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DevinMcDougallSecondPaper 8 - 17 Apr 2010 - Main.DevinMcDougall
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< | Free Software, Climate Change, and the Importance of Creeds-End Fit | >
> | Climate Change and the Importance of Creeds-End Fit | | | 
The Challenge of Coordination | |
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< | Thurman Arnold writes that creeds shape the functioning of organizations. An important challenge with respect to
climate change is organizing people to press for needful changes to climate policies in a broad range of countries. In seeking to develop such a coordinated movement, attention to the organizational implications of the creeds used to market the movement is essential. Put another way, there needs to be an assessment of creeds-end fit, and creeds which do not help develop an organizational psychology capable of supporting the work that needs to be done should be de-emphasized. | | | To deal effectively with climate change, there must be a measure of policy coordination across countries. If the United States adopts a climate law which imposes carbon emissions limits, and production simply migrates to countries with less stringer limits, global emissions will remain unchanged. This is referred to as the problem of leakage. What this means is that even if activists are successful in pushing for a strong climate law in their own country, they will fail to solve the global problem of climate change. For this reason, among others, Richard Lazarus has referred to climate change as a "super wicked problem." | |
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> | Thurman Arnold writes that successful organizations have creeds that provide a sense of cohesion to members and coordinate their actions. An important challenge with respect to climate change is organizing people to press for needful changes to climate policies in a broad range of countries. In seeking to develop such a coordinated movement, attention to the organizational implications of the creeds used to market the movement is essential. Put another way, there needs to be an assessment of creeds-end fit, and creeds which do not help sustain the type of coordinated work described above should be de-emphasized. | | | Arnold's Theory of Organizational Psychology | |
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> | Arnold argues that creeds are “elements common to all social organizations, large and small, whatever their purpose.” 24. The reason for the ubiquity of creeds is that humans require them in order to sustain complex patterns of interaction over time. As he writes, “Society functions like an anthill. If we were compelled to plan each day how to get food into New York City and waste out of it, we would be lost and people would starve.” 26.
Most of his discussion of creeds seems to have the character of an iconoclast loose in the temple. He compares "the Yale Law School" to a Laramie social club, and American political discourse to medieval theological debates about humors.
But Arnold also backs away from his "ant-hill" analogy at various points in the text. He invokes his identity as a lawyer, as opposed to social scientist, and claims he wishes to avoid "the vice of definition." Arnold seems more preoccupied with the ways in which the American creed of capitalism forecloses understanding of how American society actually works and less with the details of how creeds operate.
However, at one point, he discusses creeds in a light indicating a certain recognition of human capability for self-reflexivity and agency. He writes of Riverside Church's famous former pastor:
With the recognition of the fact that church creeds are not searches for universal truth, we can understand better the function of churches in society. Preachers like Harry Emerson Fosdick preach realistically and effectively about the place that the Church can and should take in the community. Fosdick realizes that the creed is important only as a symbol of unity - and that the effectiveness of the Church must be judged by different standards from those of its theology.
This passage points to an interesting way of thinking about the usefulness of creeds in organizing for justice work. Creeds here are things that can be reflected on and "preached" in ways that unify, but avoid becoming totalizing ideologies that disconnect from the factual world. | | | | |
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< | The Experience of the Free Software Movement | >
> | Ethics and Incentives | | | | |
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< | In this respect, climate change activists can learn a great deal from the free software movement, which has been particularly thoughtful about the content of its creed and the seemingly subtle but important implications of words. | >
> | An important "creedal" issue for climate change activists is how to frame their message in a way that appeals to and motivates a broad array of audiences. As discussed above, the complexity of climate change requires the cooperation of people in many disciplines and in many countries over a long time period. In the United States, there has been a tendency to shy away from explicit discussion of justice issues with respect to climate change and to focus rather on near-term incentives of interest to Americans. For example, energy security, or clean energy jobs, or avoiding an influx of climate refugees. | | | | |
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< | Richard Stallman recognized the disconnect. There was a lack of creeds-end fit. A creed of open source may help convince corporations to help produce some powerful free software, but in the long term it provides no creedal counter to the sale and use of software which restricts user freedoms. | >
> | Such an incentives-based creed is perhaps good politics in the short term, but assessed as a creed capable of undergirding a social movement seeking global change, it falls short. For the end of dealing effectively with climate change, it is a poor fit. Many countries will suffer much more from climate change than the United States, and in different ways, and the United States will become reluctant to pay to help them. Energy security is not a panacea because America is the Saudia Arabia of coal. Effective action will require sacrifice now for the benefits of people later, whose interests rarely factor into contemporary calculations. | | | | |
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< | Climate Change: Ethics or Incentives? | >
