Blockchain, Bitcoin, and the Conservation of Information

A lot of these thoughts are inspired by or based on a lecture given by Torbjørn Bull Jenssen, Senior Economist at Menon Economics. He completed his MSc in Economics at University of Oslo in 2014 with the master thesis "Why Bitcoins Have Value, and Why Governments are Skeptical" (available here). The lecture was titled "Blokk-kjede: Et nytt teknologiparadigme" ("Blockchain: A New Technological Paradigm").

Now this is of course way off the area of my expertise (rhetoric), but at the same time I found a lot of implicit and explicit rhetoric going on in the discourse concerning blockchain and Bitcoin. Here are four of the impressions I took away from the presentation:

1. Blockchain is essentially a conservative technology

The technology is described very briefly in the video below.

According to Wikipedia, " A blockchain, originally block chain, is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is 'an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way'. For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority.

So in a sense, the blockchain technology is an attempt to create permanence in a fluid online universe, but without a centralized source guaranteeing that permanence. At its base, the technology is a ledger, but one where the credibility of the ledger has been transferred from the bank clerk to the technology. In that sense, blockchain is a modern museum archive or vault. The technology is designed for the conservation of information in the same way as the archive or vault is designed to conserve precious texts or artifacts. The difference is that the menace is not rust or mice, but rather hackers and government agencies who can usually steal or corrupt data. The blockchain solution to this threat is rather ingenious. Rather than retaining the original information in a safe place, the information is protected by active usage and proliferation, requiring all future transactions to repeat the original information of every transaction that has been made so far.

Of course, this does not guarantee that the blockchain cannot be changed, but it is increasingly costly to do so for every transaction (because the encryption chain gets longer). And that brings me to point number two:

2. Safety lies not in the impossibility but rather the costliness of the attempted hacking.

Safety is never complete, it is never absolute. Any wall that is built can be climbed or breached, any rules set up can be bent or broken. Asking "how do you prevent theft?" can be compared with the question "how do you prevent war?" The answer is that you can never be certain of preventing either, but you can do your very best to discourage it by making it an extremely costly endeavour. The claim is that the amount of computing power and resources needed to breach the blockchain system is so costly that the attempt simply does not make financial sense (the computing power alone to breach Bitcoin is estimated to cost upward of 2 billion dollars). This supposes some things of course, and makes some assumptions that can be challenged (for example, it does not account for a radical increase in computing power that could come with quantum computers etc.) but it is similar to the argument Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite), Orville Wright (co-inventor of the airplane), and Niels Bohr (inventor of the trigger for the plutonium bomb) made for increasing the costliness of war: once the object to be gained (victory) is no longer worth the transaction cost (the destruction of all major cities on both sides), the incentive for that act is gone.

3. Bitcoin (one of the products using the blockchain technology) is more than a technology, it has in some ways become a sovereignty unto itself, with its own form of governance and government (with power divided and in some way balanced between developers, miners, and users). When it comes to Bitcoin, the system and its safety cannot be reduced to the blockchain technology. Rather, there is a complex web of ideologically motivated people, exchanges, and other systems and actors with diverse incentives, who make this work. Bitcoin, exactly because it is all online, generally has to fend off or sustain more attacks than other currencies, but there are significant computing and brain power invested in its security and success. Rather than having a one-time technology (blockchain) that forever will have solved the problem of security, the Bitcoin community is all about further development and innovation. In some ways, this is similar to Alexis de Tocqueville's argument about monarchy and democracy. Monarchies are inherently stable, but then have to go through violent crises of succession whenever the king dies. Democracy is the crisis of succession made permanent, where "a king dies" every 2 or 4 years. This makes the peaceful transfer of power possible, because the people have been well trained to handle this kind of crisis. The system of world finance many in the Bitcoin community envision is also reminiscent of H.G.Wells' vision in The Open Conspiracy (written and published in 1928) where he describes a world system more governed by scientific criticism and merit than politics. Rather than resembling older forms of governance, he the World Republic would be something altogether different, and envisions a decentralized meritocracy where facts and scientific criticism of ideas (comparable to the mechanisms driving physics) will be the main forms of influence.
(You can follow the cryptocurrency market development here https://www.worldcoinindex.com/)

4. Implicit in both blockchain and bitcoin is an inherently libertarian ideology. How can a technology be ideological? Well, Freeman Dyson says a technology is ideological in the sense of what it makes easier or more difficult. For example, the atomic bomb makes offense the best defense, and in that sense it strengthens a hawklike aggressive military ideology. Bitcoin is inherently libertarian because it makes easier (almost inevitable) the libertarian choices and preferences for governance, and relationship between the government and the governed. Individual freedom and privacy are inherently made easier than oversight and control.

This of course leads to all kinds of abuses, with Bitcoin being used to pay for illicit activities, but it also makes it the preferred method to donate to many human rights activists and campaigners in countries with oppressive government control of the financial system. It opens up banking to the 2-4 billion people who do not currently have access to a well-functioning banking system, and it opens up payments to people and countries currently under sanctions by the US. In a way, it opens the way for "economic freedom" and removes barriers for parties who for whatever reason want to exchange money. According to libertarian ideology, this (although it can have some negative effects) overall is a good thing for human creativity and happiness. Left to themselves, without heavy oversight or intervention from state powers, humankind is most likely to be happy and prosperous.

Why Trump is a Tyrant

One of the lessons the Classics teach us is that freedom is fragile. They show people an age where humanity flourished during systems of government that, for all their faults, guaranteed some basic rights and the chance for people to speak up against injustice and to dethrone tyrants. And then these free systems were destroyed from within. Frustrations with partisan bickering and selfishness led people to look for a "strongman" to set things right. For the Greek city states it was Philip of Macedon, and for the Romans it was Julius Caesar and thereafter Caeasar Augustus. For the Romans a nightmare of despots followed, with the likes of Nero and Caligula displaying some of the most depraved behavior ever shown by tyrants. Then, except for sporadic glimpses, there was no real widespread freedom over all the Western world for over 1700 years. The first democracies and republics were not killed: they committed suicide. This is what made John Adams warn: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." This was the lesson John Adams took from the Classics.

