[OSList] Emergent Governance

[Harrison Owen]

Several days ago I had the unique pleasure of joining our friends and
colleagues (by Skype) in the Ukraine for their OSONOS. Given the state of
the Ukraine, to say nothing of the state of the world, the conversation
eventually got around to the subject of Leadership and Governance - and how
could all that work. That conversation seemed to meld seamlessly with one I
had had with a new friend here in the USA. Leadership and Governance. And
mixed in was a new thought (for me) all about Emergent Governance. As I said
to my US friend.

 

You started me thinking - which ordinarily is a dangerous thing. I can't
quite pin down the logical trail, but that is not surprising because I
usually find myself thinking in circles. But one point along the way was a
conversation I was engaged in yesterday. There is an interest group which
has monthly luncheons at my club with the vaporous name of "The Human Values
Group." In truth we talk about whatever pleases and may or may not have
value. Anyhow the conversation yesterday drifted to a consideration of
various political forms. It seems that some of our members had just returned
from Cuba, so that was the start. Then we got on to dictatorships of various
sorts ranging from China to Singapore. and shortly we were arguing about the
"goods and the bads" - which quickly morphed into ideologies/political
systems, and you know where that one could go.

 

As the folks headed into the stratosphere of abstraction - I found myself
thinking, wondering might be better - Has anybody ever done a natural
history of governance? Rousseau pops to mind, but he always seemed to me
pretty idealistic, and just as doctrinaire as anybody. For sure we have
certainly done histories of governance, tracing our way back from the
present to whenever. But how about the reverse? Two folks get together, Adam
and Eve for example. Relationships form and certain modes of behavior seem
to work, others don't. It is not a function of laws, and certainly not
legislation or "idealized models." Just very practical - and more to the
point a natural expression of that fundamental relationship which to the
extent that it is ever verbalized might be something like --- the way we do
things around here. Well that might be the beginning of a story, but before
I got too far with that one, my mind jumped.

 

To Open Space. Funny thing. We have opened space 100,000's of times in
multiple cultures, and the behaviors are almost identical (except for
superficials like language, dress, etc). And nobody ever specified the
rules. The Principles don't count, and yes we do announce the Law of Two
Feet - but all of that is simply to acknowledge what will happen anyhow. So
could we be looking at emergent governance? We are definitely looking at the
process of self organization (I think). Could that be the root of
governance?

 

Big jump - here's a thought. Rather than thinking about (working on,
creating) models of governance (autocratic, democratic, plutocratic,
sociocratic.whatever) which are then promulgated (you wrote a book, so did
Karl M.), and if implemented are almost inevitably laid on from the top
(wherever the top isJ). how about starting at the bottom/beginning and see
what grows naturally? Emergent Governance!

 

It would perhaps become necessary to clean things up a bit, regularize it,
so to speak - but that should be done, I suggest, all under the rubric of
finding the minimal level of structure necessary to sustain life. But all
that could only be done after the fact.of emergence.

 

Just Thinking. 

 

Harrison

 

 

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

 

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

 

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

 

www.openspaceworld.com

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST
Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20120519/c3c4c9c1/attachment-0007.htm>