Article 2. Purposes
As a community of cybernetics discourse, the Society:
- invites scholars, practitioners, and students from any field into its conversations - even from those fields within which the key concepts are known by other names;
- promotes serious academic, artistic, and practical contributions to cybernetics through publications, conferences, workshops, online discussions and other appropriate activities; and
- aspires to apply its own concepts to its own practices and organization, that is, as open networks of conversations whose members hold each other accountable for advancing their community and improving the society of which they are a part.
More specifically, the Society enumerates as its (always provisional) purposes:
(1) to advance and disseminate knowledge of and interest in cybernetics’ subject matter, modes of exploration, and expression,
(2) to understand circular and reflexive systems, their designers’, actors’ and investigators’ roles, and how change affects all,
(3) to foster individuals’ and the Society’s cybernetic understandings, as well as their commitment, cooperation, generosity, and responsibility,
(4) to bring in new people and help qualify them in cybernetics’ practice,
(5) to form sensitive and satisfying relationships among theory, practice, tools, and techniques,
(6) to develop high, relevant academic standards, wherever appropriate,
(7) to connect with other subjects, philosophies, sciences, arts and performances such that cybernetics (a) informs them as a transdiscipline and metadiscipline and (b) creates coalitions among kindred interests, fields, and parties.
This revised edition of article 2 is based on:
- the 1979 edition
- comments and suggestions from ASC-MEMBERS users participating in a discussion on this topic in early 2009.
- comments and suggestions from By-Laws Committee and Exec members during the draft revisions process (March - August 2009).
This document needs fine tuning. Specifically, the use of adjectives tend to be inappropriate and off-putting The document will be stronger if unnecessary adjectives are dropped. For example, adjectives such as “serious” tend to diminish the power and the meaning of the words following it. So, the society promotes “serious” academic … contributions as opposed to what… frivolous academic contributions? The use of the word “serious” gives the sentence (and the Society a decidedly “unserious” flavor. This needs (and other similar example) need to be fixed!
wholeheartedly agree
more generally, it is not a good idea to emphasize what we are not, e.g., what cybernetic thinking is not
PROPOSAL 2
Re Article 2
Eliminate the first (strangely constructed) line, the first three bullets, and the sentence following these bullets. Purposes must be clear, actionable and sufficiently general to embrace what the society intends to do. By-laws cannot be “provisional.” They can always be changed. Below are the original purposes. I am suggesting minor changes in parentheses. I am dissatisfied with (d):
“The Society encourages:
(a) The advancement of cybernetics as (a practice and as) a science:
(b) The development of cybernetic research methods and techniques (of inquiry) that improve the (reflexivity and) manageability of complex systems;
(c) The systematic accretion, evaluation and (publication) of cybernetic knowledge and its application across disciplinary, national and ethnic boundaries;
(d) The application of cybernetics towards improving the informational condition of (individuals in society) and the social(ly responsible use) of communication and information processing technology;
(e) The practice of self-government (and deliberative democracy).”
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF PROPOSAL 2
No doubt, the purposes of the existing by-laws can be stated better, especially (d). Merely adding a few phrases may not be enough. In my opinion, the existing categories cover the essence of what I would think the society needs to do. I read the above points as:
(a) Advancing cybernetics as an interdisciplinary discourse
(b) Developing concepts, models, and techniques of inquiry for improving the reflexivity of systems that cybernetics advocates
(c) Claiming authority on all matters of cybernetics by publishing and disseminating cybernetic texts cross-disciplinarily, educating the public and accrediting cyberneticians
(d) Assuring that cybernetics is used to improve human practicing of living, not by theory but by admitting accountability to those affected by the products of cybernetics
(e) Affirming the values of self-government and deliberative democracy (in opposition to theory-imposed, ideology-informed, or authoritarian ways of organizing).
The purposes listed in the new by-laws are far from specific:
Re (2) and (3): What does it mean to have achieved an understanding (of X or any subject matter)? Insisting on understanding without actions and responsibilities to those affected is far from being reflexive and comes awfully close to how religious authorities distinguish among the members of their communities. How would you adjudicate who understands and who does not? And isn’t “correct” understanding implied?
Re (4) Bringing new people is what any self-sustaining organization does. True, we haven’t been too good at it for reasons we should investigate, but this should not be a by-law matter.
Re (5) All disciplines seek to maintain consistency of their theories and their subject matter. “Sensitive and satisfying” are semantically weaker forms. What is a sensitive relationship? How could that be tested? And satisfying to whom? To cyberneticians? To everyone?
