make them do things. Tamerlan thought someone might have done that to him.””

And as for the younger brother,

“Still, starting in the winter of 2013, Jahar almost certainly knew his hopes of ever getting a college degree — and bringing honor to his family — were bleak, if not impossible. He had so prized his independence from his fractious clan, but had proved entirely unable to manage on his own. It’s unclear why. Some who knew him think the loss of the sense of cohesion and caring he had known in high school, especially on the wrestling team, was more than he could handle. … But regardless of the cause, Jahar was spiraling. And his thoughts were taking a darker — more politically radical — turn.”

Thus the report provides useful new material for an STA analysis of the evolution of the two terrorists’ mindsets.]