Horizontal Governance: The Evolution of the Social Mind

So now that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement seems to have fallen off the major media radar, most of its non-participating supporters are now left to wonder, not only where did it go, but what now? It is very important for OWS to send a clearer message, about what change it wants to implement. If this message is not soon delivered, the movement will deteriorate, and be forever discounted as a senseless complaint.

The first thing that I noticed, as the OWS movement peaked, was a lot of the organizers were talking about it having a horizontal structure. For those, who don't understand what that is, or those who believe that a leaderless horizontal political system is just another phrase describing socialism, or in right-wing perspective, a communist takeover, the horizontal hierarchy finds its strengths in being leaderless. It enables every voice to rise to the top of all decision-making procedures. Unlike any of the aforementioned labels, horizontal-ism is a facilitator of efficient information, for the purpose that leaders could make more effective decisions when drawing up policies, that directly effect society, but with a focus on the needs of the individual.

So, why a horizontal, leaderless decision-making process? When asked, what was the funniest thing that he witnessed during the OWS protests in New York City, Dr. Arthur Chen of Oakland, California, responded with an action by protestors that wasn't as funny as it was purposeful. He noted that the effect of our generation's sense of inclusiveness, while watching the protestors take part in a General Assembly. This inclusiveness he witnessed is what the information age has brought us. Put simply, we have the tools that grant us the knowledge, that we don't have to "screen" each other, when it comes to having our voices heard, and that all of the information we gather from these assemblies are their to better inform us of all of our needs, rather than a pigeon-holed perspective provided to us by the measures of antiquated D.C. politics, and corporate media. The information age demands a place for those venues that would not screen all of our points of view (7).

Well, as complex as the OWS movement's demands are, so is the political process in our modern society, especially when you consider the pace at which information retrieval and gathering is accomplished in contrast to the current method  of implementation of ideas, and policies in current governmental structure on the basis of information acquisition. Basically, there is no political structure in the world today, that is capable of keeping up with the mobility of information. So, it is incompetent in providing a highly informed society with the necessary laws and leadership that will improve lives across the economic spectrum. "The style of communication, decision-making and planning taking place in Zuccotti Park, and in Occupy protests across the country, mimics much of the way we have learned to talk to one another online." (1)

As a society, we are all psychologically geared to consume and produce information at a much faster rate today than in the past, when the only avenues to the most current information were institutionally supplied media. Now the flow of information, being less authoritative, and more unrestricted, enables the general populace to shift opinion and consensus through its own mechanism of verification and truth (i.e. mic checks, tweets, Facebook statuses, etc.). Take for instance Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's statements back in March 2011, where she stated that the U.S. is losing when it comes to information distribution (3). She was saying this even at a time of the greatest usage of the internet as an information sharing resource. With the rampant sharing of information, and the low cost to produce it, media centers have propped up elsewhere, globally, while the U.S. makes cuts to major propaganda facilities, it is apparent that the U.S. government even recognizes its failure to effectively create or even maintain an effective infrastructure to inform on a new playing field.

The pattern of rapid information sharing, and the shift away from powerful or concentrated information centers, is beginning to find its way into politics and governance. If there is any debate contrary to this concept then, that thinking is as archaic as the political system that exists today. It is a failing system, slowly collapsing under its own weight, because it is either resistant, or incapable to changing its structure, in order to meet the needs of the people it is supposed to represent, and coordinate with those who are more aware of the concordance of the highly informed public.

What we're missing today in policy making is a leadership machine that runs efficiently, and that efficiency should stem from its ability to easily discover consensus among a representative body. Horizontal-ism was born out of the political leadership's incompetence to connect, network, or even embed itself within the ranks of a more informed and people, that exists within a nexus of economical, and political awareness. If we are to successfully regain economic and civil control of not just our own nations, but to assure that in the future there exists a global mechanism by which all informed voices can be heard at the level of the representational parts of our governing structures, then horizontal governance must become a compulsory branch of government.

