The People have power and we can tap into that again. —Lowell Christy
Lowell Christy, Cultural Strategies Institute
Last July, as the media reported on Edward Snowden, the NSA, and surveillance through phone and internet service companies like Verizon, Google, and Microsoft, I spoke with Dr. Lowell Christy about his research on the American Revolution and the logic of 21st Century intelligence-gathering.
Dr. Christy, founder and director of the Maryland-based Cultural Strategies Institute and a board advisor for George Washington University’s Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning, has spent more than three decades applying cybernetics insights, systems thinking, and collective IQ techniques to social and cultural transformation initiatives all over the world. His five-part series, The Intelligence Wars, will be released later this year.
KM: Who are you writing The Intelligence Wars for?
LC: I’m writing for ordinary Americans, not policy-makers. During the Revolutionary War, British General Howe’s plans were undermined by an American housewife by the name of Lydia Darragh. Howe planned to move his troops into Whitemarsh, PA, but Mrs. Darragh leaked the details to George Washington so that American forces weren’t taken by surprise.
That was the colonial American informal information network in action: ordinary untrained people outwitting a superior British military. The People have power and we can tap into that again.
There have been a lot of surveillance-related news stories recently: Manning, Wikileaks, Snowden, PRISM, whistle-blowing, Xkeyscore, and the government’s intelligence-gathering systems. Why should an ordinary person care about intelligence-gathering or metadata?
A simple way to define intelligence is as “in tell”—telling into a subject. To understand a network, intelligence agencies can now compile every piece of mail sent through the postal service, every phone call, credit card, every email, every internet keystroke. And every license plate too—more than ten thousand new licenses are added to this database every day. Combined with the interstate camera system, the metadata in the database allows the agencies to know who travels where and when, and who is speaking with whom.
The art of assembly is the attack point here; the monitoring of assembly subliminally oppresses the People. These strategies eat away at the root of American genius, which is our ability to share and debate ideas freely in order to thresh out differences, separate the truth from the chaff, and grow our commonwealth together.
When you say the art of assembly is under attack with meta-surveillance, what do you mean? Are there any insights into this from your study of the US Revolution and the Founders’ writings?
Yes. John Adams wrote that the American Revolution “was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.” He wanted future generations of Americans to codify the Revolutions’ pamphlets, letters, and communications of the Revolution, to archive the war, so that we would build an understanding of not just the war’s surface politics and military strategy, but also the conversations and relationships among ordinary people that the Revolution was based on.
The Revolution was triggered in part by the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed a duty on pamphlets more than half a page long. Ben Franklin was a printer, so he and other writers and critics were directly impacted by this law, and Jonathan Swift predicted that the Stamp Act would “utterly ruin” pamphleteers and the larger press. In England and the colonies, the monarchy used the Stamp Act to raise revenue from writers and inhibit the criticism they distributed through the print media. So that Act was a choke-and control point that strangled the knowledge-building networks of America, and it became the tripwire for the Revolutionary War.
I write more about this in the second article in the series: the data collection programs that are part of the surveillance state today are very similar to the “intolerable acts” that sparked the Revolution.
Yes, the Prime Minister is proposing that all broadband subscribers have to opt in to receive the unfiltered internet at home. The justification is “child safety.”
Wow. So you write about threats to the People’s assembly and parallels between what we face today and the Revolution era Stamp Act. What else can Intelligence Wars readers look forward to learning about?
In Part 3, I write about the Founders’ principles and the tenets of commonwealth that motivated them. They wanted to build the new nation on the philosophies of natural ability potentials and distributed networked intelligence, not the monarchical model of centralized power and centralized control. Part 4 looks at the organizational pathologies and institutional complexes that work against this natural ability and strangle the organism that is our nation. Finally in Part 5, I explain how we can move forward now we’re dealing with the same issues of centralized power and restricted assembly that colonial Americans dealt with in the 18th Century.
