On 5/19/12 11:46 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:
Several days ago I had the unique pleasure of joining our friends and
colleagues (by Skype) in the Ukraine for their OSONOS. Given the state
of the Ukraine, to say nothing of the state of the world, the
conversation eventually got around to the subject of Leadership and
Governance -- and how could all that work. That conversation seemed to
meld seamlessly with one I had had with a new friend here in the
USA... Leadership and Governance. And mixed in was a new thought (for
me) all about Emergent Governance. As I said to my US friend...
You started me thinking -- which ordinarily is a dangerous thing. I
can't quite pin down the logical trail, but that is not surprising
because I usually find myself thinking in circles. But one point along
the way was a conversation I was engaged in yesterday. There is an
interest group which has monthly luncheons at my club with the
vaporous name of "The Human Values Group." In truth we talk about
whatever pleases and may or may not have value. Anyhow the
conversation yesterday drifted to a consideration of various political
forms. It seems that some of our members had just returned from Cuba,
so that was the start. Then we got on to dictatorships of various
sorts ranging from China to Singapore... and shortly we were arguing
about the "goods and the bads" -- which quickly morphed into
ideologies/political systems, and you know where that one could go.
As the folks headed into the stratosphere of abstraction -- I found
myself thinking, wondering might be better -- Has anybody ever done a
natural history of governance? Rousseau pops to mind, but he always
seemed to me pretty idealistic, and just as doctrinaire as anybody.
For sure we have certainly done histories of governance, tracing our
way back from the present to whenever. But how about the reverse? Two
folks get together, Adam and Eve for example. Relationships form and
certain modes of behavior seem to work, others don't. It is not a
function of laws, and certainly not legislation or "idealized models."
Just very practical -- and more to the point a natural expression of
that fundamental relationship which to the extent that it is ever
verbalized might be something like --- the way we do things around
here. Well that might be the beginning of a story, but before I got
too far with that one, my mind jumped.
To Open Space. Funny thing. We have opened space 100,000's of times in
multiple cultures, and the behaviors are almost identical (except for
superficials like language, dress, etc). And nobody ever specified the
rules. The Principles don't count, and yes we do announce the Law of
Two Feet -- but all of that is simply to acknowledge what will happen
anyhow. So could we be looking at emergent governance? We are
definitely looking at the process of self organization (I think).
Could that be the root of governance?
Big jump -- here's a thought. Rather than thinking about (working on,
creating) models of governance (autocratic, democratic, plutocratic,
sociocratic...whatever) which are then promulgated (you wrote a book,
so did Karl M.), and if implemented are almost inevitably laid on from
the top (wherever the top isJ)... how about starting at the
bottom/beginning and see what grows naturally? Emergent Governance!
It would perhaps become necessary to clean things up a bit, regularize
it, so to speak -- but that should be done, I suggest, all under the
rubric of finding the minimal level of structure necessary to sustain
life. But all that could only be done after the fact...of emergence.
Just Thinking...
Harrison
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
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www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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My oh my I love it Emergence Governance - Funny I just wrote a short
piece on that very thought. I'd just like to add that what we attend and
what we allow to fall away from lack of attention may be something of
how it emerges without force or efforts to control.l Skye
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