In the 1936 election, Franklin Roosevelt consolidated a new political coalition and a new political “paradigm” that dominated American politics for more than a generation. Marching under the banner of the “New Deal,” this new paradigm involved a set of liberal political values and goals, and it energized a new “activist” role for our national government that ultimately re-shaped our society in many different ways.
Though it may be too soon to know for sure, the indications are that Barack Obama’s election as President may result in another such seismic shift in America’s politics, from an anti-government, business-oriented conservatism to a more centrist liberalism. The new political coalition that produced Obama’s victory includes minorities and young voters, who voted in much greater numbers and overwhelmingly favored the Democrats, blue-collar Democrats who had strayed into Ronald Reagan’s coalition but who have returned to the fold, suburban middle class voters who have lost ground economically over the past decade or so, and such traditional Democratic voters as urban liberals,and the Irish and Jewish Americans. Indeed, even the solid (Republican) southern and western states are in play for the first time in 40 years.
Whether or not this new coalition will endure depends ultimately on how Obama and the Democrats perform in the next four years. If the reforms and changes of direction that Obama has promised are indeed realized (or at least in progress) – from a rationalized healthcare system to education, energy independence, climate change and job creation – and if he can also chart a new course for this country in international politics, a second term for Obama might resemble 1936. The Democrats could cement a new pattern of party loyalties, and a new political consensus, that would favor the continuation of a centrist-progressive paradigm into the foreseeable future.
Thought for the day: Barack Obama likes to say that change happens from the bottom up, not from the top down. But the truth is that it often involves a two-way street. A leader emerges with a compelling new vision, and he/she inspires a political movement that provides the support, and the power, to achieve that vision.
An Introduction
In his path-breaking book, Beyond Reductionism (1969), the famed novelist and polymath Arthur Koestler remarked that "true innovation occurs when things are put together for the first time that had been separate." He was talking about synergy, of course, a phenomenon that is still greatly underrated and vastly more important even than Koestler imagined. I call it "nature's magic."
Synergy is in fact one of the great governing principles of the natural world; it ranks right up there with such heavyweight concepts as gravity, energy, information and entropy as one of the keys to understanding how the world works. It has been a wellspring of creativity in the evolution of the universe; it has greatly influenced the overall trajectory of life on Earth; it played a decisive role in the emergence of humankind; it is vital to the workings of every modern society; and it is no exaggeration to say that our ultimate fate depends on it. Indeed, every day, in a thousand different ways, our lives are shaped, and re-shaped, by synergy.
All of these grandiose-sounding claims are discussed in detail, with many hundreds of examples, in three of my books: The Synergism Hypothesis (McGraw-Hill, 1983), Nature's Magic (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and Holistic Darwinism (University of Chicago Press, 2005), as well as in many of my articles for professional journals. Some of these publications are available at my website: http://www.complexsystems.org/
The purpose of this blog is to provide a continuing update on synergy and an opportunity for some dialogue on this important and still underappreciated phenomenon, along with commentaries on various topics - political, economic, and social -- from a synergy-monger's perspective. The tag-lines for each entry, with a "thought for the day," are the unregulated firecrackers that go off in my mind from time to time.
Peter Corning pacorning@complexsystems.org
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Synergy is in fact one of the great governing principles of the natural world; it ranks right up there with such heavyweight concepts as gravity, energy, information and entropy as one of the keys to understanding how the world works. It has been a wellspring of creativity in the evolution of the universe; it has greatly influenced the overall trajectory of life on Earth; it played a decisive role in the emergence of humankind; it is vital to the workings of every modern society; and it is no exaggeration to say that our ultimate fate depends on it. Indeed, every day, in a thousand different ways, our lives are shaped, and re-shaped, by synergy.
All of these grandiose-sounding claims are discussed in detail, with many hundreds of examples, in three of my books: The Synergism Hypothesis (McGraw-Hill, 1983), Nature's Magic (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and Holistic Darwinism (University of Chicago Press, 2005), as well as in many of my articles for professional journals. Some of these publications are available at my website: http://www.complexsystems.org/
The purpose of this blog is to provide a continuing update on synergy and an opportunity for some dialogue on this important and still underappreciated phenomenon, along with commentaries on various topics - political, economic, and social -- from a synergy-monger's perspective. The tag-lines for each entry, with a "thought for the day," are the unregulated firecrackers that go off in my mind from time to time.
Peter Corning pacorning@complexsystems.org
__________________________________________________
Thursday, November 13, 2008
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