“But the organization becomes truly resilient when its leaders, managers and staff are willing to reach across those departmental lines themselves — when they collaborate to bring all of the organization’s resources to bear on the threat or the opportunity.” [DeAngelis]

This has really been a question in my mind for the last few years, when thinking of national-level resiliency, even if I haven’t thought of it in terms of “resiliency.” Considering the political polarization, the bickering in Congress between the parties and even the street-level polarization, I wonder what the chances are for a super-resilient U.S. anytime soon.

Now, of course, right after 9/11, people waved flags and Congress rushed to pass legislation, in a show of resiliency; but, well, how long did it really last, if it even happened?

So…I’m also a bit troubled by the platitudes DeAngelis uses: OH JUST LOOK HOW NEW YORKERS PULLED TOGETHER! LOOK AT LONDONERS! I’m fairly sick of hearing these things. They suggest only two paths, or a dichotomy: everyone just crumbles in mass suicide and paralyzing psychosis, or else they’re RESILIENT! Ok, I think they may have been resilient, but not for the reasons DeAngelis suggests — or at least not pursuant to the bare outline given here of resiliency in action. The cultural “We the Herd!” type of mentality (Go America! Go New York!) might have provided a cover; but really, the greater factor was probably a family-level, interpersonal support system combined with a desire to fall back into routines. (In fact, those routines may have been a bigger factor than having commiserating loved ones.)

“They knew how to think about the challenge and how to rise to meet it.”  [DeAngelis]

But really, what did the average New Yorker do in response to the situation — after the dust had cleared? I mean, how did Joe Blow or Jane “rise” to the “challenge” beyond just getting back to routine? I suppose I’m trying to suggest, as the Devil’s advocate, that rigid structures are a comfort when disaster happens, and people may be more likely to find strength from those; so, this may not be the type of “resiliency” that is dynamic, organic, proactive.

This might also be why the country has fractured back into 2-party bickering so soon after the inauguration of the GWoT.

“the people in a resilient organization know how to respond, have access to systems that support resilience, and know how to use them.” [DeAngelis]

This, I think, may be true. But, again, if the support systems are routine — whether the local government hierarchy, long-standing hospitals and emergency care centers, normal work patterns and life patterns, protocols — then it would seem that this type of resiliency is dependent on clearly established paths. So…ossification should precede resiliency? (I’m just tying in a bit of a previous post.)

I mentioned proaction. I wonder, are there two types of resiliencies, one for reaction and one for proaction? We tend to speak of resiliency as if it is a purely reactive quality, imagining some disaster, disturbance, or disruption which demands resiliency if the other half of the dichotomy — utter paralysis or self-destruction — is to be avoided. Perhaps by doing so, we automatically assume a precondition for ossified, hierarchical, long-standing protocols (the known “systems that support resilience”). This may be fine for reactive resiliency, to a point, as long as these basic support systems are available. The more dynamic the world (disaster, disruption, whathaveya), the less likely that kind of resiliency is going to obtain.

And then, again, there’s the question of proactive resiliency — if such a thing exists.

I’m sure that the New Yorker and Londoner responses were more complex than my criticism allowed; plus, we should not assume monolithic cultures for New  York and London. It is true, for instance, that new security measures have been introduced to each city after their respective disasters/disruptions, which means that “getting back to routine” is not all that occurred in either location.  The average New Yorker and Londoner have since adapted to whatever disruption these security measures have caused.  Yes — the introduction of new measures and routines is a disruption of the status quo, just as the initial terrorist acts were disruptions, even if security measures may be considered quite different from the instigating attacks.  Additionally, a shift in world views has undoubtedly affected many New Yorkers and Londoners following the attacks; thus, whatever old routines have been clutched by citizens of those cities, in their effort to survive day-to-day, may be informed by a new set of circumstances beyond those new security measures.  This does not mean that the routines are not the old routines, but only that a door has been opened for possible future adaption:  even the old routines might have subconscious contingency plans which did not exist before.

Even given these considerations of subtle adaptive behavior in New Yorkers and Londoners, the role of routine — and the possible consequences of reliance on routine — should not be dismissed.  Both Federalist X and Vonny, in comments at ZenPundit, also see a need for resiliency which is not purely reactive if a network, organization, or nation is to survive in a very dynamic milieu — as Mark Safranski also notes in agreement to comments.

Singularities and Resilience

I have been surprised and slightly awed by a new post at Responsible Nanotechnology.  After responding at ZenPundit a few days ago, I’ve had my own thoughts, Federalist X’s thoughts, Vonny’s thoughts, and Mark’s in mind, and have been contemplating the subject without yet being prepared to blog about resiliency.  Then, today, I read Mark Treder’s report of the audience response at a recent Singularity Summit, reproduced here in its entirety.