Political leaders remain indifferent, well, at least those who support it. Those that don't support a new amendment to the governing structure, simply understand that they exist in a system that isolates them from common needs, while symbolically upholding that they are representing the people, when in fact they have latched onto a more concentrated, financially apt body of constituents: corporations. Since the decision of the Supreme court to classify corporations as persons, our representatives have shut the true people out of government, and even governing themselves. Through well financed lobbying, it is extremely easy to market popular opinion that is biased in favor of business' agenda, and marketing is not necessarily fact or even truth. The rate of information is faster, because it is smaller, concise, concentrated, and easily facilitated. Instead of having to wait for the true popular message, from veritable people, senators, congressman, and statesman, refuse to recognize the time, the patience or the capabilities to hear an ever-growing population's demands. So through corporate person-hood, the ears of representative governing have only been listening to the minority of the population. Even if it isn't a minority below the surface, it is a highly concentrated, single body, that portrays skewed data, information, and opinion to our leaders, and has basically hijacked the democratic process. If our leaders were competent enough to embrace new technologies as tools to reconnecting the bridge of representation to their people, the need to consolidate information through the pipe of false person-hood, the corporations, then OWS would have never had the need to exist.

I bring all this up not to belabor the issue of corporate person-hood, but to emphasize one aspect why our politicians turn to corporate lobbying first, instead of the mass of people they are really supposed to represent, if they are even doing so at all. It is really a matter of "voice" as information, and a conflict between that and the speed at which it flows into government from the people, and the amount with which they are inundated. Ask, any successful businessman, if a business grows beyond its capacity to produce, the business' production infrastructure needs to change, in order for it to satisfy that growth. The same thinking should be applied to governing. What OWS is attempting to offer up to its leaders is governing system by which the people can regain their voices in government, and "produce" policies that directly stem from that voice, and not from the concentrated minority of voices that are isolated from the people by financial means and sheer totalitarian information marketing committed by the corporations and wealthy elite.

The most important thing to recognize about the corporate person-hood and its new found tight relationship with political leaders is that it is authoritarian in nature. This convenient relationship is severely evident in the doctrines of right-wing politicians, who have plenty of private interests lobbying them, and also support an extreme version of capitalism that caters to the corporate person-hood status. Instead of gathering consensus from veritable persons, the information pipe is diverted, and the flow of information into government has become unchallenged, simply by changing the definition of a person.

In education, the lack of leadership's capacity to adapt to the information age is strongly evident in its complete ignorance of improving the learning environment in general education. In the U.S. classrooms still contain the educational tools of 50 years ago. How would our leaders expect students to compete on the global playing field, if the real world expects learning and skill gains through an information highway, while the primary learning environment is only stocked with only #2 pencils and dry erase boards? If the leaders in the U.S. need an answer to why students are not ranking higher in the global education standings, they should ask themselves, "why hasn't there been a massive R&D effort to understand how to use computers to develop customized reading-learning strategies for kids with different learning styles." (4) If our leaders realize the technology is more about a new way of thinking, and decision making, and less about entertainment (i.e. video games, and Tweeting), then they would discover that educating our kids along these lines would enable them to govern themselves better, teach each other more efficiently, and basically share ideas in order to effectively innovate.

There is a concerted yet unspoken effort to suppress this new mode of information sharing by only the most powerful elements of our society, and their political cohorts, that realize the benefits of not just guiding media output, but excessively controlling it. If schools are not funded adequately enough to utilize the technological tools of now, if legislation is written in order to selectively expose our privacy, take away our right to free speech, and prevent us from seeking out the right information, then it is absolutely evident that controlling the masses comes in the form of authoritarian restraint. If gaining information is a race, those capable of buying policies, and those making them, are slowing the greater majority of people down with uncertainty and unprincipled policies. If ordinary people are adapting successfully to information exchange, and that progression is being even slightly restricted or presided over, then it would suffice to say that not just media, but also the flow of free information is controlled.

