Help
Sign In
change
November 2009 
Fragile at the Core
Posted on Jun 23rd, 2009
by 
Albert
Albert
David Brooks once again offers a thoughtful analysis regarding change. This time for Iran.While a clear definition of whats a core of change isnt possible in the sense of rocket science the artful and effective montage of big dynamic rubic cubes (certainly with at least several dozens elements ) is in demand.
(I was tempted first to comment some of Lexi Neales lengthy piece at kenwilber.com about Introducing the AQAL Cube.
However this piece is highly intellectual and once again fishing with the tier terminology from 1-3. This is problematic as I have explained elsewhere. And the 8 perspectives/zones in Wilbers work. In a very loooong timeline certain trajectories of change may be determined this way. Will be happy following Neales game he is working on.)
Nobody can look into the crystal ball. I remember exactly the year 1989 when very, very, few people -from all professions-sensed what would happen in October and November in Germany and Europe.
So a heightened attention is necessary with cultural, poltical moves as much as from citizen power. For me its not about some miracle power but focusing as precisley- just in time - and determined all action. Considering the emerging memetic patterns in Middle East as Elza Maalouf described here
Fragile at the Core
By DAVID BROOKS
Most of the time, foreign relations are kind of boring — negotiations, communiqués, soporific speeches. But then there are moments of radical discontinuity—1789, 1917, 1989—when the very logic of history flips.
At these moments — like the one in Iran right now — change is not generated incrementally from the top. Instead, power is radically dispersed. The real action is out on the streets. The future course of events is maximally uncertain.
The fate of nations is determined by glances and chance encounters: by the looks policemen give one another as a protesting crowd approaches down a boulevard; by the presence of a spontaneous leader who sets off a chant or a song and with it an emotional contagion; by a captain who either decides to kill his countrymen or not; by a shy woman who emerges from a throng to throw herself on the thugs who are pummeling a kid prone on the sidewalk.
The most important changes happen invisibly inside peoples’ heads. A nation that had seemed apathetic suddenly mobilizes. People lost in private life suddenly feel their public dignity has been grievously insulted. Webs of authority that had gone unquestioned instantly dissolve, or do not. New social customs spontaneously emerge, like the citizens of Tehran shouting hauntingly from their rooftops at night. Small gestures unify a crowd and symbolize a different future, like the moment when Mir Hussein Moussavi held hands with his wife in public.
At moments like these, policy makers and advisors in the United States government almost always retreat to passivity and caution. Part of this is pure prudence. When you don’t know what’s happening, it’s sensible to do as little as possible because anything you do might cause more harm than good.
Part of it is professional mind-set. Foreign policy experts are trained in the art of analysis, extrapolation and linear thinking. They simply have no tools to analyze moments that are non-linear, paradigm-shifting and involve radical shifts in consciousness. As a result, they almost invariably underestimate how rapid change might be and how quickly it might come. As Michael McFaul, a democracy expert who serves on the National Security Council, once wrote: “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”
read more..
(I was tempted first to comment some of Lexi Neales lengthy piece at kenwilber.com about Introducing the AQAL Cube.
However this piece is highly intellectual and once again fishing with the tier terminology from 1-3. This is problematic as I have explained elsewhere. And the 8 perspectives/zones in Wilbers work. In a very loooong timeline certain trajectories of change may be determined this way. Will be happy following Neales game he is working on.)
Nobody can look into the crystal ball. I remember exactly the year 1989 when very, very, few people -from all professions-sensed what would happen in October and November in Germany and Europe.
So a heightened attention is necessary with cultural, poltical moves as much as from citizen power. For me its not about some miracle power but focusing as precisley- just in time - and determined all action. Considering the emerging memetic patterns in Middle East as Elza Maalouf described here
Fragile at the Core
By DAVID BROOKS
Most of the time, foreign relations are kind of boring — negotiations, communiqués, soporific speeches. But then there are moments of radical discontinuity—1789, 1917, 1989—when the very logic of history flips.
At these moments — like the one in Iran right now — change is not generated incrementally from the top. Instead, power is radically dispersed. The real action is out on the streets. The future course of events is maximally uncertain.
The fate of nations is determined by glances and chance encounters: by the looks policemen give one another as a protesting crowd approaches down a boulevard; by the presence of a spontaneous leader who sets off a chant or a song and with it an emotional contagion; by a captain who either decides to kill his countrymen or not; by a shy woman who emerges from a throng to throw herself on the thugs who are pummeling a kid prone on the sidewalk.
The most important changes happen invisibly inside peoples’ heads. A nation that had seemed apathetic suddenly mobilizes. People lost in private life suddenly feel their public dignity has been grievously insulted. Webs of authority that had gone unquestioned instantly dissolve, or do not. New social customs spontaneously emerge, like the citizens of Tehran shouting hauntingly from their rooftops at night. Small gestures unify a crowd and symbolize a different future, like the moment when Mir Hussein Moussavi held hands with his wife in public.
At moments like these, policy makers and advisors in the United States government almost always retreat to passivity and caution. Part of this is pure prudence. When you don’t know what’s happening, it’s sensible to do as little as possible because anything you do might cause more harm than good.
Part of it is professional mind-set. Foreign policy experts are trained in the art of analysis, extrapolation and linear thinking. They simply have no tools to analyze moments that are non-linear, paradigm-shifting and involve radical shifts in consciousness. As a result, they almost invariably underestimate how rapid change might be and how quickly it might come. As Michael McFaul, a democracy expert who serves on the National Security Council, once wrote: “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”
read more..
Access: Public
I felt tingles reading this article.
“The most important changes happen invisibly inside peoples’ heads. A nation that had seemed apathetic suddenly mobilizes. People lost in private life suddenly feel their public dignity has been grievously insulted. Webs of authority that had gone unquestioned instantly dissolve, or do not. New social customs spontaneously emerge, like the citizens of Tehran shouting hauntingly from their rooftops at night. Small gestures unify a crowd and symbolize a different future, like the moment when Mir Hussein Moussavi held hands with his wife in public.”
It is so powerful, like the spontaneous births of new stars.
“As Michael McFaul, a democracy expert who serves on the National Security Council, once wrote: “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”'
What “stokes the mind” and “stir[s] a whirlwind”? Sometimes, it may be the moments, happenings, that could not move a grain of sand when tried the first 1,000 times. But then suddenly! It does! Like the man who might tap the stone 999 times with no visible detection of breaking the stone. Suddenly, on the 1,000th tap, it breaks clean open.
“The West won’t be able to go back and view Iran through the old lens”
How often do we view countries, systems, people through old lenses - consciously or subconciously? These are fascinating times!
And, once again its so true what Ervin Laszlo said:
“We see that any single event …now has global repercussions. And this calls for a completely different comportment than anything before. You can’t do just one thing. You can’t act in just one place. Whatever you do in one place, at one time, will have repercussions to all other times and all other places.”