Brief blurts about tribes and tribalism — Harold Jarche on “tribal values are not democratic” (2017)

Harold Jarche, an independent consultant who specializes in new organizational models for workplace transformation, ranks among the very few analysts / theorists who have taken TIMN seriously enough that it is used in their writings. I hope to say more about this in the future. Meanwhile, here is one incisive TIMN-related post that not only addresses the T/tribal form but also looks ahead to what the rise of the +N/network form may mean:

“We have observed that the Tribal form (e.g. families, clans) continues to exist even when Institutions or Markets are the dominant organizational form. The challenge today is that many people no longer trust traditional institutions (e.g. church, government, banks) and there is diminishing faith in our Markets (e.g. repeal of TPP, Brexit). What is missing is an appealing network model that represents not globalism but rather internationalism, where diverse people can connect without the intermediation of global platforms and companies running on a market agenda. Platform co-ops are one such option.

“If we want to avoid a return to Tribal conflict and a narrow view of society, we need to build and test alternative network models: now. We are in desperate need of new models for living, working, and learning. The great work of our time is to design, build, and test new organizational models that reflect our democratic values and can function in an interconnected world. Failure by current generations to do so will leave the next ones to deal with the reactionary forces of tribalism, corporatism, and perhaps even fascism.

“Open information and access to our common knowledge assets is required. We can only deal with complex systems and problems collectively. I used to think that the great work to be done at the beginning of this century was the democratization of the workplace. This is no longer enough. Our great work today is the re-democratization of society. Everything is now being communicated, and fragmented, at an electric pace. Change happens quickly in an electric, and now digital, age.”

https://jarche.com/2017/01/tribal-values-are-not-democratic/

Brief blurts about tribes and tribalism in America — David Brooks, “The retreat to tribalism” (December 2017)

David Brooks remains on a roll trying to inform us about the tribalization of America. This time he draws on observations from Jonathan Haidt about identity politics having “dropped its centripetal elements and become entirely centrifugal”, and from Pascal Bruckner about how excessive individualism “paradoxically leads to in-group/out-group tribalism.”

Against this background, Brooks concludes that:

“Haidt and Bruckner are very different writers, with different philosophies. But they both point to the fact that we’ve regressed from a sophisticated moral ethos to a primitive one. The crooked timber school of humanity says the line between good and evil runs through each person and we fight injustice on the basis of our common humanity. The oppressor/oppressed morality says the line runs between tribes. That makes it easy to feel good about yourself. But it makes you very hard to live with.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/opinion/the-retreat-to-tribalism.html

Readings about tribes and tribalism in America — #23: David Brooks on “The Philosophical Assault on Trumpism”

NYT columnist David Brooks continues to provide deep critiques along with contingent hopes about America’s current condition. In this column — “The Philosophical Assault on Trumpism” (October 2017) — he points out that Trumpian populists have fallen for “a tribal story”. That fits with what TIMN theory says is happening from a social-evolution perspective. Then Brooks says this tribal story looks more to the past than the future, and is more about walls, divisions, and fences than frontiers and horizons. That fits with what the STA:C framework says to watch out for, from a cognition-and-culture perspective. So not only does Brook make solid points, his piece is a double-whammy for the two theories — TIMN and STA:C — I think help make sense of the world.

Brooks’ argument is not only that pro-Trump populists have fallen for the tribal story told by Trump, but also that it “is a deeply wrong and un-American story”, for America is “not a tribe” but “a universal nation”:

“The only way to beat Trump is to beat him philosophically. Right now the populists have a story to tell the country about what’s gone wrong. It’s a coherent story, which they tell with great conviction. The regular Republicans have no story, no conviction and no argument. They just hem and haw and get run over.

“The Trump story is that good honest Americans are being screwed by aliens. Regular Americans are being oppressed by a snobbish elite that rigs the game in its favor. White Americans are being invaded by immigrants who take their wealth and divide their culture. Normal Americans are threatened by an Islamic radicalism that murders their children.

“This is a tribal story. The tribe needs a strong warrior in a hostile world. We need to build walls to keep out illegals, erect barriers to hold off foreign threats, wage endless war on the globalist elites.

“Somebody is going to have to arise to point out that this is a deeply wrong and un-American story. The whole point of America is that we are not a tribe. We are a universal nation, founded on universal principles, attracting talented people from across the globe, active across the world on behalf of all people who seek democracy and dignity.”

Brooks goes on to point out that “The core American idea is not the fortress, it’s the frontier. … The core American attitude has been looking hopefully to the future, not looking resentfully toward some receding greatness.” As I noted above, these are crucial observations about what it means to be American, cognitively and culturally.

Ever the Republican, Brooks reminds his readers what Republicans used to envision and champion for our country: in particular, social mobility. “The original Republicans were not for or against government, they were for government that sparked mobility; they were against government that enervated ambition.” Thus he lauds past government programs that built our schools and roads, for example.