So much else has changed in 250 years. Why do you think we’re having these conversations again now?
It comes down to power. In the 18th Century, America was fighting against a world power. Now we are that power. In 1913, the United States transitioned from its geographical isolation into “America the powerful” and this was a major shift in the context of our role in the world.
But power is an information ecology toxin: it fixes a point and organizes new information and interpretations around it instead of engaging new information in an ongoing conversation. So we became powerful, and we also developed a truncated, militarized mind.
Karbala, Iraq, March 17, 2003 (c) John Moore, AP
A militarized mind truncates the decision-making process: it fixes one’s attention on deciding and acting, but doesn’t allow for the observation and orientation need to learn intelligently. Our wars have given us a lot of technology, but technology reinforces this shortcut because it is based on “assumption in, assumption out.”
So what’s the way out? What are our alternatives?
The US revolution was an experiment based the Scottish Enlightenment. The Scottish Enlightenment teaches us to understand problems by looking at systems, not just individuals, and to accept the concept of evolution or change. In the Herbert Spencer model, evolution is the capacity to have a different future beyond the condemnation of the past or the present: we have the capacity to leap beyond the limits of our past.
We’re often taught the surface reasons for our revolution—shaking off the monarchy, resentment about taxes—but the Revolution has much deeper roots than that. If we can understand those deeper natural intelligence principles and the tools they give us to break our organizational and institutional pathologies, then we can start navigating our way out of the artificial power-centric hegemony that’s dominant today.
I came across these paragraphs today, from one of the last columns The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote on New Years Eve 2013.
I don’t believe the arc of the universe bends towards justice. I don’t even believe in an arc. I believe in chaos. I believe powerful people who think they can make Utopia out of chaos should be watched closely. I don’t know that it all ends badly. But I think it probably does.
I’m also not a cynic. I think that those of us who reject divinity, who understand that there is no order, there is no arc, that we are night travelers on a great tundra, that stars can’t guide us, will understand that the only work that will matter, will be the work done by us. Or perhaps not. Maybe the very myths I decry are necessary for that work. I don’t know. —Ta-Nehisi Coates
As part of my prep for a panel this February about the future of Seventh-day Adventism, I’ve been reflecting on the oft-quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. statement that the “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” It’s from a 1965 speech he gave in Montgomery, Alabama, just one month after the assassination of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz). King affirmed the crowd on the desegregation and Civil Rights Act victories, but also looked forward to other issues: voting rights, anti-poverty work, employment access, and continued non-violence.
In the past I’ve argued for all three of MLK’s premises: (a) that there is an arc to the outworking of human activity; (b) that this arc is long, spans generations, and favors the patient; and (c) that this arc bends toward justice, toward improvement, toward wholeness. The beauty to this perspective is an assurance that, contrary to appearances, things will work out in the end: there is an ideal future ahead—a heaven—if we will only persist and insist through the inertia of the present.
Since 1965, though, the “bends towards justice” phrase has dropped into cliche. To those like Coates who’ve graduated from King’s Christian idealism, premise (b) appears obvious: humans have been figuring out what a healthy society takes for a mighty long time, and progress on most fronts takes lifetimes even as it includes setbacks. But premises (a) and (c) don’t fare so well when analyzed afresh. There’s no objective proof for a pre-determined blueprint, and while humans seem to be becoming less violent overall, justice and wholeness haven’t proven to be inevitable alternatives to the abuse and division that seem so common. The belief that they are inevitable and/or can be coaxed out of the ether with our cultivated determination is somewhat like functional self-deception, a mantra that keeps activists working for the changes we advertise and argue for.
There’s a line from the Bhagavad-Gita that I’ve been resisting for about a year now and that came home to me when I read Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art a few months ago:
A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field. (emphasis added)
This insight isn’t about salary or compensation: it’s not about labor rights or fair pay or anything so straightforward. It’s much scarier than that. It’s a head-on challenge to the prophet’s closeted wish that he’ll see the outcomes for which he strives in his lifetime, that he’ll be vindicated, that the scoffers will finally get it, and that a well-earned flush of smugness can finally flow through him.
