The Competitiveness of Nations in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
F. E. Emery and E .L. Trist
Towards A Social Ecology:
Contextual Appreciation of the Future in the
Present
Plenum,
|
Content
Phases in the State of Competing
Systems
The Sigmoid Character of the Growth
Process |
The Early Detection of Emergent
Processes
The second major difficulty in predicting the future
states of large complex social systems, that of early identification of emergent
processes, poses far more perplexing methodological problems. However, if social life is properly
characterized in terms of overlapping temporal gestalten, then many of those
processes that will be critical in the future are already in existence in the
present. If this were not the case,
it would be difficult to see how such processes could quickly enough muster
the potency to be critical in the next thirty years. Thus, for instance, the conditions for
World War I were laid before the end of the 19th Century, and correctly
perceived around 1900 by such oddly gifted men as Frederick Engels and the
Polish banker, Bloch (Liddell Hart, 1944, p. 26).
An obvious question must be asked at this point: ‘Is
this not the same class of evidence that is the basis for extrapolative
prediction?’ Such evidence does
include some evidence of this class, but its most important additional inclusion
is of processes that are not recognized for what they are. The early stages of a sycamore or a
cancer are not obviously very different from a host of other things whose
potential spatio-temporal span is
24
very much less; likewise with many in social life.
One suspects that the important social processes
typically emerge like this. They
start small, they grow and only then do people realize that their world has
changed and that this process exists with characteristics of its own. Granted that there are genuine emergent
processes (otherwise why worry about the next thirty years), then we must accept
real limitations upon what we can predict and also accept that
we have to
live for some time with the future before we recognize it as
such.
Yet it is not simply foolhardy to think that we may
enable ourselves more readily to recognize the future in its embryonic form.
There are almost certainly some
regularities about these emergent phases. Social processes which, in their
maturity, are going to consume significant portions of men’s energies are almost
bound to have a lusty growth. They
do not, by definition, command human resources at this stage, and hence their
energy requirements must be met parasitically. i.e. they must in this
phase appear to be something else. This is the major reason why the key
emergents are typically unrecognized for what they are while other less
demanding novel processes are quickly seen. A social process which passes for what it
is not should theoretically be distinguishable both in its energy and
informational aspects. Because it
is a growing process, its energy requirements will be substantially greater
(relative to what it appears to do) than the energy requirements of the maturer
process which it apes. Because it
is not what it appears to be, the process will stretch or distort the
meanings and usage of the vocabulary which it has appropriated. The energy requirements may be difficult
to detect not only because we lack scales for many of the forms of psychic and
social energy, but also because a new process may in fact be able to do as much
as it claims (e g TV to amuse) but do it so much more easily as to be able also
to meet its own special growth requirements. The aberrations of linguistic usage are,
on the other hand, there to see.
In trying to go further along these lines, we will first
try to explain why there are probably significant although undetectable
processes operating in the present. The explanation we will give itself
suggests some methodologies that might aid early detection. For reasons of continuity we discuss
these before tackling the logically prior question of whether there is
any particular reason for trying to achieve early
detection.
Complex social systems like the human body rely a great
deal on the sharing of parts. Just as the mouth is shared by the
sub-systems for breathing, eating, speaking, etc., so individuals and
organizations act as parts for a multiplicity of social systems. Just as there are physiological switching
mechanisms to prevent us choking too often over our food, so there are social
mechanisms to prevent us having too many Charlie Chaplins dashing out of
factories to tighten up buttons on women’s dresses (in Modern Times). I think that it is this sharing of
parts that enables social processes to grow for quite long periods without
detection. If they could grow
only by subordinating parts entirely to themselves then they would be readily
detectable. If, however, their
parts continue to play traditional roles in the existing familiar systems,
then detection becomes difficult indeed. The examples that most readily come to
mind are the pathological ones of cancer and incipient psychoses. Perhaps this is because we strive so
hard to detect them. In any case,
healthy changes in physical maturation, personality growth or social growth
typically follows the same course. Once we are confronted with a new
fully-fledged system, we find that we can usually trace its roots well back into
a past where it was unrecognized for what it was.
