Friday, February 03, 2006
Fungosity
Recent conversations regarding the intellectual infrastructure required to support creative, democratic change--sometimes called the prodemocracy movement--led me to try to envision new structural relationships between the four basic types of social organization (tribes, institutions, markets, networks), as well as conceive of a graphic representation of our developing networks that allegedly are transforming civil society worldwide.
For those of us no longer embedded in the tribal family form, it seems that the social circle is our core node from which we can connect through networks to other social circles, and that the plethora of affinity networks identifying with such values as universal human rights and respect for all life constitute a milieu that can penetrate, supplant, or influence the other forms in the multitude of venues and forums evolving in order to meet our needs.
The Internet has accelerated this process, but it still managed to function when 10,000 Polish activists were incarcerated overnight in December 1981, with all phone lines cut off; free press abolished; soldiers, tanks, and secret police flooding the streets. It simply went underground.
For those of us no longer embedded in the tribal family form, it seems that the social circle is our core node from which we can connect through networks to other social circles, and that the plethora of affinity networks identifying with such values as universal human rights and respect for all life constitute a milieu that can penetrate, supplant, or influence the other forms in the multitude of venues and forums evolving in order to meet our needs.
The Internet has accelerated this process, but it still managed to function when 10,000 Polish activists were incarcerated overnight in December 1981, with all phone lines cut off; free press abolished; soldiers, tanks, and secret police flooding the streets. It simply went underground.