But it’s rare that we get that pay-off. We work and live in hope that our work will be proven valuable, that the challenges are worth our effort. Because we hope, we can be disappointed; we work in love with and for communities we love, and so we can be heartbroken. Even if there is no arc, no bend toward justice, and no guarantee of success, we work anyway. Even if there is no arc, we live as though there were.
The dreamers, the strivers, the change-seekers—we’re the stout-hearted children of Atlas. Our load isn’t the celestial sphere, though: it’s a cluster of night visions and daydreams, dreams of an inhabitable future.
We know that that future is not inevitable.
And we work anyway.
The dreamers are the saviors of the world… Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them in the realities which it shall one day see and know.
Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. —James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
The Farnese Atlas upholds the celestial sphere. Image credit: Gabriel Seah (c) 2006
All of that [skill, experience, enthusiasm, potential, will, and grit] I had, but it wasn’t enough to move me forward. Outside of the umbrella of my former university, I was restricted… When the low-grade stress became a scream and I thought I was exhausted, I conferred with a lawyer and started the process of applying for permanent residency independently… [Now] I’m meeting a new year with the ability to move.
Sometimes our assumptions and premises lead us to miss the point.
Yet I’d always had the ability to move. This ability changed my year, but it wasn’t magically bestowed on me just in time to deflect a crash. I’d always been able to think new thoughts, see new options, test alternatives, fail, and test something different. But I’d allowed my context to overrule my powers of attention and persistence. Over several months, I beat myself against the rock of Circumstance, and so I suffered. But when I started acting so as to shape Circumstance, the restrictions I’d experienced shifted. Not immediately and not all at once, but not a moment before.
Looking back, I’m glad I experienced this, because now I know what doesn’t work.
Throwing oneself at Circumstance but not identifying actions that could shift Circumstance—that doesn’t work.
It’s not that the external restrictions I faced last year weren’t real. They were very legal and very real. But the internal restrictions I faced? Those were unnecessary troubles, and for the months I let them lead me, they limited the options I saw and judged feasible.
Where I Erred
Trained to listen respectfully to authority figures, I took it for granted that they knew what they were talking about.But instead of speaking about me and my case, some spoke about averages—I’m not average—and others spoke from fears and worries that I don’t live by. Not everyone has the expertise to evaluate my experience or potential or risk load, and no one can be as invested in my continued progress as I am. The rules and cautions they offered weren’t about me or for me, but when I accepted them as though they were, I earned the limited perspective that resulted.
At the same time, I was inconsistent about focusing on the future I knew I wanted and taking small, steady steps toward it. I was tempted, every so often, to appease my uncertainty, to drop my goals and do what others deemed more responsible, or to seat my projects at the kids’ table while I gave over my prime energy to the visions of others. And I was impatient with everything, especially with myself.
Beginning Again
One of my new friends uses the phrase “Begin Again” as a touchstone. I love this phrase!
Climb the mountain ahead—one step at a time. Image (c) K. McKenzie
In learning the wisdom of the turtle I’m gaining a lot of experiences to retrain the impatience in my blood. My relocation last decade swung me into high, productive activity within the first 3 weeks, but this decade’s relocation is about building deliberately without an institutional safety net. I still have resources and support, but some of the logic and tools I need this time are different than those I used before.
Last week, I read the 1902 pamphlet As a Man Thinketh by James Allen for the first time. I’ve seen it referenced in several books over the years and it’s a classic in more than age: it represents the spirit of its milieu, the US and Europe pre-Titanic and pre-World War I. Those were years in which popular writers and preachers were equally convinced of the power of mind and thought, the science and surety of human progress, and the role of optimism and innovative action in individual and social development. Out of this milieu came Ernest Holmes and the Science of Mind tradition; its contemporary progeny includes a whole swathe of motivational presenters, “life coaches,” and the new trends in “life design.”
