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COMER Columns
Articles published in "Economic Reform"
the Journal of the 'Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform'COMER Column #10 Vol. 13, No. 6, (June 2001).
Systems and Paranoid Thinking
Irrational means, including systems methods, may be put to perverse purposes. Most people have a justified fear of arbitrarily imposed systems. What lies behind the smoke and mirrors of public life? The glimpses that appear from time to time are often appalling.
The CNN legal affairs commentator, Greta van Susteren, recently interviewed James Bamford, author of an account of activities contemplated by the U.S. Joint Chiefs in the early 1960's as part of a strategy to incite popular hostility to the regime in Cuba. (1) As part of a plan, the evidence shows, consideration was given to covert actions by U.S. government
agents, acting as provocateurs to create terror within the U.S. by assassination of U.S. citizens, a plan seriously proposed by the Chairman and Joint Chiefs of the U.S. armed forces. President Kennedy did not accept this, but the kind of thinking that lies behind such a conception of security will always be there to haunt us.
Consider the hypothesis that the world is being steered by moneyed interests with special access to governments. This would have obvious implications for democratic reforms. It would mean that it is nearly useless to resort to reasoned arguments of a kind that the powers-that-be understand very well but consider not in their interests to recognise.Let us, for the sake of clarity, put this hypothesis in a strong form. Suppose that some degree of paranoid thinking has more of what it takes to seize power and rule the world than love and cooperative intentions. Direct action comes most easily to those with specific aims who are not inhibited by doubts or concern for others. Knowing all the arguments, they use them to support their own aims.
Certainly opportunities exist within society for clever individuals with psychopathic and paranoid tendencies to exploit others by bending and ignoring rules followed by the great majority. These are wolves in sheep's clothing who, believing society is a state of nature and they are natural predators, take pride in what they see as their realism and special capacity to dominate.
Some knowledge of the properties of systems can help immunise our thinking and institutional processes against the virus of paranoid systems. An adequate defence will meet the challenge with higher order system controls. These involve open and accountable systems with agreed evaluative criteria and transparent reporting. The price of liberty is eternal - and systematic
- vigilance.
By paranoid thinking I mean to indicate, for purposes of this discussion, a kind of compartmentalised logic, flourishing in isolation and concealment, exquisitely sensitive to nuances of competition and rejection, and lacking in emotion with respect to the manipulations required to achieve the ends in view. This style of thinking may reflect some trauma of personal history. In any case, this kind of adaptation to insult may be to build highly systematised intellectual systems of defence, promoted with intensity. Of course, the values which organise such systems are pathological and cannot really withstand realistic scrutiny - a point of special vulnerability.
Intelligent individuals who have an eye for the main chance, are sensitive to nuances which indicate opposition (real or imagined), and purport to be acting for the corporate or social good, have some advantages over the average individual. They may bring systems thinking to a fine pitch, and have motivation and powers of concentration that leave most people in the dust.
Other things being equal in a competitive world, such individuals tend to rise to positions of power. And for such people power may not be a responsibility but a confirmation of the rightness of their views. The compass by which they steer is governed by their inner needs rather than reality and results. The history of the world provides many examples of leaders of tunnel vision whose ambitions have lead to the deaths of uncounted millions. People with normal expectations do not see the dangers until too late
Of course any public figure who want to keep his job will keep a distance from any consideration of questions of mental health as a possible hazard among leaders. Even the serious study of these issues is a kind of wild card, a source of possible insights which might be disturbing to some. Yet the body politic needs virus protection. While the dangers are inevitable, their outcomes need not be. And ordinary vigilance is not enough.
To speak of a virus is to suggest an intrusive organising force which takes over some of the normal regulatory mechanism (of a computer, biological or other system) so as to redirect functions to serve the virus at the expense of the host. The loss, waste and destruction due to corruption and crime are very great, but, generally speaking, these are obvious kinds of threats. The hazards associated with the exercise of power are more insidious and go to the structure of societal possibilities and difficulties. Here our aim may be prevention, not just responses after the fact.
From a systems perspective, security requires that we upgrade the expectations we have for accountability in public life, and on the part of corporate leaders. We perhaps need standards that normal people may feel to be irksome until, like airline travellers, they take it in stride as a condition of safety. The measures of accountability and transparency required must be more than gestures; they must be adequate to the challenge.
We need to insist, as a good scientist or investigative reporter would, on objective criteria concerning values, objectives and performance in public life, and take discrepancies between words and results very seriously. This is the only real safeguard against the exercise of power that is whimsical, arbitrary or worse.
The complexities of institutional life and the realities of public relations make it easy to fudge responsibility, and all the more necessary to demand accountability. Where the results of poor judgment are clear, the leader who asks or expects to be given special dispensation paves the way for the acceptance of those who may be less ethical and responsible. We need to respect the tradition that responsible Ministers resign and do not expect to be let off the hook. Precedents of irresponsibility in high places are likely to lead to greater disasters. As long as a society tolerates power without accountability its citizens will pay an excessive price.
Public attention tends to focus on the disasters, and the catch-up measures than may be required, and too often leaves unattended the institutional disorders that have allowed the problems to develop. The consequences are grave - endangered ecology, human suffering, morbidity and death - all at great cost. The examples in the corporate world of institutional isolation, and absurd justifications of public irresponsibility (cf. deaths due to tobacco), need to be taken seriously not as isolated problems but as systemic types of pathology.
The individual in a position of high responsibility who asks for the benefit of the doubt provides a key for predators in waiting to exploit institutional opportunities. We need a realistic view of human nature to recognise the appeal of power as this impacts on our needs for wise governance. Paul's admonition to the Apostles, "Be ye therefore as wise as serpents, and harmless as doves," is still good advice.
References
(1) Bamford, James. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency - Doubleday (2001)