Yet these societies did not go ignorantly into the long dark night of tyranny; nor, to their credit, did they do so without a fight. Demosthenes warned the Athenians and other Greek city states about Philip, and his Philipics are treasured today as masterpieces of rhetoric. The Athenians listened, although first when it was already too late, and took a brave last stance against the onset of tyranny. Similarly Cicero, in Rome, argued in his thirteen Philipics (inspired by Demosthenes) against Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Although ultimately unsuccessful, his speeches survived and helped fuel the flame of liberty throughout generations until freedom could rise again with the American revolution. Cicero and Demosthenes were major influences for the American and French revolutionaries. I am not sure the concept of a democracy or a republic would have survived without them.

So what lesson can we learn from them now that we see tyranny and autocracy rearing its ugly head once more in Western democracies? Only this: "Beware of the tyrant!" Do not let your partisan bickering jeapordize the fragile freedoms you have. Do not let your short-sighted and selfish goals imperil the liberty of this and all future generations. Do not sell your vote and influence in order to let "our tyrant" win over "their tyrant." If there was one painful lesson the Romans had to learn, it was the "equality" of oppression and fear experienced by rich and poor under the terrible reign of the tyrants.

On this blog, I have sometimes lamented the erosion of both morality and liberties in Western societies, and yet the present moment makes me more indignant and troubled than I have ever been before about the state of particularly the constitutional republic of the United States of America. In Donald Trump, a large portion of their populace seem to outdo the Roman republic in selfishness and short-sightedness. Instead of settling for a Caesar Augustus after years of civil war they skip right to a Nero in times of peace!

The Roman emperors were not the high-culture snobs they are sometimes depicted as. A great many of them were base buffons, displaying and indulging in behavior that would shock even Hollywood, using their power to break every written and unwritten law, and take depravity to such absurd lengths that no honest man or woman could bear it. Nero was Donald Trump + power. If power can corrupt even good people, what will it do for someone who already brags about affairs with married women, runs strip-clubs, encourages violence, and promises he will commit war crimes and silence anyone who opposes him by changing the law? Tyranny, for the Greeks and Romans was not a form of government. Tyranny was a disease of the mind, a madness. The Roman historian Tacitus writes, "How truly the wisest of men used to assert that the souls of despots, if revealed, would show wounds and mutilations - weals left on the spirit, like lash-marks on a body, by cruelty, lust, and malevolence" (The Histories 202).

You may say I am exhaggerating and that Trump could never become Nero because he is bound by the Constitution and checked by the Supreme Court and Congress. Besides, there is the public that voted for him and public opinion to keep him in check. I ask you, "What bonds can control a man that cannot even control himself?" He is a slave to his whims and desires, do you think such a person will be bound by law, morality, or bonds of trust? He who bought the Plaza Hotel to move his wife into its penthouse just so he could free up the penthouse of his casino for his mistress? The only limits that can check him are the limits of possibility, and I fear that a Trump presidency will reveal for everyone just how much power the Executive Branch of government has amassed in the past hundred years. The constitutional limits on the presidency were made to limit the damage a "Trump" could do, but for the past fifty years at least those limits have been loosened to better fit a president with the character of a saint. For all their excesses, neither Bush nor Obama have aspired to become tyrants. Pushed by their constituents they have strained the constitutional limits of presidential power, but they have never sought to consolidate that power.

Here is a brief list of what Trump the Tyrant could and possibly would do as president:
- Replace any leader of the military and any government agencies with stooges that are blindly loyal to Trump and do not hesitate to break any law to do his will. The CIA, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and other departments as they currently run are impervious to oversight by Congress. Trump will then have a 3 million person strong army to do his bidding and punish his critics and enemies. If you thought the Obama IRS overstepped its authority, just wait for the Trump IRS, CIA, and Department of Justice.
- Threaten Supreme Court Judges to rule in his favor whenever he is challenged on executive overreach. His campaign is already threatening to put out the names and room numbers of Republican delegates at Cleveland who could possibly oppose his nomination to his rabid supporters who are not afraid of using violence. What would a "hint" like that do against the Supreme Court Judges? "Gee, Justice Thomas sure has a nice house. Would be a shame if anything were to happen to it." Especially when anyone who committed a crime in doing so would have the protection of the White House. Trump already offered to cover the legal bills for anyone who committed assault against protesters at his rallies.
- Threaten to use the power of his NSA spies against senators or representatives who oppose his legislative agenda. He has already threatened Speaker Ryan that "we'll get along, otherwise he'll have a price to pay." Speaker Ryan should, according to the Constitution, be almost as powerful as the president. The current situation and status of the Speaker just shows how far the US has fallen from that ideal.
- Wage war (against ANYONE he wants!) for 90 days. 90 days!!! Any liberal who felt smug about Eric Holder's unconstitutional defense of Obama's Drone War should choke on that grin as he realizes what potential powers he has helped bestow on a President Trump. And any conservative who has not bowed down to the altar of Trumpism and wants to maintain any right to voice a protest about potential abuses by the president should feel the call to act now. These powers mean that once Trump hits the White House EVERY single man, woman, and child on this planet is a potential target. American citizens are not exempt, because Holder made that legal. Children are not exempt, for Trump specifically said he would force the military to torture and kill the children of his enemies. For someone who takes every ounce of opposition to his will as a personal insult, that category of "enemies" and "terrorists" could expand to just about anyone. (Ask Michelle Fields, whom he has accused of being a potential terrorist)

He is someone who sees every power and authority as his leverage to crush those who oppose him, His Dad's Army of lawyers have sheltered him from the law his entire life. Imagine what he will do with the Department of Justice at his disposal. If you elect him, you just gave him the world's ultimate leverage. Nothing will then be able to stop him from doing whatever he pleases with whomever he pleases.