Phases in the State of Competing
Systems
If this is, in fact, the reason for most or even some
important social processes being undetected, then it suggests methodological
approaches. Despite the redundancy
of functions that the parts tend to have with respect to the role they
play in any one sub-system, one must expect some interference in the existing
systems as a new one grows. Angyal,
from his analysis of competing psychological systems within an individual, has
suggested a general classification that could serve as a basis for analysing
social systems (Angyal, 1966). This
is as follows:
1. When the emerging system is relatively very weak, it
will tend to manifest itself only in the parasitical effects it has on the
energies of the host system—in symptoms of debility. The host system will find it
increasingly difficult mobilize energy (people) for their functions and there
will be a slowing
down of their responsiveness to new demands. The balance of forces may oscillate so
that these symptoms occur in waves and make the functioning of the existing
social systems less predictable.
At any time a social system experiences a fair amount of
uncontrolled variance (error) in its operations. The reasons for an increase in this
variance, of the kind we are discussing now, will typically be sought for inside
the system itself, and may be taken to tighten up its integration. The unpredictable oscillatory effects are
likely to encourage a wave of experimentation with new modes of system
functioning. All these symptoms
have behavioural manifestations and are hence open to study. The methodological strategy of
operational research is that of proceeding via analysis of the variance of
systems and this would seem particularly appropriate here.
2. When the emerging system is stronger but still not
strong enough to displace the existing system, we can expect to see symptoms
of intrusion. What breaks
through are social phenomena, like the swarming of adolescents at the English
seaside resort of
3. When the emerging system has grown to be roughly in
balance with the existing systems there may be mutual invasion. At this stage it should be obvious
that there is a newly emerging system but mutual retardation and the general
ambivalence and lack of decisiveness may still lead the new system to be seen
simply as a negation of the existing system. The methodological task is to identify,
in the chaotic intermingling of the systems, characteristics of the new system
which are not simply an opposition to the old. Once again we find that this is not an
entirely new methodological problem for the social
scientist.
27
The Lewinians gave considerable attention to this in
their studies of ‘overlapping situations’, for instance adolescence, when
new and old psychological situations are frequently invading each other. Baker, Wright and Gonick (1946) specified
five dimensions that they found helpful to sort out what was being done to what,
by what. These dimensions are
consonance, potency, valence, barriers and extent of sharing of
parts.
(a) Relative consonance. Two or more overlapping situations
requiring behaviour from the system that is more or less congruent. The degree of consonance ranges from
identity, where the same behaviour meets both situations, through
consonant where different behaviours are required but they are
non-interfering, interfering to
antagonistic..
(b) Potency. The influence of one situation
relative to all simultaneously acting situations.
(c)
(d) Barriers. The relative difficulties confronting the
system as it tries to make progress in the different
situations.
(e) Extent of common parts.
With the aid of these dimensions, they were able to
spell out many of the behavioural properties of invading systems. These conceptual dimensions have been
sufficiently well defined to permit ready translation into other theoretical
schemes.
The fact that early detection may be possible does not
in itself make it worthwhile pursuing. The fact that early detection increases
the range of responses and hence the decree of control a system has over its
development does make us interested.
There are facts about the growth of social change that suggest that each
unit step in the lowering of the detection level increase in the time available
for response. Put another way, it
would yield a disproportionately richer projection of the future from any given
time.
28
The Sigmoid Character of the Growth
Process
The next points I wish to make by referring to
Figure 6.
Let lines A and B represent two
courses of growth over time. If
social processes typically grew in the way represented by curve A then we might
well feel that early detection was not a pressing problem. At this steady rate of growth, we might
expect that when the scale got to the level of ready detection (D on the
vertical axis) we would still have the time c - a (horizontal axis) in which to
aid, prepare for or prevent the new system getting to critical size (Con
vertical axis). All of this is
simple enough, and the assumptions do not seem unreasonable because so many of
the changes in the physical world and in our physical resources do grow in
something like this manner.
In fact, a great many ot the growth processes in social
systems appear to be more like that represented by curve B. These growth curves are common enough in
all living populations (and some physical systems) where each part
has
29
powers of multiple replication, but in this case
we are primarily concerned with recruitment of existing parts to a new
social system. What appears to
contribute most to the prevalence of type B growth curves in social systems is
the fact that these possess the property of highly developed symbolical
communication. What is absent
(because it is past, distant, or as yet only anticipated) can be represented by
one part to the other parts. Their
mutual co-ordination and regulation is vastly extended, and so is, as a result,
the contagion of changes. One
important implication of this is that a new system may, long period of slow and
undetectable growth in the interstices of the society, suddenly burgeon forth at
a rate which produces a numbing effect on the society, or at least drastically
reduces the range of responses to it. The general notion may be explicated by
again referring to
Figure 6. If the
point of critical size is somewhere near where I have marked in C, then it is in
the nature of the type B curve that there will be less time between detection
and critical size than would occur with a type A growth curve: i.e. T(c — b)
<T(c — a).