But now the fearful Trumpian populists seek to amplify division instead of mobility, to favor fences over frontiers, all in contradiction to what the Republican Party is supposed to be:

“Today, the main enemy is not aliens; it’s division — between rich and poor, white and black, educated and less educated, right and left. Where there is division there are fences. Mobility is retarded and the frontier is destroyed. Trumpist populists want to widen the divisions and rearrange the fences. They want to turn us into an old, settled and fearful nation.

“The Republican Party is supposed to be the party that stokes dynamism by giving everybody the chance to venture out into the frontier of their own choosing — with education reform that encourages lifelong learning, with entitlement reform that spends less on the affluent elderly and more on the enterprising young families, with regulatory reform that breaks monopolies and rules that hamper start-ups, with tax reform that creates a fair playing field, with immigration reform that welcomes the skilled and the hungry.”

Against this background, Brooks urges those of us who still believe in the American dream to go “say no to tribe, yes to universal nation”:

“It may be dormant, but this striving American dream is still lurking in every heart. It’s waiting for somebody who has the guts to say no to tribe, yes to universal nation, no to fences, yes to the frontier, no to closed, and yes to the open future, no to the fear-driven homogeneity of the old continent and yes to the diverse hopefulness of the new one.”

I’m enthused by what he says here, from both TIMN and STA:C standpoints. And my wish for the new year is that you all too will come to believe in the importance of quadriformist evolution and triplex cognition.


To read, go here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/opinion/philosophical-assault-on-trumpism.html

Brief blurts about tribes and tribalism in America — Ronald Brownstein

“The tragedy of all this tribalism is that Trump is forfeiting the opportunity to build wider consensus around real challenges. Demonizing immigrants instills a bunker mentality — one that only makes it more difficult to devise reasonable means to combat domestic radicalization, or identify the undocumented immigrants who present genuine risks of violence and crime. (It doesn’t help that Trump and congressional Republicans further diminish their credibility by sublimating the national interest in combating gun violence to the tribal interest of gun owners who oppose limits on possession.)

“The tax bill’s economic tribalism is equally myopic. To fund the payroll taxes that will support Social Security and Medicare during their retirement, older white America needs more of diverse younger America to reach the middle class. The best way to ensure the elderly’s long-term financial security is to invest in the lives of those future generations who will fund the programs sustaining future retirees. And that requires preserving tax revenue and limiting entitlements in order to free up funds.

“No matter the issue, policies that resist tribal separatism and balance the interests of all Americans almost always have the best chance to succeed — and, for that matter, to pay political dividends.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-tragedy-of-president-trumps-tribalism/544739/

Readings in cognitive warfare at the societal level — #8:

I’ve learned, thanks to a negative article in The Nation (see below), that a lawsuit has been underway regarding whether or not individuals (e.g., Roger Stone) affiliated with the Trump campaign colluded with Russians. I’ve long thought that “collusion” was an awfully strong word, and I’ve never thought that “collusion” was the precise problem. There are lots of ways short of deliberate collusion whereby Russians may wield influence and Americans may go along with being influenced (as prior readings in this series attest).

As for that lawsuit, fourteen former high-ranking US intelligence and national-security officials, listed alphabetically from former CIA Director John Brennan to former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, have filed an amicus brief as part of the lawsuit. They wrote it not to take sides but to be sure the court understood “whether and how Russia uses local actors inside a country to facilitate disinformation campaigns.”

Their key point is that Russian foreign policy has for decades deployed “a category of activities known as “active measures”, most of which do not require deliberate collusion by the target. Here’s how the brief describes “active measures”:

“Active measures campaigns encompass a range of activities that include written or spoken disinformation, the spreading of conspiracy theories, efforts to control the media, the use of forgeries, political influence campaigns, the funding of extremist and opposition groups, and cyberattacks. Across history, the Russians have adapted their strategy as technology and circumstances have changed. The geopolitical landscape has shifted over the years, but the overarching objectives largely have been the same — to undermine confidence in democratic leaders and institutions; sow discord between the United States and its allies; discredit candidates for office perceived as hostile to the Kremlin; influence public opinion against U.S. military, economic and political programs; and create distrust or confusion over sources of information.”

The brief further observes that Russian active-measures ops are now managed differently, making them even more effective and difficult to counter than during Soviet times:

“In the last several years in particular, Putin has invested in active measures with considerable success. One change in these activities under Putin — compared to the Soviet precedent—is that although they continue to receive specific direction from state authorities, they are now executed through decentralized networks, creating what one expert has described as a “multidirectional brush-fire-information-warfare campaign.” However, easily the most significant change in these operations in the Putin era has been Russia’s capitalization on the emergence of social media platforms, which has unleashed a new, virulent strain of these influence campaigns.”