So, with the world open to his desires, the question would become: "What are the desires of this man?" His supporters freely admit and even applaud the fact that he would and could do all these things, but they justify it with statements such as this one by Twitter user @larrysr19701: "Ive survived Obama's Tyranny, so far. Im sure Trump wont disappoint." I don't care how right-wing you are: If you believe Obama is the worst tyrant to have walked the Earth then you need to read a history book. Trump supporters seem to believe there is some kind of moral quality to this man that would somehow make up for the immorality he has bathed in throughout his almost 70 year long life. Let's look at some of the personality traits he has shown:

Suspicion
It is incredible how uncertain of himself this guy is. He has the confidence of a schoolyard bully who acts tough to hide the fact that he gets beaten at home. The protesters at his rallies, they are a personal danger to him, and encouraging his supporters to beat them up is just self-defense. He sees every opposition to him as evidence of a conspiracy; he sees every loss as evidence of fraud. Name one single state that Trump has graciously conceeded to an opponent. Iowa? "It must be fraud, that's why I didn't win." Utah? "Romney stabbed my back and Cruz cheated." Wisconsin? "The establishment and Cruz are in this together." Everyone is out to get Trump according to him. He is nasty to everyone and acts all surprised and innocent when there is any kind of response. But of course, as Trump is fond of saying, he's just a "counterpuncher." Someone else hits him, and he hits back twice as hard. Except, Cruz had no hand in the ad that caused Trump to attack Heidi Cruz and accuse Ted Cruz of adultery (without any evidence). Trump is likely to respond to a terrorist plot hatched in a Muslim suburb of Brussels with a nuclear strike against Belgium. And this guy takes ANY criticism as a veiled personal attack. Megyn Kelly asks a critical question, he goes after her personally. Michelle Fields asks for an apology from his campaign manager, and he labels her a liar and a terrorist. Any news outlet opposes his policies, and he labels them corrupt. This guy thinks he is so brilliant that any critic cannot be acting out of anything but bias and animosity. If in his young years his Dad's army of lawyers shielded him from accountability, now his army of devotees are shielding him from sanity. Imagine an army of intelligence agencies and soldiers shielding him from scrutiny, dedicated to take down his enemies.

Arrogance
From the beginning Trump never had any substance on policy or solutions. His main reason for running was an ego trip. To be able to have the bragging rights of "almost" becoming the most powerful man on Earth. His main argument for electing him continues to be his massive ego. Just read one of his tweets: "News tells of massive foreign criminal gangs in our largest cities. Only I can solve!" It doesn't matter what his policies or preferences are, as long as HE is in charge the decisions are bound to be good. He'll solve a 700 billion gap in Medicare and Social Security payments by clamping down on 3bn worth of "waste, fraud, and abuse." He'll make a gigantic wall along the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it. He'll solve the Israel-Palestine conflict by "making a good deal." Any problem in the world, just sprinkle som magic "Trump" dust on it and the problem will fix itself. If ever there was a man who claimed to be a god.... Oh, he can get these things done, no mistake. But his cures will be worse than the original problem. He can make up the 700bn by labelling, at random, half of all Medicare and Social Security payments as "waste, fraud, and abuse." He can make Mexico pay for the wall by threatening war and annexing Baja California until they pay the wall as a ransom. He can solve the Israel-Palestine conflict by killing off 1/4 of Gaza, including the entire leadership of Hamas, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority with all their families and extended families and "collateral damage." It really is amazing what you can get done if you don't let morals get in the way. Nazi Germany were particularly good at these kind of solutions. This is the kind of scorched-earth tactics Trump has lived by his entire business life. He has not studied up on any of the issues and gets his information from cable news (by his own admission). The fact that he can still consider himself fit for the hardest job on Earth tells volumes about the arrogance of this man.

Cruelty and savagery
Politics and real-estate business are blood sports, there is no doubt about it, but even in those venues Trump has earned a reputation for ruthlessness. As a business practice he breaks contracts and pays contractors just 90% of the sum agreed upon in the contract, hoping they will just take that sum and not sue, since that will cost them more. When anyone accuses him of fraud or abuse he responds by trying to destroy their lives. He even sued an author for 5 billion dollars for stating that Trump's fortune was worth 3 billion, instead of the 10 billion Trump claims it's worth. He is suing those who were defrauded by him in the Trump University scam for complaining. As a candidate, in the "job interview" stage of the process where people try to be their best, he has encouraged violence against protesters and Republican delegates, maligned non-rivals such as Megyn Kelly, Michelle Fields, Heidi Cruz, and a disabled reporter, and taken every cheap shot and ad hominem argument imaginable. In his personal life he cut vital medical care to a family member, a little boy with a dangerous neurological disease, because the boy's parents were in a dispute with him about his father's inheritance. The parents sued successfully, and the medical insurance was reinstated, but this clearly shows that no holds are barred against Trump's enemies. As a president he has already said he would torture and kill the wives and children of terrorists. He has applauded the tactics used by Putin to stifle dissent and the actions of the Chinese government during the Tianmen Square Massacre. If there is a low-road insult, a threat, or any use of force Trump can apply to impose his will and get away with it, he has demonstrated time and again that he can and will use it. Lord help us all if this man is ever given executive power and the sovereign immunity of a president.