Although, in this section, I have concentrated on the
early detection of emerging systems, the present line of argument has
implications for the fate of rapidly growing systems. The sort of growth that occurs between
detection at point D and point E on
Figure 6 can only too easily be seen as a
type A growth. Even if the growth
up to point D is reconstructed, the curve 0 to E may be seen as a pure
exponential growth curve which will continue on at an increasing rate of growth
towards point F. This has been well
illustrated by Price (1961). Bringing together statistical evidence on
the growth of science he shows that it has the characteristic of the curve 0 to
E. This characteristic seems to
underly the recent scientific ethos that the sky is the limit for scientific
growth. However, he argues that the
next stage of growth will be like the curve F to B, not a continuation of the
curve from the intersect with D to F.
It is indeed apparent that the process to which we have
become accustomed during the past few centuries is not a permanent feature of
our world.... The normal expansion of science that we have grown up with is such
that it demands each year a large place in our lives and a larger of share of
our resources. Eventually that
demand must reach a state where it cannot be satisfied, a state where the
civilization is saturated with science (p. 113).
For science in the
30
only about thirty years must elapse between the
period when some few per cent of difficulty is felt and the time when the
trouble has become so acute that it cannot possibly be satisfied... we are
currently in a period in which the onset of a manpower shortage is beginning to
be felt… (115-6).
To this I can only add the obvious point that the method
of study proposed by Price should include our preceding proposals. The decline in growth rate may occur not
only because there is a limited supply of recruitable parts, but also because
new systems are competing for existing parts.
Once again we find that elucidating the general nature
of social changes is a fruitful way of identifying methodologies for furthering
our ability to predict change in individual social systems or processes. The sigmoid type of growth curve (i.e.
our B curve) has been a potent tool in the study of all types of living
systems.
Changes in the State of Symbolic
Systems
There remains a further general class of methodologies
for early detection. These derive
in the first place from the fact that man is not just a symbol-user in the way
we have been discussing. His
fundamental relation to his environment is a symbolical
relation.
… the function of the so-called mental processes is
essentially a semantic one. By this
we mean that ‘psychological contents’ function as symbols and the psychological
processes are operations with these symbols (p. 56). In the psychological realm life takes
place, not through the interaction of the concrete individual with a concrete
environment - which is only tangential - but by the interaction of symbols
representing the individual and the environment (Angyal, 1941, p.
77).
As Tomkins has argued, our present knowledge of man
suggests that if our perception mirrors nature, our consciousness is
a mirroring of this mirror by the conceptual ordering of our
memories.
… afferent sensory information is not directly
transformed into a conscious report. What is consciously perceived is
imagery created by the organism itself. The world we perceive is a dream we learn
to have from a script we have not written... Instead of putting the mirror to
nature we are... putting the mirror to the mirror (Tomkins, 1962, Vol. 1, p.
13).
The essential adaptive advantage is that the error
inherent in this process makes learning possible. For our purposes
the
31
relevance is that man’s responses are to the world as he
symbolizes it and not directly to the world as it presents itself to his eyes,
ears, etc.
In the second place, while this mechanism of
consciousness (awareness of awareness) is a condition for learning, the learning
itself is not conscious (certainly not necessarily conscious). Thus man’s symbolical representation of
the world may change to represent changes in that world without his being
conscious of the change. In so far
as he is unaware of these changes they may remain unrecognized, or, if
manifested in his behaviour, be puzzling, trivialized, or segregated parts of
his projected world picture.
I have dwelt on these properties of the individual human
being because they are basic to any joint human activity whatever the scale or
complexity. On available evidence,
it would seem that men live and have always lived in a cultural world which is
created and maintained by the symbolic transformation of the actual world and
the imputation or projection thereon of the meaning and values by and for which
we live. My second point about
individuals seems also to hold social systems, namely that the social symbols,
the myths, beliefs, values, language, fads and fashions change without any
necessary awareness of what the change means or to what they correspond. More concisely, there can be awareness of
world changes without awareness of that awareness and this awareness can be
manifested in man’s communicative behaviour as well as in his other behaviours.