> | It may seem a truism that good politics is not good policy. But one thing Arnold can teach us here is that since we are not all fully rational Thinking Persons, we are all prey to the allure of creeds. They are comforting because they simplify a complex and anxious modernity, and for that reason they are seductive. We do not always rationally select our political tactics to serve our policy goals. Creeds sometimes choose people, not the reverse. Once creeds gel into an organizational psychology, they become difficult to change, even in the face of persistent facts. | | | | |
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< | Similarly, for the climate movement to rely on the language of incentives may seem appealing. Energy companies have begun to rebrand themselves. However, this creed of incentive doesn't provide the means to support the types of sacrifices needed to deal effectively with global climate change, which will fall with greatest fury on the poor. | >
> | However, like Fosdick, we can seek to leverage what agency we can muster to develop creeds that invoke, to borrow a phrase, "the better angels of our nature." Emphasizing an ethical frame that expresses its goal as seeking justice, rather than optimizing incentives, may not be good near-term politics but at least provides a means of motivating action when individual incentives run out. According to contemporary economists, people do not act in ways that do not maximize their utility. | | | | |
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< | Al Gore, in attempting to shift to an ethical frame, rather than an incentive frame, invokes the analogy of World War II. However - nationalist frame. Reliance on carbon based fuels has been compared to slavery. Quakers. Student essay. | >
> | But history offer examples of people who have dedicated themselves to working for justice. In American history, John Brown and Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. These types of examples, of humans struggling for justice rather than for their own gain that can serve as the basis of a justice-based creed to organize a climate movement. An incentives-based creed will not be to deal with the long, complex, and demanding task of supporting a global approach to climate change. |
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DevinMcDougallSecondPaper 6 - 16 Apr 2010 - Main.DevinMcDougall
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<
< | Free Software, Climate Change, and the Importance of Creeds-Ends Fit | >
> | Free Software, Climate Change, and the Importance of Creeds-End Fit
| | | | |
>
> | The Challenge of Coordination | | | | |
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< | "The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change" - James Hansen
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/obamas-second-chance-on-c_b_525567.html | >
> | Thurman Arnold writes that creeds shape the functioning of organizations. An important challenge with respect to
climate change is organizing people to press for needful changes to climate policies in a broad range of countries. In seeking to develop such a coordinated movement, attention to the organizational implications of the creeds used to market the movement is essential. Put another way, there needs to be an assessment of creeds-end fit, and creeds which do not help develop an organizational psychology capable of supporting the work that needs to be done should be de-emphasized. | | | | |
<
< | almost surely | >
> | To deal effectively with climate change, there must be a measure of policy coordination across countries. If the United States adopts a climate law which imposes carbon emissions limits, and production simply migrates to countries with less stringer limits, global emissions will remain unchanged. This is referred to as the problem of leakage. What this means is that even if activists are successful in pushing for a strong climate law in their own country, they will fail to solve the global problem of climate change. For this reason, among others, Richard Lazarus has referred to climate change as a "super wicked problem." | | | | |
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< | normative - should - | >
> | Arnold's Theory of Organizational Psychology | | | | |
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< | normative take on normative change | | | | |
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< | what needs to happen for that to happen, though? | >
> | The Experience of the Free Software Movement | | | | |
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< | consilient analysis: morality and motivation: psych, social psych, biology | >
> | In this respect, climate change activists can learn a great deal from the free software movement, which has been particularly thoughtful about the content of its creed and the seemingly subtle but important implications of words. | | | | |
<
< | leff: the spanish prisoner: altercasting; attractiveness of an altruistic role. | >
> | Richard Stallman recognized the disconnect. There was a lack of creeds-end fit. A creed of open source may help convince corporations to help produce some powerful free software, but in the long term it provides no creedal counter to the sale and use of software which restricts user freedoms. | | | | |
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< | moral vision: john brown, quaker anti-slavery movement | >
> | Climate Change: Ethics or Incentives? | | | | |
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< | compare:
free software v. open source | >
> | Similarly, for the climate movement to rely on the language of incentives may seem appealing. Energy companies have begun to rebrand themselves. However, this creed of incentive doesn't provide the means to support the types of sacrifices needed to deal effectively with global climate change, which will fall with greatest fury on the poor. | | | | |
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< | justice frame matters:
have to be able to answer arguments about WHY to keep on struggling, when start to be pushback; claims that climate change hits poor mostly, so why should we care.
don'tr push the metaphor too tightly: acking the metaphor away from its metaphrand just a little more, so that the correspondences don't become so overtightened that the frame cracks.
arnold: different creeds: different organizational psychology implications
'm going to use the phrase "Free Software" to describe this material and I'm going to suggest to you that the choice of words is relevant. We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social movement with specific political goals which will characterize not only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the production and distribution of culture generally. My purpose this morning is to put that process in large enough context so that the significance of free software can be seen beyond the changes in the software industry alone.
