Figuring Out the Modern World

For the most part, we do not recognize what is happening around us until it is over.  When we are in the midst of changes, we are so confused by the unexpected that we cannot make out novel patterns.  It is only after the dust settles that we realize how the pieces fit together.

That, however, doesn’t keep us from tying to figure things out.  We do so because the more accurate our comprehension, the better choices we make.  Once we recognize the obstacles we face, we can improve our chances of circumventing them.

To this end, a recent book has helped put our current situation in better perspective.  Niall Ferguson’s “The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power from the Freemasons to FaceBook” offers a historian’s eye view.  He draws the parallels between what happened in the wake of the printing press with the current computer revolution.

According to Ferguson, relatively cheap books were extremely disruptive.  They brought about scientific, political, and religious upheavals.  Once ordinary people could communicate without the intervention of the authorities, new ways of thinking proliferated.

With inexpensive tracts available, scientists could cross-pollinate and spread innovative ideas.  With low-priced pamphlets at his disposal, Martin Luther could broadcast his challenge to the Roman Catholic Church, which, in turn, disrupted the political order.  The outcome was to midwife modern society.

Today, says Ferguson, we are experiencing similar turmoil.  The Internet and social media have scrambled the ways people communicate.  The news, for instance, is no longer always filtered through media authorities.  People can express their opinions to each other directly without worrying about official censorship.

The question is: Where will this end?  Will there be greater democratization or an administrative counter-attack.  Four hundred years ago, a counter-reformation reasserted the power of Rome.  At about the same time, Louis XIV of France was able to consolidate his more centralized government.  Will we suffer a comparable fate?

Ferguson is primarily interested in the effects of changing patterns of communication.  He contrasts hierarchies, where those at the top dominate information flows, with networks, where data flows laterally.  This, nonetheless, is a partial analysis.

What Ferguson leaves out are factors such as power and social roles.  Power is not just a matter of communication, but of coercion.  Bosses don’t control others solely by monopolizing information.  They also intimidate them into submission.

Likewise, lower level folks don’t only assert their desires by communicating with their peers.  They also do so through a division of labor.  If they are able to coordinate complicated specialties, they can make others dependent upon them.

Even so, Ferguson rightly talks about the emergence of the “administrative” state.  Another way to describe this is “bureaucratic” government.  It is hierarchical, and non-democratic, in the sense that those at the top can effectively control those at the bottom.

Meanwhile, the connections of those at the bottom can be mapped in terms of network connections.  Who communicates with whom frequently determines who is most influential.  Yet people also interact in terms of their roles.  Their various activities intersect so that they achieve more together than separately.  In this case, “professionalism” is correlated with power.

I would, therefore, describe the big fight today as between the bureaucrats and professionals.  Hence, we have the bureaucratic party, namely the Democrats, squared off against the decentralizing party, that is, the Republicans.  The former, in the name of protecting the people, are hierarchically oriented, whereas the latter, in the name of greater freedom, foster voluntary networks.

Ferguson is smart enough to know that the complete victory of one or the other of these parties might be disastrous.  If the centralizers won, we would probably be saddled with tyranny.  They would be inclined to stamp out originality so as to impose their version of social order.

On the other hand, if the decentralizers were completely victorious, chaos would likely ensue.  Not liberty, but license could prevail.  We are consequently on the horns of a dilemma.  With neither side monopolizing the truth, the best way to proceed is via a balance of power.

The trouble is that this is usually achieved by way of endless conflict.  Because no one can know the fluctuating sweet spot, we are doomed to eternal strife.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw, State University