Donald N. Michael

Too much of a good thing?: Dilemmas of an information society☆

Information cuts both ways and herein lie the dilemmas or paradoxes arising from ever more information created, processed and disseminated by proliferating information technologies. More information can result in more control but it also creates circumstances that reduce or defy control. It clarifies some issues but it obscures and complexifies others. It enlarges the opportunities for participation in decision making and in doing so it both increases and reduces the incentives for adversarial confrontations in the courts and on the streets. It brings more ideas into the market place but at the cost of raising the noise level to where nothing can be heard clearly. Unprecedented amounts of information can be brought to bear on issues of policy and action but the persons who must use the information to make decisions become overloaded and everything gets muddled. In some cases one feels more information really gives an understanding of a situation. In more cases more information deepens a feeling of uncertainty. Information gives some ever greater access to a more complex world while condemning others to deeper isolation and alienation. It facilitates the coherence of groups and, at the same time, helps groups to splinter. It can make for both centralization and decentralization of power. In such ways information entices some into ever more demands for information and others to turn away from more information because it upsets habits of mind and action. Several responses to these dilemmas and seeming paradoxes merit noting. One is a tendency to see only one side of each of these divergencies and to espouse or decry them. Another is to observe that there is really nothing new here. Information and information technology have always had these effects. Indeed the educative process itself embodies an abiding tension between a conserving function and an undermining function, between learning reliable answers and asking unsettling questions. Others find comfort in the presumption that the pluses and minuses of these dilemmas cancel out, or that, overall, the pluses add up to more than minuses. I take the position that, while the dilemmas and paradoxes of information usage are not essentially new, they embody very serious consequences that demand intense attention. Human situations do not average out or balance like physical processes do. Events and individuals influence circumstances irreversibly. And always it is information that makes

Forecasting and Planning in an Incoherent Context

What follows concerning the predicament of forecasts and planning is subject to the same criticisms and constraints I apply to them and their context. My observations are also forecasts: stories based on arbitrary and fragmentary images of social “reality” and my words share the same dubious status as words per se that I shall describe later. But all of us are sinking in this ontological and epistemological swamp: To paraphrase the Tao Te Ching, those who know can not say: those who say do not know. So be it.

Technology assessment in an emerging world

While the profound social changes under way today are by no means solely the result of technology, one of the important impacts of technology is the growing need for more concentrated efforts at producing and applying technology assessments; i.e., the need for systematic examinations of the long-range interactions between technology and the rest of societal activity. It is from this situation that I draw my thesis: The very conditions of social change, including the anticipated role of technology assessments (TA’s), preclude defining and valuing TA’s as exclusively rational, formal, technical activities. Instead, I suggest that the applicability of TA’s is at least as great if they are also valued and viewed as a form of art. Here, I do not mean, as is usually meant, that, given their primitive stage of development, TA’s are more craft than science. I mean art as art-on a par with, but different than science in process as well as purpose. The implications of this viewpoint for the producer and user of technology assessments are significant, and, if pursued, will overcome the limitations imposed by valuing TA’s only to the degree that they approximate purely logical creations, useful only for technical applications. The realization of these benefits will require major efforts to conduct, use, and legitimize TA’s as an art form in which logic and the formal methodologies of TA serve the same functions as canvas, paint, and brushes for the painter; or stone, chisels, and mallets for the sculptor; or musical notation, musical instruments, and performance capabilities for the composer. To argue this thesis, I shall begin with a description of conditions that press for TA’s, as it is these conditions which inherently limit the sufficiency of scientific and formal knowledge and methodology brought to bear in the formulation and use of technology assessments. Three major pressures for TA may be singled out: First, there is a growing tendency to re-evaluate the priority of science and technology as a social enterprise, or, at least, pressure for closer examination of what should determine priority in a given situation. Much of the thrust for this re-evaluation arises from changing views regarding the purposes of social enterprise and the sufficiency of the positivist paradigm for describing the human condition and its purposes. Scientific-technical activities themselves have stimulated recognition of two circumstances that directly contribute to this re-evaluation. One circumstance has to do with accumulating evidence that science and technology are not objective and disinterested enterprises, that the choice of research topics and positions, taken with regard to the interpretation of data and information, are expressions

On growth and the limits of organizational responsiveness

That we are assembled at this conference on Limits to Growth ‘75 is evidence that we are “between two ages”, in Hesse’s phrase: between the old myth or world view that equated improvements in the human condition with unlimited growth and the new view, far less coherent, still to be worked out, that sees both good and necessity in a world view that puts human kind back into nature, into an ecological mode of relationship with the material universe, with other humans, and with self. In what follows I shall be contrasting the old and the new views for their implications for the limits of responsive behavior by organizations. It should be recognized, however, that the transition to a new steady-state or flow-through world is already underway in some organizations and among their constituents and consumers. Enough is happening so that my rather bald contrasts need qualifications in particular situations. But the conventional view still prevails: the dialectic between the old and new views is only now taking on depth and sophistications and the outcome is unforseeable. To a very important degree it will depend on how responsive organizations can learn to be: i.e., how open they will be to the dialectic and how much they can learn from it. This paper will examine factors which affect the limits of effective behavior within organizations; how these may be related to commitment to unconstrained growth, and how a different belief system emphasizing a steady state philosophy might contribute to more effective organizational behavior.’ 1 shall limit aspects of this complex matter examined herein to those central to my values and to the perspective of a social psychologist. My values lead me to the following observations which I have argued at length elsewhere [ 11.