This is a fascinating conversation, I've been thinking about it for fifteen years, I have a lot of fun doing it. I just want you to understand that such talk is the beginning of something way more important, and that in order to understand why it is important you have to understand why it is at all. It won't do to say it's Open Source--you'll get a good idea about the software business but you won't understand any of the rest of this because it won't be clear why what is happening is happening, or why the newspaper headlines read the way they do. What we are going through is a fundamental alteration in the areas of intellectual infrastructure and production all over the world. We're now talking about just one little piece. You have got to understand that the struggle is bigger than that. That it is more serious. That it commits us to fundamental moral questions that we have to take a side about. That the work we do as lawyers, and programmers and engineers now is about the future of freedom of ideas all over everywhere. That it means confrontations just as improbable in scale as the confrontation between the Microsoft Corporation and the Free Software Foundation, which I didn't name but which Mr. Mundie did. David and Goliath? Hell no. Goliath was just a big human being, basically the same as David but larger.
econodwarf - people only work for incentives > environmental economics/cost-benefit > veblen: workshmanship; autonomy.
distaste for futility: end with - why important to emphasize, this time, we win.
open source: incentive emphasized
free software: justice emphasized
McGowan? paper: holmes, gandhi
.....
christianity and climate change article; other climate and ethics articles: framing as moral issue
john brown: moral vision; justice - thoreau commentary.
not fundamentally a technical issue, essentially; moral issue.
moral priorities and commitments - guide technical work, are embedded in technical work: free software concept. | >
> | Al Gore, in attempting to shift to an ethical frame, rather than an incentive frame, invokes the analogy of World War II. However - nationalist frame. Reliance on carbon based fuels has been compared to slavery. Quakers. Student essay. |
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DevinMcDougallSecondPaper 5 - 14 Apr 2010 - Main.DevinMcDougall
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<
< | The Importance of Creeds-Ends Fit | >
> | Free Software, Climate Change, and the Importance of Creeds-Ends Fit | | |
"The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change" - James Hansen | | | 'm going to use the phrase "Free Software" to describe this material and I'm going to suggest to you that the choice of words is relevant. We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social movement with specific political goals which will characterize not only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the production and distribution of culture generally. My purpose this morning is to put that process in large enough context so that the significance of free software can be seen beyond the changes in the software industry alone.
This is a fascinating conversation, I've been thinking about it for fifteen years, I have a lot of fun doing it. I just want you to understand that such talk is the beginning of something way more important, and that in order to understand why it is important you have to understand why it is at all. It won't do to say it's Open Source--you'll get a good idea about the software business but you won't understand any of the rest of this because it won't be clear why what is happening is happening, or why the newspaper headlines read the way they do. What we are going through is a fundamental alteration in the areas of intellectual infrastructure and production all over the world. We're now talking about just one little piece. You have got to understand that the struggle is bigger than that. That it is more serious. That it commits us to fundamental moral questions that we have to take a side about. That the work we do as lawyers, and programmers and engineers now is about the future of freedom of ideas all over everywhere. That it means confrontations just as improbable in scale as the confrontation between the Microsoft Corporation and the Free Software Foundation, which I didn't name but which Mr. Mundie did. David and Goliath? Hell no. Goliath was just a big human being, basically the same as David but larger. | |
>
> | econodwarf - people only work for incentives > environmental economics/cost-benefit > veblen: workshmanship; autonomy.
distaste for futility: end with - why important to emphasize, this time, we win.
open source: incentive emphasized
free software: justice emphasized
McGowan? paper: holmes, gandhi
.....
christianity and climate change article; other climate and ethics articles: framing as moral issue
john brown: moral vision; justice - thoreau commentary.
not fundamentally a technical issue, essentially; moral issue.
moral priorities and commitments - guide technical work, are embedded in technical work: free software concept. |
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DevinMcDougallSecondPaper 4 - 14 Apr 2010 - Main.DevinMcDougall
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<
< | Creeds-Ends Fit and The Problem of Leakage | >
> | The Importance of Creeds-Ends Fit | | |
"The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change" - James Hansen | | | leff: the spanish prisoner: altercasting; attractiveness of an altruistic role.
moral vision: john brown, quaker anti-slavery movement | |
>
> | compare:
free software v. open source
justice frame matters:
have to be able to answer arguments about WHY to keep on struggling, when start to be pushback; claims that climate change hits poor mostly, so why should we care.
don'tr push the metaphor too tightly: acking the metaphor away from its metaphrand just a little more, so that the correspondences don't become so overtightened that the frame cracks.
arnold: different creeds: different organizational psychology implications
'm going to use the phrase "Free Software" to describe this material and I'm going to suggest to you that the choice of words is relevant. We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social movement with specific political goals which will characterize not only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the production and distribution of culture generally. My purpose this morning is to put that process in large enough context so that the significance of free software can be seen beyond the changes in the software industry alone.
This is a fascinating conversation, I've been thinking about it for fifteen years, I have a lot of fun doing it. I just want you to understand that such talk is the beginning of something way more important, and that in order to understand why it is important you have to understand why it is at all. It won't do to say it's Open Source--you'll get a good idea about the software business but you won't understand any of the rest of this because it won't be clear why what is happening is happening, or why the newspaper headlines read the way they do. What we are going through is a fundamental alteration in the areas of intellectual infrastructure and production all over the world. We're now talking about just one little piece. You have got to understand that the struggle is bigger than that. That it is more serious. That it commits us to fundamental moral questions that we have to take a side about. That the work we do as lawyers, and programmers and engineers now is about the future of freedom of ideas all over everywhere. That it means confrontations just as improbable in scale as the confrontation between the Microsoft Corporation and the Free Software Foundation, which I didn't name but which Mr. Mundie did. David and Goliath? Hell no. Goliath was just a big human being, basically the same as David but larger. |
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