Immorality and Avarice
One question I and a lot of people have been asking themselves: "Why in the world does Donald Trump want to be president?" He certainly has no desire for public service, as shown by the fact that he has never run for elected office even once. He clearly is uncomfortable discussing foreign policy or any kind of policy for that matter. As far as power and pleasure goes, is there no limit to his appetite for these things? Is there anything more a billionaire could wish for that his current sack of gold does not bestow upon him? If he ever achieves it, what will this guy do with ultimate power? My mind hesitates to go there, but it has to be clear to everyone what the consequences of electing him are likely to be. Bill Clinton was an adulterer, but he at least tried to keep a facade of decency. Contrast this with someone who brags about "sleeping with famous married women" and who runs strip clubs at his casinos. Imagine a mobster family taking over the White House and you would get the idea. He would turn the White House into a brothel. This would be the image portrayed to young men in America and throughout the world. This is the lesson: "Cheat, choose the low road, hit your opponent below the belt, use any advantage you have, and you too can become the leader of the free world some day." Make Chick Hicks the hero of Cars, make Gaston the hero of Beauty and the Beast, forget all that religion, philosophy, and civilization has taught man about morality and justice: "Might is right."

Immorality and avarice. These are the vices which a tyrant can exercise without restraint, and the very ability to do so constitute the lure and reward of tyranny. To have whatever one's eye lusts for, be it property, power, or people, this is the lure for the tyrant. The desire for absolute power would have little meaning for unscrupulous people if that power did not enable one to break all bonds which social position, morality, and laws would otherwise restrain. The Roman emperors would frequently display that power by taking the wives of men they had invited to the palace. Do not be surprised if Trump repeats as president the behavior he has bragged about as a billionaire. Remember the words of one of your Founding Fathers, John Adams:

"Those passions [vanity, pride, selfishness, ambition, and avarice] . . . when unchecked, produce the . . .  effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation." How much harder then for someone who has never resisted such temptations....

Turn around while there still is time! Do not elect "your tyrant" to beat "their tyrant" and recognize tyranny for what it is: madness. A tyrant is in your midst and wants to be at your head. Do not allow it!

The West has lived without tyrannies for so long that they cannot imagine anymore what it is like to live under one. Words like "tyrant" are thrown around and misused as soon as there is any new executive overreach. But tyranny, in its proper sense, has an entirely different scope. There is no private property in a tyranny, nor is anything sacred. There is nothing where anyone can say, "this is mine" or "this is private." What is there then to live or hope for?

As the Athenian Euripides writes:
"Why should one acquire wealth and livelihood
For his children, if the struggle is only to enrich the tyrant further?
Why keep his young daughters virtuously at home,
To be the sweet delight of tyrants?
I'd rather die than have my daughters wed by violence" (First Democracy, Woodruff 63).

 Cicero, who saw the death of the Roman Republic in his time sums it up like this in his The Republic: "As soon as a king takes the first step towards a more unjust regime, he at once becomes a tyrant. And that is the foulest and most repellent creature imaginable, and the most abhorrent to god and man alike. Although he has the outward appearance of a man, he outdoes the wildest beasts in the utter savagery of his behavior" (50).

I fear the American public will discover too late that their watered down public institutions and Constitution are woefully inadequate to meet the challenge of a tyrannical president. 

The Five Dysfunctions of a Democracy

I have just been reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni. While I was reading it I realized that the principles discussed in the book are not really limited to management or executive teams at all. They are principles of democratic deliberation, and help explain why this process sometimes fails or becomes corrupted or unproductive. Of course, I realize that this is a complex topic that I will have to simplify in order to fit it in a blog post. This post contains my thoughts about how these concepts can be applied to address failures of modern democracies to engage in productive decision-making deliberations.

First, what are the five dysfunctions of a team? Well, they are not five separate dysfunctions as much as five effects which stem out of a lack of trust and escalate to different levels. This figure explains it best.

Lencioni writes, "In the context of building a team, trust is the confidence among team members that their peers' intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group" (195). Of course, this does not translate well to democratic politics. What I would say is that trust in a democracy is built on confidence in the deliberative and reasonable ability of a democratic population. A belief that most people do want the best for themselves, their families, and their communities, and that it is possible to address touchy subjects or controversial topics without starting a civil war.

A good example of a controversial topic in Europe is immigration. It is a favourite topic of populistic politicians from the right or conservative side of the aisle. Intellectuals and parties closer to the center or left like to discard these people and their supporters as "racists, fascists, and Nazis," thereby effectively signaling that they are a no-count crowd who cannot be taken seriously in public debate, and they should be silenced using all "democratic" bullying means and tactics available. We can look at Sweden as an example. As one journalist wrote, the statements in Sweden about inherent unity and coherence have become more shrill as the actual presence of difference and discord has become more obvious. It has come so far that almost one fourth of the electorate have voted for a party that the media have branded as insincere and unfit as participants in the public debate http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/Frykten-for-Sverigedemokratene-7109741.html#.UgjSAJLXqSo Meaning that a significant part of the population is ostracized from the process. This fear seems to me to be the manifestation of an absence of trust in the electorate and their ability to reason.

This absence of trust logically leads to a fear of real debate or fear of conflict. Ideological debate should be vigorous and passionate, and it should be inclusive. The issue should be addressed, rather than trying to make a value judgment about the person defending or propagating a certain stance with ad hominem arguments (attacking the person who discusses an issue to discredit his/her point of view). In Sweden, words like "communist," "racist," "fascist," are used publicly in some of the most read newspapers, and seem to dominate the public discourse. Despite this, there is a seeming harmony among the political establishment and the established media that immigration is not a problem in any way, and it does not need to be debated. A large portion of the population seem to disagree. Any person highlighting difference and disunity is easily made out to be the proponent of difference and disunity. Real debate and conflict leads to a solution which is not compromise (it does not try to please everyone), but it is a solution which the group can agree to because everyone felt that they were listened to and that their argument was seriously considered. Without an inclusive debate, the result becomes artificial harmony. We pretend like we agree, but inside we are boiling.