Based on audience response to the ideas presented at today’s Singularity Summit, here are some general observations:

1. Humans are, by nature, conservative. In an auditorium filled with people attending an event focused on techno-change — and in a university set in the middle of Silicon Valley, no less — still the largest applause was reserved for those with the most reactionary views.
2. We fear change. That’s normal and even healthy. In fact, it’s a survival mechanism, hard-wired in through thousands of generations of natural selection. When taken to excess, obviously, it can be paralyzing. Moreover, those who challenge the human tendency toward caution are those who most often make the greatest discoveries (or die trying).
3. Progress — technological and social — continues to occur and eventually is accepted by nearly everyone. I call this phenomenon “Unconscious Confirmation.” It’s like the wonderful quote from John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Seemingly unacceptable change is what happens while we’re busy doing other things.
4. Truly disruptive global change on a rapid timescale is something we have never experienced. We are thus unprepared for it, and it could even be argued that we are incapable of adequately preparing. I hope that’s not true.

His last point describes the motivation behind my play as Devil’s advocate to Mark Safranski’s post: The more dynamic the world (disaster, disruption, whathaveya), the less likely that kind of resiliency is going to obtain. But every point, and the four observations considered as a whole, represent a succinct outline of the problem facing any human network in a dynamic world. For those unfamiliar with the subject of Singularity, I suggest reading the Wikipedia article.  [update: see also The Great Singularity Debate.]  Some detractors of singularity theory scoff at futurists (e.g., at Ray Kurzweil) from a belief that now is then, whether the then is past or future.  I.e., detractors cannot easily see a future outside the framework of present world views, and some may even be the type of conservative that believes present dynamics are the same as past dynamics: “nothing new under the sun.”

Singularity theorists, however, are attempting to anticipate future disruption — usually, as influenced by technology — in the standard flow we call humanity. Futurists like Mike Treder have given much thought about “proactive resiliency,” even if that is not the term they have used to describe this aspect of their thought.

Conservatives: A very resilient resiliency

Humans are, by nature, conservative.  I’ve approach such a conclusion, myself.  In “Flu(n)x,” I’ve gone so far as to say that conservatism is quite resilient, by nature:

Conservative thought tends to have a high level of resilience but much lower levels of consilience. Whatever ideas are formed from the principles behind the conservative philosophy may be altered, refuted, proven inadequate; but the core principles remain in effect, strong as ever. After a successful refutation, the core principles may reorganize and give birth to new ideas, different ideas, but they themselves rarely change. To the degree that these core principles have been formed from an observation of the environment the conservative thinker has hitherto inhabited, they are dependent on a stable world (or a stable milieu.) A world of high flux presents widespread attacks on secondary and tertiary ideas (etc.), and the conservative thinker might find herself unable to reorganize or fill the resulting gaps left by the dissolving ideas. This, of course, can lead to high levels of confusion and a sense of having no control or no power to act.

I even postulated, in that post, a general tendency for conservatism: even liberals and leftists often fixate on a handful of core principles, adhering to them through thick and thin.  Thus, two conservatives might meet each other and not recognize the shared conservatism:

The efficient actors who are not understood by the conservative might be other conservatives who just happen to have a different set of core principles — core principles formed from different life experiences or already formed to meet a current level of flux. (Indeed, the “current level of flux” might not quite be flux for the misunderstood conservative.) These two conservatives might meet each other and quite misunderstand each other; or one might be understood while the other is not; or, there may be degrees of understanding if some core principles are shared.

These considerations, my own and Mark Treder’s, flow together to explain my fingertip-feeling response to Mark Safranski’s post: This might also be why the country has fractured back into 2-party bickering so soon after the inauguration of the GWoT.  Finding strength in resorting to rigid world views — they are our “systems that support resiliency” — may lead to a battle between conservatives although the parties use different terminology to describe themselves.  As a former semi-leftist/liberal (and perhaps a current semi-semi-leftist/liberal), I would like to say that Republicans are the party of resilience and Democrats are the party of consilience, but the ground reality would refute me. [As if ground realities refute, just like they demand!]  If only they were those parties, I could then postulate a true synthesis of resilience and consilience — as Mark Safranski appears to do in his consideration of consilience for truly adaptive systems.  Unfortunately, they are not.

Consilience: proactive resiliency?

