Civic Intelligence and the Election

Although his face-to-face communication skills appear to be in good working order, Barack Obama is likely to become known as America's first "digital president." From a civic intelligence perspective I think the most important question to ask is "What will happen to the substantial electronic networks that were created in support of his campaign?" That would help us ascertain whether there are major long-term changes in democracy as it’s practiced as opposed to changes in how election campaigns are conducted. According to Howard Fineman (Newsweek, October 25, 2008), the president-elect has "3.1 million contributors, 5 million volunteers, 2.2 million supporters on his main Facebook page, 800,000 on his MySpace page and perhaps a million more names on Obama's own campaign Web site." Will these networks (and numerous others) be the fount of new energy and ideas as expressed by Robert Putnam when he stated that, "Networks of civic engagement embody past success at collaboration which can serve as a cultural template for future collaboration?" Alternatively, will they act robotically solely to do Obama's bidding (see below) or will they merely wither away due to inattention, lack of interest, or withdrawal of resources.

Rush Limbaugh, the icon of U.S. talk radio, the foundation of communicative power on the right, in his dismissive retort to Obama's acceptance speech the day after the election, assured his listeners that the robotic possibility was an inevitability. Rather than having any voice (or mind) of their own, the people involved in the networks, would serve exclusively as shock troops obediently pursuing Obama's agenda and disciplining non-cooperative legislators — democratic ones included.

I'd guess that MoveOn and other groups will retain their independence, sometimes in sync and sometimes in defiance to Obama. It's clear that his campaign and his supporters used the Internet and other ICT more effectively than any political campaign in the US, if not the world. His rhetoric of an engaged citizenry, for example, asking Americans "to join in the work of remaking this nation" in his election night acceptance speech, suggests that he will not try to shut these networks down or coerce them to support his actions. But we shall see…

There remains the very important question of what citizens (people of all countries) can do to make sure that the networks are engaged and progressive and inclusive. This, to me, is exactly where rhetoric and reality may or may not come together. It's my belief that if people don't choose to actively shape these networks, then the hope for the abiding civic intelligence that we need for the future will fade.

Although the Internet helped raise standards and increased citizen engagement in many ways in this campaign ("truth squads", access to polling information, issue networks, voting irregularity hotlines, do-it-yourself videos, citizen journalism, etc. etc.), it's worth mentioning that the Internet helped usher in a type of back-alley whispering campaign, a furtive "people power" that was often xenophobic, racist, paranoid, and violent. Ken Silverstein writing in Harpers ("Useful Amateurs — How the smearing of Barack Obama got crowd-sourced," Nov 2008) made the point when he stated that "In the sheer numbers of scurrilous charges leveled and of individuals involved in advancing these charges, it seems safe to describe the current smear campaign against Barack Obama as being unparalleled in scope." While the U.S. has always had its fringe elements, the recent campaign seemed to encourage the degradation of civic intelligence in some corners of the American electorate, and the Internet, certain parts of it at least, helped facilitate that.

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Meanwhile, Obama's technology policy as reflected on his web site (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/) certainly reflects an appreciation for the power of the Internet that other politicians haven't recognized or capitalized on. The policy statement has six main points (below) — most of them I assume would be necessary for an increase in civic intelligence.

* Ensure an open Internet.
* Create a transparent and connected democracy.
* Encourage a modern communications infrastructure.
* Prepare all of our children for a 21st century economy.
* Improve America's competitiveness.
* Employ science and technology to solve our nation's most pressing problems.

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And here just a few days after the election is a civic site that's promoting public tech policy: http://www.obamacto.org/

An Equation for Democracy??

I sent this letter yesterday to the editor at our local (Seattle) newspaper.

"This seems like a good time to remind readers about the Eternal Equation of Democracy: If the sum of the citizenry's intelligence, vigilance, and memory is less than the sum of the money of the lobbyists, the venality of the politicians and the collusion of the
media, then democracy is not functioning as it should. Sadly, the equation has been running a big deficit for the last eight years."

Do I believe in an "eternal equation of democracy?" While the conditions will vary depending on the place and time and we'll never have precise measurements for the values in the equation, I do stand by the equation. The one essential ingredient in a democracy is citizen engagement.

Gatos in Rio

Great article in Harvard Design Magazine: Resisting Representation: The Informal Geographies of Rio de Janiero by Daniela Fabricius tells a story about maps and favellas, the "informal" settlements in Brazil. The discussion on "gatos," where the informal meets the formal, is fascinating.

Whew! A Major Milestone for the Book is Behind Us

I realize that my first post was a little formal. Maybe I'll be ridiculously informal from now on. But probably not.

The big news of the week is that we've completed the proof-reading and the index to the Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution book and have submitted both of them to MIT Press. That was the last deliverable from the author's side.

I'll have a lot more on this project as time goes by. For now I'll just say that the pattern language and the civic intelligence work are deeply connected: The pattern language is an expression of civic intelligence at the same time that civic intelligence is pattern — the first — in the Liberating Voices pattern language.

Whither Civic Intelligence?

It's official now! "The State of Civilization is More Precarious Than We Thought." (At least according to New Scientist (April 2, 2008). )

Until fairly recently the stereotypical nutcase in the comics was a person — addled but harmless — holding a "the end is near" sign. Ironically, today, anybody who doesn't think that the end might be near, is really out of touch.

The bad news for people who'd rather ignore the situation is that we won't accidentally solve the problems that we've created for ourselves. It won't be easy to clean up a mess that it took thousands of years to create. So, although denial (or even despair) might be reasonable responses, it would be much more useful to consider how we'd address this deceptively "simple" question: Can we be smart enough soon enough?

How people answer that question depends on their view of how things stand. It also depends on their view as to the possibility — and the desirability — of people working for positive social change.

Civic intelligence is the collective capability to monitor, assess, and respond appropriately to social and environmental threats. Like Gandhi's opinion of western civilization, civic intelligence might be more of a "good idea" than something actually attainable. We may have actually reached the historic point where the enormity of the challenges we face overwhelms our collective ability to address them.

At least some of our traditional responses (like war and economic exploitation) to these challenges exacerbate the problems. Two articles by Debora MacKenzie, in the New Scientist issue mentioned above, "Why the demise of civilization may be inevitable" and "Will a pandemic bring down civilization?" raise the issue of societal collapse. MacKenzie asks the question: "What if the very nature of civilization means that ours, like all of the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later?" Although the fatalism of the question seems unscientific to me (destined!?) as well as fatalistic, the contemplation of civilizational collapse (possibly on a global level) is not just for kooks and paranoids any more.

I plan to talk about these ideas in future postings but one of the basic themes is that at the same time that the environmental and social stresses from human activities are at their highest and the environment's ability adapt or heal is most diminished, our society's inherent complexity, which has evolved — and increased dramatically — over the centuries, may, in fact, be a threat in its own right, having reached a point where its own structural nature prevents it from making the appropriate adjustments.

According to MacKenzie, "A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down."

At the very heart of this issue is how humankind collectively learns and how it applies what it learns — which is a large part of civic intelligence. The urgency of this perspective is bolstered by the findings of Jared Diamond, the prominent researcher and author, who studies how societies face challenges that have potentially catastrophic consequences. Somewhat incredibly, Diamond's research reveals that the "commonest and most surprising" of the four ways in which societies fail to address their problems is their "failure even to try to solve a problem that it has perceived" — even one which ultimately results in that society's collapse.

I plan to use this blog to present ideas related to civic intelligence. My hope is that it will help clarify (at least for me!) the research I'm doing as well as helping to promote the work of others around the world, who are advancing humankind's civic intelligence (without, of course, necessarily invoking that concept).