Some Observations with Regard to a Missing Elephant

What is happening to the human race is too complex, interconnected, and dynamic to comprehend. Acknowledging that we don’t know what we’re talking about carries significant implications for how we perceive ourselves as persons and how we conduct our activities. Unavoidable sources of our ignorance include the following: (a) too much and too little information to reach knowledgeable consensus and interpretation within the time available for action; (b) no shared set of value priorities; (c) no agreement on how much context is necessary to be responsible for actions and interpretations; (d) spoken/written language cannot adequately map the complexity; (e) absence of reliable boundaries; (f) self-amplifying, unpredictable acting-out of the shadow; and (g) governance becomes uniquely problematic. Living constructively with these circumstances depends on (a) recognizing that we seek meaning, although, unavoidably, we live in illusions; (b) acknowledging the vulnerability and finiteness of ourselves and our projects; (c) lacking pride and arrogance in the conviction that we know what must be done and how to do it; (d) acting in the spirit of hope, not optimism; (e) acting in the spirit of “tentative commitment”; (f) being “context alert”; (g) being a learner/teacher; and (h) practicing compassion for all who must live and act under these conditions.

Norms in conflict and confusion: Six stories in search of an author☆

Abstract Political conflict involves the conflict of norms; yet resolution of political conflict requires that the disputants share some norms about conflict resolution. This presents a problem at the global level, where no such shared normative framework exists. The world is increasingly interconnected; yet the peoples of the world continue to embrace ideas of separateness which are reinforced by their various normative systems. The authors identify six major “stories”—worldviews or paradigms—competing in the current postmodern world: the Western-style mystique of progress, Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, Marxist revolutionary ideology, Green politics, and the “new paradigm.” Each of this is in conflict with other normative systems, and none is adequate to serve as the normative framework for a global society. Whether or not such a society emerges depends on whether, as a fundamental characteristic, there exists an ability to deal with information—not only data and concepts, but also “meta-information” about the uses and limitations of information. Whatever the norms of a global information culture, its emergence will be accompanied by a protracted period of conflict and great stress for individuals and institutions of governance.

Who Decides Who Decides

what counts as wise? Second, does the public, after considerable thought, think that our society has a moral obligation to pursue lines of research which may benefit present and future generations? I say “moral obligation” because it is sometimes implied by advocates of recombinant D N A research that science would be guilty of a sin of omission if it did not continue and promote research so promising in theoretical and practical benefits. I would prefer to say that the research is desirable and valuable, but by no means is it! morally obligatory. It is just one choice among many we can make in allocating our scientific resources. But I would like to know what the public-after due consideration-thinks about all that. Third, what does the public think about risks and benefits? How, in some rational way, ought the public to think about that problem? One obvious implication of this line of thinking is that the public has as much obligation to act responsibly as does the scientific community. The calls for socially responsible scientists could well be matched with some concern about a socially responsible public. The future of the recombinant D N A debate will depend on the quality of the dialogue between the scientific community and the public. Neither side can conduct the debate on its own. The public must be kept informed in the future, must have a central role in present policy formation, and must develop standards by which to judge the issues. Scientists must bring their knowledge, and just as important, their lack of knowledge out into the open, not just once but again and again. The public and the scientific community have now begun to talk. This marriage can be saved.

On Thinking about the future

Based on 25 years of involvement, the author evaluates the generic characteristics of future studies, their usefulness, and pitfalls, with special reference to the perspectives of JHP readers. Future studies are necessarily based on no reliable theory of social change, no definitive historical referents, and on the inherent ambiguities of language. Psychological and cultural factors also shape content. Therefore they are ontologically and epistemologically questionable. Nevertheless they are imperative contributions to thinking about the directions of our turbulent world. Functionally, future studies are stories, and they do and should contribute to understanding in that spirit. Incentives and disincentives for their use are described as well as the kinds of morals to be drawn from them regarding their message and regarding appropriate comportment for the users and producers of these stories. Well done, future studies demand great methodological sophistication as well as insight into ones motives for using and producing them.

Technology and the management of change from the perspective of a culture context

Abstract The place of technology in the management of change is examined in the light of the cultural environment that mediates that relationship. The utility and limitations of such an examination are emphasized. Some factors that encouraged technological developments in the United States and some behaviors and institutional arrangements that reinforced these developments are specified. The favorable and unfavorable consequences for the management of change today are examined in the context of these persisting culture patterns. Because of the apparant inevitability of social turbulence in the next couple of decades, guiding social change to a different and appropriate valuing of technology, with corresponding changes in behavior and institutions, will require the development of social theory and technologies far beyond those presently available. The chances of succeeding seem slim.