During my silence for the last few days, I’ve been waiting for Mark Safranski to reintroduce his consideration of consilience in answer to questions about proactive resiliency.  Alas, here I am forced to do so myself, and I may not have as firm an understanding of consilience.  This is what Mark has written previously:

As I said earlier, resilience a key concept and quality in terms of importance. But what about…offense ? Or expansion of the network or the network’s radius of influence ? What about structuring an organizational network to gear its behavior, culture and strategic thinking in terms of “Consilience ” as well ?

Consilience was a term rescued from obscurity by Edward O. Wilson, the famous sociobiologist in his book of the same name that means a ” jumping together” or unity of knowledge. Consilient thinkers look for the common underlying Rule-sets in disparate phenomena ( all phenomena at their most ambitious) - like Horizontal thinkers they are seeing connections across domains but the interests of Consilient thinkers are directed at the root level - the fundamental laws, principles and axioms applicable to all domains.

Because the concept of consilience is still rather new to me, I’m more likely to resort to an etymological exploration of the term.  Mark also dipped into the etymology in his post on consilience: resilience is a “bouncing back” (really, a jumping back) but consilience is a “jumping together.”  Thus, when Steve DeAngelis says that resilient networks have people “willing to reach across those departmental lines themselves,” he is not talking about a resilient behavior but a consilient behavior, and he is talking about being able to operate across domains.

It is sometimes said, that Republicans have a top-down, leader-centric operational tendency and that Democrats have a “committee sensibility” for their management style.  It is interesting, however, that GWB prefers the committee solution — values highly the input from his advisers, even if he is hesitant to change his collection of advisers.  But I am still prone to an analysis of both parties which sees them as fundamentally conservative in nature.  Perhaps the multiculturalist tendency of Democrats leans their party more toward the side of consilience and the new Religious Right focus of Republicans leans them more toward the resilient side, but at the end of the day, certain key principles remain through the permutations of either party’s policy weaving.  Even shifts in the parties are only the ascension of new guiding principles.  So although I would like to postulate a “jumping together” for the parties, even if the jumping is noisy, I am quite skeptical that consilience will happen in the political domain of the U.S., given the extreme polarization now affecting this country.  Political consilience would require a focus away from basic and historical political principles and a focus on…what, exactly?

On the etymology of the two terms in question, I would like to point out that resilience always requires a unifying principle or set of principles — ossification, protocols, consistent world views, etc. — because these things are a precondition for jumping back. There must be a “back” to jump to.   When disruption happens, the resilient entity is not quite changed by that disruption; or, let’s say that even if the entity is changed, the change does not obliterate the routines/protocols/principles, which have thus far guided the entity.  Those routines are capable of being continued, even if the milieu has been altered through disruption, and can be continued even if other rules have changed for the entity.

I suspect, however, that a highly dynamic milieu, of escalating disruptions, will have this effect:  as rules are changed, the set of reliable protocols will continue to diminish, until a singularity is reached.  That singularity is the tipping point for the resilient entity, because beyond is a future in which no guiding principle exists.  However, social consilience offers the benefits we normally associate with democracy, free market capitalism,  liberal education, etc:  when more entities are able to define guiding principles for any given entity in the network, or influence the definition of guiding principles, there exists the possibility of an ever-renewing, refreshing set of guiding principles.

But we can see, in politics, the potential limit of social consilience, since dynamic systems can reach a still point of balance between ossified-but-competing ideas.  (I.e., can become limit-cycle systems.)  To the degree that the entities within such systems are conditioned to rely on routines that support social consilience, but within limited domains, they may be likely to limit the benefits of social consilience, or fall back on resilience.  As Mike Treder suggested (and Vonny in comments to ZenPundit), this may be a hardwired evolutionary reaction to chaos.  There is, however, the potential for personal consilience.  As DeAngelis has already intimated, a willingness to increase the pool of domains is a very personal decision. Thus, as I consider these things, I am beginning to believe that the future belongs to radicals, skeptics, and visionaries:  i.e., those who can disrupt regressive and ossified resiliencies while providing unavoidable (un-ignorable) domains and principles for the rest of the world.  These radicals and skeptics provide the freshness that will spur consilience in a system prone to ossifying resilience.  They can be a negative influence or a positive influence:  a bin Laden or a Jesus Christ.

Such a consideration will bear on our ideas concerning leadership — and also, on theories of fifth-generation warfare.

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Update:  Mark Safranski responds at ZenPundit; Steve DeAngelis explains at ERMB the difference between theory and general business practice for selling resilience and consilience, stressing also the importance of SOA to the incorporation of consilient behaviors for complex organizations; and Vonny on his eponymous blog applies consilience to education.