In order to paint a picture of the entities that control the flow of information, it must be emphasized that the avenues by which we receive information are highly restrictive because of two factors: 1) the private industry's inability to embrace change;  and 2) the failure of policy makers to stimulate change (5). It's all about speed really. Not about the ability of businesses and politicians to keep up, really, but more about their reluctance to change, even increase, speed at all. If the flow of information is sped up, then change in any system is inevitable, and to ignore it for the sake of security, or preservation of pre-existing systems, is simply put, a failure. Here's a scenario that makes no sense, in this matter, when Google Health (a resource for users to store and analyze their health information) decides to discontinue it's service. Within the same month, Qualcomm Life plans to sell a health device hub, that connects up to servers, in order to continuously share a patient's real-time health information with medical professionals via the "cloud" (6).

Now, you read that last paragraph, and say, "so what, it's the nature of the market, and it's competition for these companies to make changes". But, if looked at from a non-business perspective, and more so from the information architect, it would make sense to have multiple arenas of data, that could be used in conjunction, in order to create a larger data pool, which in turn would enable medical doctors and patients as well as healthcare insurers a more efficient tool to analyze medical risks and factors. Basically, business, because of profit loss, has taken away one source of health data aggregation, and isolate it via a paid for service, that limits the flow of information. The argument here is, why not have it in multiple ways? Why not just have a horizontal information structure, like the format that the OWS's movement has instituted for the purpose of sharing information among working groups?

It is second nature for us to produce information. In fact we produce information as fast as we interact with one another, yet most of it goes undocumented, or is placed in a data-accessible format. Discovering the point at which human interaction on the social level transitions into information provision to those who need to analyze it, or use it as a way to make sound policy decisions, is most likely the intention of the horizontal political structure, that OWS intends to implement. Most people may think, that polls or surveys may be the tool by which all of this is done, but often surveys can be too specific to a certain research need, and cannot be easily digested by the average person, and polls are either too biased or skewed to provide a non-partisan assessment of any policy stance. This, in no way, is a justification for the gathering of information of individuals, but rather, having our political structure take a more determined approach to gathering a sense of what the public needs are.

1. Occupy Wall Street’s ‘horizontal hierarchy’ seen through prism of the Internet
2. The Authoritarian Personality
3. Hillary Clinton: US Losing Information War to Alternative Media
4. Miller, Matthew. The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity. New York: Times, 2009. Print.
5. Arndt, Rachel Z. "Google Health to the Guillotine." Fast Company Dec. 2011: 32. Print.
6. Box Sends Health Data Right to the Cloud
7. Why I Protest: Dr. Arthur Chen of Oakland, California

Lessons in the Real Politic

When I was in college, I majored in both Classic Civilization and Early American Literature, and contrary to popular belief, that Liberal Arts education was the most valuable knowledge experience anyone could ever receive. Of course, it's not as practical or glorified as let's say pre-Med or getting a business degree, but from a critical thinking standpoint, the lessons I have learned from history as well as the philosophical truths spilled out by some of the world's greatest writers has offered up the best understanding of how the world works. The perspective we gain from having a critical viewpoint of the functions of society can only be gained from this type of education, of which is limited, when you look at the more prized elements of conventional education. What does a business-minded professional know about the needs of society compared to its desires? How can a doctor guide the principles of the "greater good", rather than being concerned about an individual's well-being? Even though these professions have intents to improve society, often times they are so trivial in focus, that they cannot endure the scope of sustaining humanity.

Anyone who has gained a liberal arts education, especially one geared towards history or literature, is the person who is most capable of having a universal viewpoint of human nature. It is the type of education that would best be suited for policy making, as the lessons taught in these areas, as well as the ability to sharply critique or interpret the elements of stories, the single process by which human beings can portray their experiences to the world. It is simply a direct exposure to humanity, and not some isolated, unilaterally tuned training. What government, as well as the public, needs is more professionals like this who have paid ample attention to the philosophical exploration of the human experience among other members of mankind, through the analysis and interpretation of literature or history. All of these things are lost or cast aside in science, business, or any practical education. Our culture has become too business oriented, enabling these professions to ridicule those who have studied humanities, and relentlessly divulge to the rest of the working world that their knowledge of literature and art is only good enough for the confines and lowly pay rates of a Starbucks coffee shop. Who is better at guiding the policies of humanity, than one who has studied, analyzed and critiqued it?