When these manifestations are
recorded in oral traditions, in art forms or writing, it is theoretically
possible that analysis of the records will reveal the existence of social
processes which existed at the time, were sensed and lived with but not
consciously grasped. At least three
methodologies of different levels of generality have begun to emerge here. For convenience we label them as follows:
(a) symbol analysis; (b) value analysis (c) analysis of linguistic
usage.
We use the term symbol analysis to refer primarily to
the methods of Jung and his followers. On the same assumption that basic changes
in the life conditions of large groups may he -
32
detected in symbolic changes, Bion has speculated that
we might be able to develop a method of inferring such basic changes from
statistical fluctuations in psychosomatic symptoms (as unconscious individual
symbolizations) and in the value of money (as in part reflecting aggregate
psychological valuation) (Bion, 1961, pp. 105-113). This approach cannot be ruled out. The ethnologists and ecologists have
together shown the nearly ubiquitous nature of symbols in living populations and
their contribution to the natural selection of populations. Since this, it has been difficult to
write off the possibility that the human species might have evolved through the
use and selection of some similar innate cognitive programmes involving
‘perceptual concepts’ (Arnheim, 1954).
Less tentatively, we can accept the possibility that
cracks and repairs in man’s umbrella of symbols might well presage the obvious
emergence of major social processes by a long period of time. Neumann (1966), Marcuse (1956) and
McLuhan (1964) made much of the notion that signs of our present condition were
present in the painters, poets and writers of fifty years ago. As might be expected, McLuhan is
particularly outspoken on this. He
quotes Wyndham Lewis as writing: ‘The artist is always engaged in writing a
detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature
of the present.’ To this he adds
his own judgement, that ‘the artist is the man in any field, scientific or
humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in
his own time (McLuhan, 1964, p. 65).
For these reasons, McLuhan sees his own method of detecting the future in
the present as an application of the analytical techniques of modern art
criticism. Just because these
methods are esoteric, we cannot afford to ignore them.
Value Analysis and Linguistic
Usage
The analysis of values has already been touched upon
because this, like the analysis of symbols and linguistic usage, offers a
radical reduction in the complexities with which would have to deal.
In each of these we would be
using men themselves as a filter of what is important.
The analysis of linguistic usage is at one level a commonsense way of sensing the way a
person is developing or the way a
33
people are tending to go. The very way in which people are speaking
about things is often a valid indication of changes in the way they are looking
at the world, even though they insist in all honesty that they have in no way
changed their views. This method is
a basic ingredient of psychiatric practice. At the social level, it has been applied
to the content analyses of films, women’s magazines, etc., and, more
intuitively, to tracing out the subtle shifts in the meanings of key concepts
like ‘work’, ‘leisure’ and ‘justice’ (Arendt, 1958). Marcuse has given us a profound analysis
of the relation between experience and linguistic usage. He sets the methodological goal of
linguistic analysis as that of ‘analysing ordinary language in really
controversial areas, recognizing muddled thinking where it seems to be
least muddled, uncovering the falsehood in so much in normal and clear usage.
Then linguistic analysis would
attain the level on which the specific societal processes which shape and limit
the universe of discourse become visible and understandable.’ (Marcuse, 1964, p.
195). Drawing upon the empirical
studies of Karl Kraus, he specifies some of the features of the
method:
For such an analysis, the meaning of a term or form
demands its development in a multi-dimensional universe; where any expressed
meaning partakes of several interrelated, overlapping and antagonistic
‘systems’. For example, it
belongs:
(a) to an individual project, i.e. the specific
communication (a newspaper article, a speech) made at a specific occasion for a
specific purpose;
(b) to an established supra-individual system of ideas,
values and objectives of which the individual project
partakes;
(c) to a particular society which itself integrates
different and even conflicting individual and supra-individual projects’
(Marcuse, 1964, pp. 196-7).
It will be noted that these are methods of gathering
information about the different levels of system competition which we presented
as the general model for early detection.
I mentioned earlier that these methods offered a
reduction in the complexity which had to be coped with, because men will, if
unwittingly, tend to symbolize the relevant change and filter out for themselves
the relevant changes. If acting
consciously, they will typically see things through the ideologies of their
times. This is, however, only a
relative reduction. A profound
reduction may occur with a Blake or Joyce. However,
34
this may be of little use. How do we recognize a Blake or Joyce in
our midst or understand what they are saying when they probably don’t understand
themselves? If these methods of
analysis are to be effective, we shall still have to deal with samples of data
that are very complex relative to our current analytical tools. It has been recognized that modern
computers bring us within reach of the point where the predictions of such
highly perceptive individuals as McLuhan, Marcuse and Neumann can be converted
to testable hypotheses. Stone’s
(1966) General Inquirer programme is a step in this direction, but it would
still be necessary to identify the kind of system which one suspects is
emerging. In other words, these
methods complement the perceptive intuitive minds.