The brief then teaches how new social-media technologies and platforms have served as force multipliers for Russian information operations:

“Social media offers the Russian active measure operation a number of amplifying advantages, including misattribution, direct access to an audience, rapid and targeted dissemination, all at a relatively low cost. They can effortlessly assume the appearance of a U.S. speaker, target disinformation to particular audiences, quickly test the effectiveness of the messages, and use social “bots” and other modes of automation to multiply their reach dramatically. These features have helped the Kremlin to seamlessly combine white, gray and black operations as never before — for instance, by hacking information from private accounts and then pushing the information in real and altered form into disinformation campaigns that rapidly spread across the world. This new generation of active measure activities is deliberate, well-funded, and wide ranging, and represents a massive escalation of previous initiatives in scope and effect.”

Finally, the brief focuses on Russian “reliance on intermediaries or ‘cut outs’ inside a country to facilitate active measure campaigns.” According to the authors’ knowledge and experience, these intermediaries may include “political organizers and activists, academics, journalists, web operators, shell companies, nationalists and militant groups, and prominent pro-Russian businessmen.” Some may be involved as an “unwitting accomplice”, others as an “ideological or economic ally”, still others as “the knowing agent”. In sum, the brief warns, “Russia has a practice of using local actors inside a country as a key tool in its “active measures” operations.”

A concluding point is that “The threat posed to our democracy by Russian active measures campaigns is serious, ongoing and will require vigilance on the part of the U.S. government and people.” For this reason, the authors hope their brief helps in “raising awareness across the U.S. legislative, executive and judicial branches, as well as the media and civil society, about how Russia engages in sophisticated influence campaigns”.

To read, go here:
https://protectdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/36-1-Amicus-Brief-National-Security-Officials.pdf

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I learned of this brief by happening across James Carden’s ominous article “Russiagate Is Devolving Into an Effort to Stigmatize Dissent” (2017) in The Nation. The article worries that the brief “raises troubling questions over the right to political speech.” Carden concludes that “the Russia-Trump collusion narrative is fast devolving into an effort to stigmatize and marginalize expressions of dissent, with the overarching aim of short-circuiting and stifling debate over US-Russia policy.” I doubt that — partly because, as I noted above, the “collusion narrative” is not the key worry — but I’m grateful to the article for pointing me to the brief. It didn’t make much news otherwise.

https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-is-devolving-into-an-effort-to-stigmatize-dissent/

Readings in cognitive warfare at the societal level — #7:

The lead Editorial in the latest issue of the Journal of Information Warfare includes a recognition I'm pleased to see of John Arquilla’s and my old RAND work on information warfare, including our concept of “guarded openness”. It’s still a timely concept, for I’m now concerned that America’s relatively high connectivity and transparency is partly what has made us so vulnerable to the “weaponized narratives” (Allenby & Garreau) and “weaponized social media” (Robb) that are tribalizing us. The grand purpose of strategic information warfare at the societal level is to tribalize (even atomize) a society; and to do so by way of undermining peoples' trust in and ties to their institutional and market systems, as well as emerging network systems, so they have nowhere to go but back to the tribal form — all in accord with TIMN theory. America is being riven by that now, and finding ways back appears to be a far greater challenge than we’ve recognized yet.

https://www.jinfowar.com/journal/volume-16-issue-4/volume-16-issue-4-editorial

Brief blurts about tribes and tribalism — Steve Coll

Steve Coll documents that “polarization and tribalization in today’s politics” results from “the country’s disillusionment with institutions” — a proposition in accord with TIMN dynamics.

“Since the nineteen-seventies, Gallup has been polling Americans annually about their confidence in their country’s institutions — the military, the Supreme Court, Congress, the Presidency, organized religion, the health-care establishment, and public schools, among others. Over all, the project describes a collapse in trust over time, even though the surveys started amid the disillusionment of Watergate and the failed war in Vietnam. In 1973, more than four in ten Americans had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress. This year, the figure was twelve per cent. Trust in churches and other religious institutions has fallen from sixty-five per cent to forty-one per cent in the same period. Confidence in public schools has dropped from fifty-eight per cent to thirty-six per cent. The loss of faith in the “medical system” has been particularly dramatic — a decline from eighty per cent in 1975 to thirty-seven per cent this year. There are a few exceptions to the broad slide. Confidence in the police has held steady at just above fifty per cent. Confidence in the military has increased, from fifty-eight per cent in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to seventy-two percent this year. Otherwise, it isn’t clear where citizens have redirected their faith, or whether they have at all.

“The polarization and tribalization in today’s politics may exacerbate this loss of confidence or contribute to it, or both. Increasingly, daily life is mediated less by the institutional doors we walk through from day to day and more by the connections and decisions we make online. Last week, Tim Wu, the law professor and author, wrote in the Times that, for example, the boom in bitcoin — a virtual currency whose market price had, he noted, risen from thirty-nine cents apiece to more than eighteen thousand dollars in just eight years — reflects how, “More and more, we are losing faith in humans and depending instead on machines.” The danger, though, extends beyond financial bubbles.

“Even in a stable constitutional republic, a cynical or unmoored citizenry presents an opportunity for demagogues and populists. As much as stagnant wages in former manufacturing regions, glaring economic inequality, or white backlash after the Obama Presidency, the country’s disillusionment with institutions enabled Donald Trump’s election.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-distrust-that-trump-relies-upon