The real problems from this become more visible at the next level. Because there was no real debating of the conflicting opinions, and all sides were not heard equally, there is no commitment to the solution that won. Thus, policies are not enforced, social programs are undermined, and any initiative decided on in this way, while trying to mend the social fabric, actually ends up tearing it further apart. Many participants start feeling like they are not a part of a team, a community, or a nation, but that they are stuck together with people they fundamentally disagree with and cannot communicate with. More battle lines, groups, and subgroups form. The people become more disgruntled and grasp for anyone who can articulate their frustrations and anger.

This again leads to Avoidance of Accountability and low standards. Especially, it leads to low standards of public discourse. Arguments deteriorate to shouting matches. Degrading remarks and labels become the norm. Groups and subgroups talk within their groups and reinforce each other's stereotypes and prejudices without engaging opposing or even slightly differing groups. There seems to be less and less of a common foundation that anyone can agree upon. Why respect the democratic process for gaining power if that system favors your enemy? Why obey the rule of law which is enforced by your enemy? Why do anything unselfishly or give up anything when it only gives your enemy more resources and power? And gradually institutions, systems, and conventions, built up by debate and agreement over centuries until they are taken for granted, slowly grind down and deteriorate.

The consequence in a business is Inattention to Results with Status and Ego as the only driving motivations for any action. In a society, the consequences can be much more severe. There is now no more national agenda, since nobody can agree on anything. Instead, we have the Hobbesian war of "everyone against everybody" with small groups all clamouring for power, success, and domination against all others. At this point one can hardly even speak of a nation. Rather there are tribes, clans, and parties trapped within artificial boundaries, forced to live close to people they hate and despise. As Paul Woodruff writes in First Democracy: "Without harmony, there is no democracy . . . Without harmony, the people have no common interests. What could 'government FOR the people' mean, if people are so badly divided that there is nothing that they want, together? Without harmony, government rules in the interest of one group at the expense of another. If harmony fails, many people have no reason to take part in government; others conclude that they must achieve their goals outside of democratic politics altogether, using money, violence, or even the threat of terror" (81). 

OK, so now I have painted the scary picture which can be the result of deficient democratic deliberation or rather, a lack of trust and debate. So how can these deficits be remedied? We have these deficits to some degree in all democracies and national as well as local deliberative bodies. Well, Lencioni has a whole list og exercises and ideas for how these can be overcome, and those who want them all can read the book ;) Here is a quick list of some:
To overcome absence of trust: share personal histories, invite members to be critical of their participation in the deliberation process and mention one way in which they contribute and one way in which they most hinder good deliberation, create situations where cooperation is essential for success.
To overcome fear of conflict: mine for buried disagreements and shed the light of day on them (call out sensitive issues and encourage people to work through them rather than avoiding them), create a setting where the road out goes through and not away from the conflict.
To overcome lack of commitment: dare to give up the ideals of consensus and certainty. Create smaller and safer environments where groups can make decisions together, agree on what has been agreed upon and should be communicated, and then increase the level of complexity.

A good start though would be to open up the debate. Let people share what they believe and feel without attaching a lable to it. People with valid concerns must be listened to if they are supposed to feel that the deliberation process has any kind of legitimacy. You don't have to agree with them, but try to understand them at least! How did they get to where they are today? What are some things you can agree on? Try to listen to their stories. Trust that they are just as intelligent as you are, and they probably have reasons for what they do and what they believe. If that could happen locally and nationally, that would be a great first step. Immigration, as many other touchy subjects, is filled with uncertainty.

Though some experts and politicians may claim to have all the answers, nobody knows what limiting or expanding immigration will lead to in a country. Nobody knows for certain whether a country will become richer, happier, and more accepting or whether it will disintegrate into different societies living after different laws with different languages hardly agreeing on anything. There are definitely precedents for both in history. Except for USA few Western nations have had the kind of demographic shifts and movement of peoples they experience today. Nobody knows if the integration process could be improved, or how. Nobody knows the best road to go forward for certain. In First Democracy, Paul Woodruff writes, "Athens had developed a system of decision making that presumed the fallibility of everyone concerned and compensated for it through open debate on an adversarial model--a model that works only if both sides are free to speak. Besides debate, what could the Athenians have done without knowledge?" (175). We can rely on so-called "experts" or oracles. But they cannot be trusted with things they cannot know. "Far better to submit such issues to debate and resolve them with a vote . . . adversary debate, followed by a vote, is a rational way of handling murky issues--better than tossing coins . . . and far better than letting the leaders pretend to have so much knowledge that we can let them make decisions on their own" (175). 

Transcending Titles: Becoming the Leader People Want to Follow

In First Democracy, Paul Woodruff describes the Athenian democracy; a society where representatives were chosen by lottery rather than election and every man had the same right to speak in the legislative Assembly. This practice must have made the first days of the new Assembly somewhat chaotic, since a leadership figure during the last session may not even be a part of the Assembly this time around, no matter what his prominence or popularity was. In such situations rhetors could “exert special influence without holding public office, simply in virtue of their speaking abilities” (33). This may also be the case in the evolving world where Woodruff hopes the Internet will “grow to give the citizens of modern states a rough equivalent of the rights of ancient Athenians to speak and be heard” (68). How then must a person communicate in the modern world to be able to lead a group of people in a certain direction?