During that same period, my denomination emerged as a contrarian voice. As Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart argue in Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream, the SDA tradition countered the spirit of the age with fatalism about human nature and teachings about impending international calamity, not hope for salvation through science and will. With the unmitigated disasters of the 20th Century’s first three decades, Adventist fatalism seemed justified, and its suspicion of progress persists today.
Despite that backdrop, I feel fortunate to have been exposed to some of the mind-thought-goal-action writing men of the late 20th Century, from Norman Vincent Peale and Earl Nightingale to Og Mandino, Zig Ziglar, and Robert Schuller. My mother, who sold encyclopedias and other books when I was small, absorbed the developmental teachings of these writers to help her sell. She also encouraged my siblings and I to reflect on them on our own. I’ll never be a clone of these men and haven’t always applied their approaches, but I looking forward to rediscovering them and testing their validity for myself this year.
And You?
Did you join the resolution crowd this morning with a vague intention, or have you set specific and measurable goals for yourself?
Have you already figured the actions you need to take to make your goals happen? Who around you is on board with your plan? Check the quality of your social network to minimize peer resistance once you get started.
Will success depend on you “hanging in there” with gritted teeth? Or is there a vision that you can return to and be motivated by when the work gets intense?
Plan for a little forward motion every day, your stretch target just ahead to help draw you forward at a sustainable pace. Stay in motion.
My Australian friends have been enjoying 2014 for almost a day now, but I still have a few hours to wait, work, and reflect.
This Site
I started mackenzian.com last January as a space for writing, exploring ideas, and connecting with others, and also as an archive for my book reviews, publications, and ongoing research. Nearly 150 posts later, I’m pleased with what the site has grown into and am grateful for all of you who’ve joined me in learning through the year.
In 2014, the site will grow some more. I’m in the process of moving the website to an independent host, and as I move, edit, expand, and upgrade over the next quarter, you might notice a few technical issues. Please bear with me and let me know if you catch broken links or anything else that disrupts your experience; it’ll be running smoothly again soon.
Health and Wellness
Last January some of my former grad school colleagues invited me to join what we called The 20/50 Club. Our über-target: to complete 20 hours of exercise and 50 hours of writing per month. This site and #NaNoWriMo kept me moving on the writing goal, but I wasn’t so sure about the exercise.
This chart does not match my success with exercise this year! (c) Jorge Chan 2013
Recovering from 8 years of study but determined to regain some fitness as well, I struggled to find my rhythm. Then, in February, I settled on an experiment: 20 minutes of non-stop cardio every day for 21 days—just to see if I could cycle non-stop at speed for 20 minutes and maintain a positive habit for 3 weeks without exception. I ended the experiment victoriously on my birthday, and when that cycle ended, I rebooted it.
From then on, I allowed for the occasional travel day and rode on Sabbaths if I’d missed a session during the week. By April I varied the cardio routine to keep myself guessing, mixed levels of difficulty, and blended rolling programs with intervals. I increased each session to 25 minutes in September; by October, I was up to 30 minutes; and this month I increased it for the final time to 32 minutes. I won’t extend the cardio session from here on: I’ve rediscovered calisthenics and now complete a bodyweight routine on alternate days. I may reintroduce interval programming in 2014 and I’ve added the app MyFitnessPal to help me monitor my diet.
My end-of-year cardio total (February 26-December 31): 1,227 miles and 31,779 calories. And my blood pressure is back to its pre-US ranges.
I’m happy with these results.
Settling In…
With a STEM grant for a local public school system, five figures in fundraising for a social non-profit, team leadership on a state organizational assessment project, and starting over half a continent away from my old home in Texas, I accomplished a lot this year. I’ve made some new friends, attracted new clients, and weathered local DMVs twice for a driving license. But this year’s greatest stressor was the United States immigration system.