An example may illustrate and draw together some of the
methods I have discussed under the heading of ‘early detection’. It is desirable, of course, that we
concentrate upon the general principles, not the concrete features of the
example. Assume, for instance, that
a resurgence of Nazism is thought to be likely in a given country. Early detection is desired in order to
allow counteraction and yet it is expected that any such embryonic movement
would actively seek to avoid detection until it had recruited enough strength to
challenge existing social systems and overcome the conceivable counteraction.
The recruitment of any particular
individual can be hidden because recruitment does not entail total subordination
to the party. The recruit can still
continue to function as civil servant, waiter. Husband, etc., although there may well be some
falling off in the enthusiasm with which he now carries out his duties or even
some change in the way he conducts them. However, even if each recruit in turn
recruits several others each year, the growth rate, while sigmoidal, would put
off the achievement of critical mass in a large nation for a long time (and of
course increase the probability of detection). Therefore, in a large nation, a resurgent
Nazi party would need to use the mass media. (Clandestine leaflets, papers and wail
slogans would intensify efforts at detection.) They would have to penetrate and use the
media in a covert way in order to avoid detection. However, to use it all they would have to
shape the media content and style so that it propounded their Weltanschauung.
It is not impossible to do this
and at the same time avoid detection and counteraction. The aim would be to reach and to nurture
the
35
thinking of like-minded persons and these will tend to
be more sensitive to low intensity messages than all but perhaps the most
anti-Nazis. Secondly, people can
learn from a large number of trivial cues without being aware of just what led
to the learning. This latter counts
heavily against the obsessed anti-Nazi. He may well come to the firm conclusion
that a particular medium has Nazi flavour and yet be unable to put his finger on
anything that constitutes evidence for demanding
counteraction.
In this case, how would the methods of symbolical
analysis help to test hypotheses about the emergence of such a concealed
symptom? Briefly, they would
involve some sampling of media content because of the sheer mass of material
going through them. The sample, if
it were to be at all sensitive, would have to be handled by computers. The computer programme would need to be
so designed that it could detect metaphors of the sort that Jung thought central
to Nazi thinking, values of the sort that McGranahan (1946) found to distinguish
the Nazi Youth from the U.S. Boy Scouts, and the more complex problems of
syntax, grammar, vocabulary and even typography which Kraus found so revealing.
For practical purposes the last
would have to be restricted to the controversial political universe of discourse
where in any case the effects are more significant. By repeating the study over time it
should, theoretically, be possible to determine whether there is an embryonic
growing process, more than one centre of growth or simply unrepentant, unburied
remnants. It should not be
impossible to go beyond mere detection to inferring structural properties and
system orientations that differ from assumptions based on past
experience.
As an example this is not entirely satisfactory. The hypothetical social process is
conscious of its ends, consciously striving to use the symbolic processes of the
society and consciously seeking to avoid detection. The latter does not simply cancel out the
first two features to make it equivalent to a non-self-conscious social growth.
Hence, although in this case
symbolical analysis can only be usefully employed when the weaker system is
strong enough to start intruding, it does not argue against symbolical analysis
at the earlier stage when all that is present are symptoms of
pressure.
Summary of Methodologies Discussed in Chapters 2 and
3
In this section 1 have outlined the
following:
1. Two aspects of the general methodological
problem:
(a) to identify the system in terms of its members and
the dimensions in which they are arranged
(b) to identify the characteristic generating function
of the system.
2. Special methodological difficulties that arise with
predicting the future of large complex social systems:
(a) complexity
(b) early detection.
3. Methods that have been developed or proposed for
overcoming these difficulties:
(a) Complexity
1. Ashby’s model for studying conditions for
survival;
2. Models for studying subordinate goals (values), e.g.
Ackoff-Churchman, Cantril;
3. Models for studying the starting conditions for
change;
4. Method of identifying ‘the leading
part’.
(b) Early detection
1. Model derived from the properties of weakly competing
systems;
2. Sigmoid growth model;
3. Models based on analysis of symbols, values and linguistic usage.
37
