Peter Emmerson

 1.6 The case against system technology and the positive-negative dichotomy: time for change!

 ‘Interdepend’ is a word but also a tool for analysis and is therefore a piece of ‘process technology’ used to stress the co-existence of variables without being guilty of over-extending by specifying what causes what. The idea is to ditch the misleading conventions associated with ‘systems analysis’ that rely heavily on ascertaining causal relationships, in favour of a model which uses the notion of process. One important feature of this programme should be the removal of an ancient and fundamental implement in the application of systems analysis – the dichotomy. A prime example of an extremely influential dichotomy features in this essay: ‘positive-negative’.

The deletion of positive-negative as a tool of analysis could have benefits beyond the boundaries of social science. Only the other day I heard one of the physicists using the Large Hadron Collider at Cern explaining that they could now keep ‘antimatter’ (anti-hydrogen) in existence for a quarter of an hour. I would respectfully suggest that whatever it is that they are developing it is not ‘antimatter’. Dichotomies are ancient linguistic tools of system technology that have been employed by theometaphysicians theologians, philosophers and mathematicians) to explore the possibilities of absolute certainty, in order, I would suggest, to find two things: personal comfort in an extremely threatening physical environment; a justification for action, especially the subjugation of others. On this level systems analysis is a technique put together by people to protect themselves from anxiety at a time when they were much more vulnerable to catastrophe than we in the West are today. The search for certainty through systems analysis was an element in the defence/attack strategy of ancient people in their battle to gain control over the turbulence and potential devastation of life’s experiences. From then on it serves to maintain that control, not only over what is idealistically called nature, but equally usefully, to justify the authority of those who have social influence. Systems analysis is a method of providing security through ideals!

Gradually, at first in Europe, as people have gained more control the level of threat in their lives (we can identify a significant increase in self-confidence of certain influential figurations during the Renaissance) we have seen the development and expansion of more realistic types of analysis such as science. I would like to argue that the emergence of science as an industry interdepends with an increase in the numbers of people who felt ‘safe enough’ to risk exploring the potentials of the real world. Such a move implies controlling and modifying the influence of ‘me-orientation’ (relative involvement), high in idealism, because such knowledge is designed to comfort the worried mind of habituses besieged by reality and fate, rather than engaged with it. Such a ‘me-oriented’ habitus has much less value for those committed to exploiting reality. Interdependently, we see an increase in ‘they-orientation’ (relative detachment), and the development of a new brand of mathematicized idealism better fitted for the purpose of exploiting the world outside the mind. From my position scientists can never break the tie with idealism, any more than they can divorce themselves from their emotions such as fear, i.e., be totally realistic or what we term objective. However, I want to argue that in order to do science, they must control their level of ‘me-orientation’ and the pattern of ideals that correlates with it sufficiently to allow the facility to achieve the greater levels of ‘they-orientation’ (relative detachment) necessary to engage profitably with reality. Concomitantly, the influence of the ‘me-oriented’ ideals of religion and philosophy has declined in favour of the more ‘they-oriented’ mathematics as the level of realism has risen. However, the overall authority of ideals has been lowered by the move to greater realism.

Such adjustments in perceptual habitus are likely to be accompanied by far greater psychosocial discomfort as threats emerge that had until then been managed by the old truths of religion and philosophy: the decline in ‘me-oriented’ idealism leaves people more vulnerable to fear of relative uncertainty and the finality of death. Relatedly, the attack on idealism, for that is how it will be interpreted, is very likely to attract violent attempts at suppression because it undermines wider psychosocial relative stability: the violence of some religious fundamentalists are examples, whether it be the Inquisition or the more recent Taliban. We can also see the traumatising effects of a challenge to ideals (certainty) in scientific figurations over the potential discovery of particles that contradict Einstein’s mathematical model by exceeding the speed of light. ‘They-orientation’ is a state of greater relative detachment, in which our ‘me-oriented’ ideals (religion and philosophy) have far less influence, making us much more vulnerable to fear in relation to the fragility of our existence. In moving from a ‘me-oriented’ perceptual habitus we abandon much of the ancient religious and philosophical truth technology that has provided security for so long, in favour of a more ‘they-oriented’ mathematicized idealism that is much more vulnerable to relative uncertainty, because our minds have far less control. Interdependently, a more ‘they-oriented’ habitus has a different fear structure with a heightened awareness of the sheer dynamic futility of existence, albeit buttressed by the stabilising certainties of mathematics, which offers the comforting means for safe sleeping. But only temporarily as we gradually discover the limits of mathematical certainties as explanations of reality: the uncertainty of the particle world being a case in point. Greater levels of ‘relative uncertainty’ await scientists, as they move further into ‘they-orientation’, where even the comfort of mathematics is threatened. System technology and its dichotomies has little use here other than as politics in the defence against process technology.