It’s almost impossible for even my most empathetic citizen friends to understand what that last sentence means.
Since arriving for my first graduate degree last decade, I gained work and stay authorization through my institution. I was then a student and university employee, and was granted short-term visas to complete my studies. Once I graduated, I lost that institutional coverage.
My move away from my university town was a move that hundreds of thousands of domestic graduates do each May, August, and December every single year. Since I moved in May 2012, five cohorts of graduates have done the same. These graduates might face challenges resettling somewhere new, or re-acclimating if they’ve gone back home. They might take with them skills, experience, and enthusiasm. They might have years of potential, tons of will, mountains of grit.
All of that I had, but it wasn’t enough to move me forward. Outside of the umbrella of my former university, I was restricted. I couldn’t apply for positions I was fitted for. Area institutions had citizenship or status hiring limitations that froze me out. I kept up with changing laws for people in my category, went independent, and developed professional, contributing relationships doing valued work (sometimes for pay, sometimes for free).
Yet I underestimated how much instability and indeterminacy would come from working through my post-grad year without a clear way to new authorization, or how much it would wear on me to watch my 1-year authorization tick-tock away.
When my mother called, she regaled me with descriptions of her latest Jamaican meal: the fresh fruit, Grandpa’s pineapple and oranges, the greens and root vegetables from the yard, my favorite starch ever—roasted breadfruit—and the other morsels that make my mouth water as I type.
She would tease me with her food, and then she would say, “Everyone… everyone sends their love. When are you coming home?”
There was never a satisfactory answer. I’d just started to build my life here, set up a work and reading space, connect with a local church. I’ve been out of Jamaica for 9 years and away from the UK for 16 years—I’ve been a UK expat for longer than I lived there. Until I was able to transform my immigration status, I’d have no travel permit: even if it had been the best of times, and it wasn’t, there was no way I could visit relatives abroad and still hope to return to my life.
There were times when I considered leaving the country. These thoughts usually came late at night, when everyone else was asleep and the frustration crept over me, when I struggled to invoke the reality I wanted rather than the nightmare I feared; those were low times. When the low-grade stress became a scream and I thought I was exhausted, I conferred with a lawyer and started the process of applying for permanent residency independently.
I won’t tell you that that’s when the stress lifted and the exhaustion faded away. Because that wouldn’t be true. There were 5 more months of indeterminacy, and sometimes when I look back, I can’t believe that I didn’t come down with some stress-triggered illness.
It was my friends, mentors, and allies who kept me standing this year. Incredible combined effort from me, my family, our legal advisors, and my current and former colleagues, and we eventually met with success.
I’m a US permanent resident now. I have no restrictions. I’m adjusting to that liberty to imagine that my domestic peers have always had and perhaps never knew the price or value of.
I’m meeting a new year with the ability to move.
…And Moving Forward
About three weeks ago I looked ahead at the new year and realized that I didn’t want to wait until tonight to regain my momentum. So I’ve been spending quiet time and most of my post-holidays afternoons with the Star Trek movies (but of course), some sketch paper, and colored fine-tipped Sharpies refining my goals and drawing out my next few steps. I’ll be able to share some of those next quarter.
In 2014, I want to move forward. I will move forward. And I look forward to hearing from you all through the year as we step deliberately into our futures together.
A little year-end/new year perspective via Carl Sagan and student animator Adam Winnick. Happy 2014, all of you!
Live well, learn well, and love well here, on our Pale Blue Dot.
This is the second of three Twitter-compilation posts for 2013 (Part 1: Seeing the Real | Part 3: Changing the World). Evolving Deliberately includes tweets on growing up, self-evaluating, improving, and moving beyond one’s personal status quo.
2. Evolving Deliberately
Stop asking for permission from gatekeepers to create. Make your own gate.