Re (6) “wherever appropriate” leaves open the possibility of ignoring “high, relevant standards.” Do we want to allow for this possibility in the by-laws?
Re (7) While connecting “with other subjects, philosophies, sciences, arts, and performances” and associations with “kindred interest” is hardly objectionable but is this our purpose or are we simply open to everyone who is interested in, might learn something from, and could contribute to cybernetics? ASC can join a cybernetic coalition without having to say this in the bylaws (if this is what is meant by (7) – provided such connections do not conflict with our by-laws.
Also, we should avoid throwing fashionable slogans into the by-laws. The new by-laws mention “interdisciplinary,” “transdisciplinary,” and “metadisciplinary.” The Wikipedia does not recognize “metadisciplinary,” directs attention to “multidisciplinary” but has no entry for it. … Using these terms reads like we don’t know what we are talking about. Can the writer of the new bylaws clarify what these terms distinguish? And how do these distinctions translate into the conduct of our society? What sense will new members make of these terms? General systems people make similar claims about the meta-nature of their systems concepts, incidentally claiming cybernetics to be a minor part of their project. I think cybernetics has something more clearly definable to do.
As said above, Article 2 of the existing by-laws is clearer and actionable, although (d) is phrased in outdated terms. Except for (1), which I could live with, the new purposes use ambiguous and non-actionable terms. I prefer we build on what we have.
I have felt that I should be careful about engaging, for a number of reasons, including that I understand my main role at the moment as being to listen and understand.
However, I must add a couple of points here: I will do this in 2 separate mails.
The purposes (numbered 1 to 7) above were developed by the society as a mission statement, in March, using the asc-members list. They were accepted at the business meeting of the society in Olympia. The presidential report was circulated to the society by me on the asc-members list, posted 5 June 2009.
Thus, the statement of purposes is perhaps the only democratically and popularly developed part of the ASC’s “constitutional” affairs that has been created with full and open membership involvement, before this consultation on the by laws.
I am not sure it is open to renegociation, here and at this time, though I accept (and indeed insisted) that our “mission” should not be taken to be fixed, but should be open to recision.
what we need to do at this moment of our society, for example attracting younger people as members, or getting sponsors, or increasing the frequency if meetings is on a different level that wajht should be in the by-laws.
every association has the need of recruiting new members, obtaining financing, and providing better services to its members.
but this is not particular of a society for cybernetic.
Here is my second point.
The term meta- is neither new nor trendy. Metamathematics is a significant area of mathematical achievement that has an explicit history going back more than 100 years. I have no doubt that cybernetics is not only a subject in its own right, but is used as a meta-subject by people in other subjects. The whole notion of cybernetics applied to cybernetics treats cybernetics as a meta-subject for itself. Indeed, in the Mead paper “The Cybernetics of Cybernetics” Mead talks of cybernetics as a language that can be used in common by those form other fields. I believe cybernetics is both a discipline and a meta-discipline, just as is maths, for instance.
For me there is nothing trendy in saying this. We have to create and the bring into common usage new terms. That does not make them trendy, nor should they be dismissable just because they are trendy. No one of us owns the language we share.
while i have no doubt that meta-mathematicians know what they are talking about, we were using meta-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary without distinguishing among them, as if they are all the same — fashionable in order not to be pinned down on something.
“meta” in mathematics - and lou might want to chime in on that - implies a hierarchy of representation, a representational notion of language that wittgenstein, rorty and many others, including our ernst von glasersfeld want to get far away from. i too, which is why i prefer to talk about conversation as an embodied process.
i do not think it is a good idea to buy into the positivism of representation.
margaret mead talked about speaking a language that does something in the world and taking responsibility for the consequences of speaking this language. she also suggested to apply cybernetics to our society for cybernetics — not as a metalanguage but as a language rooted in the coordination it brings forth. this is not a meta conception
I AM PROPOSING NOT TO LIST WHAT EVERY SOCIETY STRUGGLES WITH IN FAVOR OF WHAT DISTINGUISHES OUR SOCIETY FROM OTHERS:
As a discourse community, the Society:
(a) Promotes the art (practice) and science of cybernetics
(b) Claims authority on all matters of cybernetics by organizing conferences, publishing and disseminating cybernetic texts, accrediting cybernetic institutions, and educating its members and the larger public
(c) Advances the discourse of cybernetics by encouraging its members to actively participate in the development and testing of new concepts, models, methods of inquiry, and ways of managing the reflexivities in social, technological, and natural systems
(d) Constructively critiques existing reflexivities when they fail to improve human practicing of living together
(e) Affirms the values of participation in networks of conversation, deliberation, and self-government.