People need to address the true meaning of politics, and what its purpose truly is. Often times it is viewed as some negative association to their lives, as if it is some extension of all the bad things that either government, big business, corrupt politicians commit. It is an interpretive science, though, and extends beyond just being some element of gossip, out of reach of the academic stature of more accepted intellectual institutions. This interpretation is utterly wrong, and is detrimental to our well-being as a properly functioning society. Politics is simply the vehicle we drive on the road to something as close to utopia as we can achieve. A road to nowhere, but a road nonetheless.

From one of my favorite essays, titled Self Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, comes the most relevant quote to the discussion of political participation, "Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense..." The interpretation goes, that we must speak our minds no matter what, politically, if you will. This is the core of self-reliance. It is the only capacity for any man, regardless of intellectual stature to put forth that which is unique, and pure, and because it originates from a mind of a member of the human race, it is inherently universal. We cannot fall victims to forced appeasement, whether through being made to feel stupid, ignorant, unheard, or misrepresented. If we do descend to this level of denying ourselves to speak our minds, then we all fail to recognize the true meaning of free speech. We treat free speech these days as an avenue to fulfilling individual desires, yet it is meant for much more than that. Free speech is the not meant for those seeking instant gratification or self-fulfillment. Instead it is provided as a tool to build an enduring society; a civilization that can meet the needs of all its participants.

We solve nothing by ignoring our need to seek out civil truths. For, that is what politics aims to achieve, whether it be truth in individual rights, economic gain, or just preserving the integrity of your very own great society. If we cast aside participation in politics, then we are not free men. Try to convince yourself all you want, that it is a corrupt system by its very own nature, and that changing it is futile. The mere fact that you have not even taken the step to participate, to have even the smallest effect, is merely your own defeat. You have not seen the result of even trying. We leave it to those that are willing to contend with policy discussion and legislation, and that grants them the ability to wield power over those of you who will have no part of it.

It is a normal human instinct to abhor that which we do not understand, or at least resist it. If not hate it, at least cast it out of our minds or any chance to participate in it. The mind will not voluntarily endure those things which it rejects, and this is a failure to recognize truth. When it does so, the mind is limited in its perspective, and we view the world only with self-reflection or inward thinking. Currently political thought on a global scale is entirely inward. In other words, each state considers only its needs, and fails to recognize the greater scheme of things, through the acknowledgment of the direct effects that failed external states may have upon their own.

The lack of new ideas stems from the neglect of participating in politics. If the discourse of legislation and execution in policy is only provided by a select group of individuals, then the guidelines of society become skewed in favor of those willing to partake. Today, we are dealing with a revolution on a global scale, while most of us withdraw our thoughts to self-fulfilling policies and debate. So, there is no better time to turn our political thinking upon those things which lie beyond the borders of states, and begin to inject into the global conscientiousness the possibilities of global citizenship. This cannot be accomplished by a limited group of thinkers or politicians.

On the note of politicians, with all the negative, corrupt, and ineffective leadership we have received from them, there would be no better solution to correcting them, than to initiate your very own political deliberation. I'm of the opinion, that if more people carried out a significant amount of political discourse, more so than is done today, our elected officials could not escape explaining their policy decisions through difficult high-flying language, the installation of public fear, or the sanctity of national security. Everything will be explained, because we have either gained insight through our own discussion, as if we were are very own branch of government, keeping our representatives in check.

Politics is simply discussion. Without discussion, we would fail to gain any understanding of our freedoms, and the attainment of such freedoms, through the conversation of policy. Conversation without debate is only observing. If we cannot will ourselves to even dabble in politics, or embrace it, then we are just observers of legislation that is foreign to us. Instead, we should all take part in the conversation with all of our own opinions, and experiences, and make the laws that guide us our very own.