In A Rhetoric of Motives Kenneth Burke writes, “A is not identical with his colleague, B. But insofar as their interests are joined, A is identified with B. Or he may identify himself with B even if their interests are not joined, if he assumes that they are or is persuaded to believe so” (544). The act of identification is not physical, since A and B remain separate entities with separate experiences, rather this is a symbolic act. As Burke points out, A has to be persuaded that he has joined interests with B in order for identification to occur. This implies that in order to get people to follow him, a leader has to communicate a common interest with his audience, and thereby create an artificial unity from diversity. Woodruff explains how Cleocritus was able to unite followers of the tyrants and the democrats by appealing to their common interests and culture as Athenians (83). In a more diverse group of people a leader may appeal to ‘basic humanity’ like Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy did in their internationally published opinion editorial about Libya. However, identification does not always rely upon pre-existing ties of fellowship. Effective leaders are able to create common interests where none may naturally exist. One way to do this is by articulating a vision which, although not initially of interest to the audience, is made interesting by the way it is described and linked with pre-existing interests. In Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games Mitt Romney describes the task of leadership as “creating a vision of higher purpose and . . . offering challenges beyond normal expectations” (xix). He writes this about his leadership in the 2002 Olympics, “Our task was to identify a defining vision, communicate that in a compelling way, and provide the kind of focus that reinforces that vision as a living, breathing thing, not just lip service. And if we were to succeed, it would be because of the commitment to that vision by the entire team, and by the community” (xix). It is interesting to note that without that shared vision highly qualified people will not follow you, even in a corporate setting (59-60). As Romney writes, “Leaders establish vision and values that motivate and create unity of purpose” (20), again it is the ‘vision’ or common interest that creates a group.   

                

Romney’s language describing the unifying vision as a “higher purpose” sounds similar to the kind of leadership we encounter in Plato’s Phaedrus where leadership is not simply exploiting base interests to gain power over people, “dispensing miserly benefits of a mortal kind” (38), but rather a transcending process which brings both leader and follower closer to the gods. This transcendence is at once altruistic and egoistic. One gets personal benefit not by satisfying base passions (the black horse) but by summoning one’s abilities to reach a new, higher level. As Socrates says, “they become winged and light, and have won one of their three submissions in these, the true Olympic games, and neither human sanity nor divine madness has any greater good to offer a man than this” (37-38). It seems the human mind possesses a special potentiality to be fascinated and persuaded by such transcending, perhaps partially because of the great desire we have to experience the sense of purpose and unity such transcending can bring. We are united in something greater than ourselves.

See how composer Eric Whitacre leads a virtual choir of 2000 singers from 58 countries all over the world by unifying them in the transcendent purpose of making beautiful music. These singers have never met Whitacre or each other, yet they are united in a common purpose. He wrote the music and articulated the vision, and they all contributed their parts on individual Youtube videos which together became something transcendent.

The World of the Words

For these past couple of days I have been watching Congressional debates on C-SPAN. Of course, with the somewhat trained eyes of a rhetoric student I see more than difficult words and long sentences, and as a result I confess that I am absolutely fascinated by what I see. Where some may just see two senators fighting to have their way with things I see armies and ideologies marching to meet each other on the battlefield. However, at the end of the day it is very seldom that I know what side I would take if I would have to make a choice, or whose voice I would support if I would participate in the proceedings.

I think one of the main reasons for this is what Kenneth Burke referred to as the magic of symbols.

Ideally we would be able to measure what the politician is saying against ‘objective reality’ in order to find out who is speaking the truth. Yet ‘objective reality’ remains elusive because all reality is interpreted in some way. The news is colored by the eyes of those who relay it, even if those eyes are our own. Yes, at one level it may be ‘objectively true’ that an act has taken place (Fred struck John across the face), but in order to react intelligently we have to know the meaning of the act that has taken place; we need to know the symbolic value of the act to determine what response is appropriate (Fred tried to wake up John. Fred accidentally struck John’s face while stretching. Fred was defending himself against John’s attack. Fred assaulted John. All possible meanings of the one physical act).

The meaning of an act is always interpreted according to a world-view or an ideology, which seeks to organize chaotic events into a meaningful system. Most of the discussion in Congress seemed to be directed not at the numbers and figures of a certain report but rather the significance and meaning they have. As such, it is not surprising that many policy-makers in their argument revisit history (or rewrite history) selecting events which they consider meaningful to the development of the current problem and therefore also logically foreshadow their chosen solution.

Here is a very simplified version:

Senator A: America was founded on the idea of individual liberty and a limited government. These ideals have made America the greatest nation in the world, with the world’s greatest economy. Yet, somehow we have forgotten that, and we have allowed government to infringe on liberty and choke the life out of our economy. We need to end the excessive regulations and cut the excessive spending of a government which has become a job-killing monster!

Senator B: As President Bush took office in 2000 this nation had a 3.6 trillion dollar surplus and a stable economy. By the time he left office this nation had a gigantic deficit and was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every day. Why? Because of reckless tax-cuts and a reckless lack of oversight and regulation by the previous administration. The Obama administration was able to drag this country back from the edge of the abyss, where a Wild West unregulated financial sector almost drove this nation off the cliff. We cannot allow that to happen again. We need strong regulation and a strong government to ensure stability for our children and our grandchildren.

What is happening here? We have two narratives which arguably are both grounded in factual events, but they point out different heroes, culprits, and solutions. In a way they establish a value system during the first part which leads to the logical conclusion in the final part. They set up rules and then follow them. It sounds logical because it is in harmony with the logic implicit in the text, and not some ‘objective reality’. We here see a logic based on a ‘textual reality’, the reality or world created by words.

This is the magic of language, and although we create it we are also created by it. The texts above did not simply originate in a vacuum. They are distilled from the essenses and contrasts of thousands of years of competing ideologies.

In A Grammar of Motives, Kenneth Burke sets forth the program of his “Motives-Triology”. Talking about A Symbolic of Motives he writes:

“And the Symbolic, studying the implicit equations which have so much to do with the shaping of our acts, should enable us to see our own lives as a kind of rough draft that lends itself at least somewhat to revision, as we may hope at least to temper the extreme rawness of our ambitions, once we become aware of the ways in which we are the victims of our own and one another’s magic” (442).

If nothing else, my observations of Congress in action have made me more aware of the magic of persuasion. Navigating the public debates seems less like a simple math equation and more like the linguistic challenge of learning and understanding different languages; each of them formed as separate attempts of describing and creating the world around us.

Why Social Media Means A Social Revolution

Social protests and revolutions are spreading like wildfire in the Middle East, shaking the very core of social orders which have been established for decades. In many ways the failed Green Revolution in Iran can be seen as a precursor to what we are seeing now in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, etc. Although the causes for these events are deep-rooted and varied, there is a general agreement that they would not have been possible without the social media revolution led by online blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. So what is it about the nature of social media that opens the possibility for social change where it has been supressed for so long?

In my Mission statement I mentioned a quote from “Democracy & Rhetoric: John Dewey on the Arts of Becoming”: 

“By making the individual both the means and the end of democracy, it [society] committed itself to investing its energies into creating individuals capable of possessing a moral will that achieves enough autonomy from dominant social forces that it is capable of reacting back on those forces with intelligence and power.”

One of the main imbalances that has existed in modern societies is the unequal access people have to channels of expression. So although there may be people who possess a moral will and achieve autonomy from sociel forces (media being one of the greatest of these), they do not have sufficient access to channels of expression. As a consequence of this, they may be able to react with intelligence, but not with power. Unless they are some of the few privileged to be in the spotlight, their reaction will not reach or influence many others. The potential for a public uprising is quenched before it has begun because they cannot distribute their message to enough people.As a result, the ones who controled the channels of expression controlled public opinion.

As I mentioned in Rhetorical Pressure and Moral Will, Kenneth Burke gave this warning in 1955:

“In practice, democratic states move toward a condition of partial tyranny to the extent that the channels of expression are not equally available to all factions in important public issues. Thus we see democracy being threatened by the rise of the enormous ‘policy-making’ mass media that exert great rhetorical pressure upon their readers without at the same time teaching them how to discount such devices; and nothing less than very thorough training in the discounting of rhetorical persuasiveness can make a citizenry truly free.”

What we can see right now is that social media has opened new channels of expression, and as a result information, emotions, and initiatives are spreading and bringing revolutionary consequences. Protests are being organized through Facebook groups and Twitter, restricted information about corrupt officials are available to everyone through Wikileaks and other web sites, and the social consciousness of new societies are being formulated by blogs and debated in online forums. Regimes are perplexed at this new social structure that is emerging. Unlike hierarchical institutions it is impossible to determine a leader you can kill or imprison to quell the movement. The new media are releasing private initiatives which organize themselves without directives from any organization. 

If any of you are in doubt about the real impact of the social media revolution, may I suggest you take a look at the following video clip ;)

We are in the middle of an exciting and scary media revolution. We do not know what social structure will emerge from the new possibilities of communication that we have unleashed. As Douglas Hesse points out, unlike the hierarchical structure of power and information, we are today experiencing “a quite different textual world in which knowledge and belief are shaped less by special isolated rhetorical acts than by countless encounters with any manner of texts, as if belief were a massive wiki."

In any case, I am excited about the possibilities this Brave New World offers, and if it can lead to a more democratic society, so much the better!

Because It's Said A Lot: Mass Media and Mass Manipulation

We live in a world of gossip. What do I mean by that? I mean that most of the information we get is based on second-hand knowledge. Just today I have read about laws in China, military information in Afghanistan, the water scandal in Northern Ireland, all of which I have no first-hand knowledge about. All of this information, like gossip, is mediated. Information virtually never passes through a medium without that medium changing the information in some way. Even in live video coverage there is mediation, by selecting what is covered, camera angle, and how the coverage is introduced.

In such situations we tend to side with "conventional wisdom". Knowledge agreed upon by the majority of "informed" voices. For most of us those voices come from mass media. In the video below John Stewart succinctly describes the creation and result such "conventional wisdom" can have on an electorate, such as in 2004.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Talking Points
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

So politicians know that they have limited media coverage, and if they can flood that coverage with talking points and easily recognizable key words, people may accept it as the conventional wisdom since that is what they get to hear the most. That's hardly a secret. Ad agencies do it all the time with their brands, governments do it with their policies, I even do it with my web page so that google will make me more prominent on their search engine (Oh, btw. intelligence of persuasion, democracy, society, rhetoric). But what impact does this have on the public discourse and individual opinions?

Talking points and key words are of necessity reductive, catchy, and represent the dumbing down of a discourse. They simplify complicated issues to a slogan, and reduce intense debates to a shout. When a politician is more concerned about pounding us with talking points than actually discussing a problem intelligently there is no room for compromise and mutual understanding, which is the very basis of a democratic society.

Apart from this, such "jack-hammering" of talking points creates the effect of bullying. A 1955 study of social psychology supervised by Salomon E. Asch discovered some disturbing facts about the pressure of conformity. Eight persons were brought into a room for an experiment. Seven had been told to advocate the same wrong answer every time and one had been told that all eight were being tested for perceptive skills. The participants were shown different objects and asked questions like "which line is longer?" and "which ball is white and which is black". Every participant would utter their opinion after each other according to where they were sitting in the circle. For the first few questions the eighth individual answered according to his own perception, but by the fourth question he was getting unsure and frustrated. Did the rest really see things so differently from him? Could they all be wrong each time? From then on the eighth participant answered the same answer as the rest of the group. He even said a white ball was black and that a black ball was white.

A full summary of the study can be found here:
http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0155060678_rathus/ps/ps18.html

As a conclusion to the study, Professor Asch wrote:
"Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of his experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends. That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."

There is a real danger that we as individuals will allow ourselves to conform to views, values and opinions that are neither personal, factual, or moral. Just like the participant in the study we may cave in to the pressure of conformity. Ask yourself, next time you are watching a movie, a political ad, or the news: "Do I agree with this representation of the world? What values is this movie promulgating as good and acceptable? What evidence does this person have for that claim? How is what this person is saying making me feel?"

In asking these questions we may very well choose to agree with what is being presented to us, but the difference is that we then make a moral choice rather than just taking the default option.

The MIB-phenomenon and Democratic Action

In the 1997 movie "Men In Black" K convinces J that secrecy and privileged information is crucial for intelligent action. The assumption for this claim is that human beings as individuals act more rationally than humans as a mass movement: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicking, dangerous animals, and you know it." Similar arguments about the irrationality of mass decision have been used to defend aristocracy, secrecy in government and military, and to attack whistleblowers and others who disseminate privileged information among the general public.

One of the most recent examples is that of Wikileaks. First with the Afghan War Diary, then with the Iraq War Diary and Cablegate, the whistleblower web site drew criticism from governments worldwide. Though there are other serious issues involved in that debate, the main question is "how much does a people have the right to know about what their government is doing?"

If intelligent democratic action is not possible then there is no valid case that can be made in favour of a democratic system. If K is right then people are best left in the dark about the essential decisions that determine much of their lives. I believe intelligent democratic action is possible, but the prerequisite is an informed electorate. That places a tremendous responsibility on the media as well as the individual citizen in any democratic society. This was eloquently advocated by John F. Kennedy in his first year as president.



He argues that nothing but the "narrowest limits of national security" should be kept secret from the people. One can question what those narrowest limits are, and whether these boundaries were crossed in the case of the leaks. Yet if we look at the total impact of the leaks, I agree with some points made by Professor Anatol Lieven from the War Studies Department of King's College in London. His complete analysis can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11918573

He argues that the arguments made for secrecy are "outweighed - in the West, not obviously in Russia - by the fact that we are after all supposed to be democracies, and our electorates have the democratic right to know more than they have done in recent years about the conduct of their government's foreign policy. Far too much misinformation and outright lying has surrounded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Overall, we in the West now live in an atmosphere of security hysteria and obsessive secrecy that would have filled our ancestors with horror."

A society is only democratic if a citizenry can protest against and stop actions they do not agree with, and such reaction is impossible if the actions of their government are kept secret.

Religious Values in the Public Square

The values of a democratic society determine many of its actions. These values are shaped by public discourse. I have found an online article which describes this process very accurately and encourage everyone to read it. 

Religious Values in the Public Square

Here is one excerpt:
"Our public interaction reveals much about who we are as a people, what values we uphold and what kind of society we want to live in. The discourse that emerges from that interaction continually defines what we consider morally acceptable, how we treat others, and how in turn we expect to be treated."

Modern democratic societies generally have a broad public discourse as their ideal, inviting contributions from different ethnic, ideological and religious groups. Yet in many democratic societies religious groups have been marginalized. Despite the fact that many of these have legitimate competence and experience in areas like community building, solving ethical problems and organizing volunteer work, their viewpoints have often been ridiculed, considered obsolete, or deliberately ignored. Some religious communities have as a result become radicalized (as is the case with many Muslim extremists), others have become increasingly isolated from society around them and its development. None of these two options are healthy for a democracy. The result of the first is that citizens of a society turn against it violently because they no longer identify themselves as a part of that society. The result of the second (for religious groups) is an experience of society which resembles that of totalitarianism; the development of society is in the hands of another group of people and the governed have no voice to participate in determining the outcome. 

To quote from the article:
"The issue of religious participation in the public square is essentially a debate about the first principles of civic life: the coexistence between competing human interests, the self-determination of religious communities, the autonomy of individual conscience and the accommodation of diverse beliefs and opinions in public debate. The way we respond to these challenges establishes the parameters of civic interactions and sets the boundaries of our collective and individual identities."

When groups and voices are marginalized or denied access to the public discourse, society as a whole loses. Many examples in the past show how people from these communities have effectively questioned and changed the flow of current public discourse, and as a result societies have improved. Prominent examples include Ghandi, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Reverend Martin Luther King. These are almost universally seen as heroes. They identified conditions, tendencies or movements in their society which were contrary to their deepest beliefs, and they reacted against those with intelligence and power. They identified their passion with their religious zeal. How much poorer would the world be today if these voices had been forever silenced or denied access to the public debate because of their religious origin and motivation?

On the other hand, religious communities and individuals lose when they withdraw themselves from the public discourse. As isolated as they may become, eventually decisions will be made which affect them. Without actively participating in public discourse they often become defined by people who may be ignorant of or even antagonistic towards their views.

A democratic society is ruled by the people, and that includes both secular and religious individuals and organizations. A narrow public discourse leads to a narrow-minded society. Jurgen Habermas, one of the most prominent modern thinkers, wrote, "Among the modern societies, only those that are able to introduce into the secular domain the essential contents of their religious traditions which point beyond the merely human realm will also be able to rescue the substance of the human.”

Mission statement

“By making the individual both the means and the end of democracy, [society] committed itself to investing its energies into creating individuals capable of possessing a moral will that achieves enough autonomy from dominant social forces that it is capable of reacting back on those forces with intelligence and power.”
John Dewey

From the outset, the premise of democracy has been the rule of the majority. Yet public opinion is volatile and vulnerable. Aristotle said, giving power to the people was a way of giving power to the ones who could persuade the people. This concern has been validated throughout the history of democracy. Demagogues can manipulate and inflame public opinion by playing on the very basest attributes of human nature, until the people act like a mob and willingly throw out the foundations of liberty and freedom. Many democratic societies have, like Germany in the 1930s, voted themselves out of power.

It is essential for the stability of any democratic society that there are individuals within that society who are able to distance themselves from the influence of dominant social forces, to question them and, if necessary, to react back on those forces with "intelligence and power". Thus they can stem the flow of public opinion when it would otherwise propel the people off the edge of a cliff.

Democracy works not by coercion but persuasion. Therefore it is crucial for a democratic citizen to seek and gain what I have called 'the intelligence of persuasion' in order to both recognize persuasive influences in society and, when necessary, be able to persuade others to reject those influences.

This web page is dedicated to learning and teaching the intelligence of persuasion in order to build a more democratic society.