AI & Soc (2013) 28:177–188 DOI 10.1007/s00146-012-0408-0
25TH ANNIVERSARY VOLUME A FAUSTIAN EXCHANGE: WHAT IS TO BE HUMAN IN THE ERA OF UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGY?
Cultural visions of technology Paradoxes of panoptic and interactive perspectives and methods Lauge Baungaard Rasmussen
Received: 15 September 2011 / Accepted: 6 January 2012 / Published online: 17 February 2012 Springer-Verlag London Limited 2012
Abstract The essential premise of the human-centered technology paradigm was clearly formulated by Howard Rosenbrock in the 1970s: technology should enrich rather than impoverish people’s work and life conditions. The increasing influence of technology in modern societies has been seen by some as offering great promise for the future, but by others as creating the electronic surveillance and/or manipulation of human genes, minds and beliefs. This paper approaches technological worlds as cultural visions in order to discuss and reflect the paradoxical process of viewing technology as part of a hope for a more sustainable and human-centered future as well as part of an apocalypse of surveillance, violence and catastrophes. Keywords Technology worlds Panoptical vision Interactive vision Hope Apocalypse Control technology Human-centered technology Paradoxical process
1 Introduction The intention of this paper is to approach technological worlds as cultural visions. The essential premise of the human-centered technology paradigm was clearly formulated by Howard Rosenbrock in the 1970s: technology should enrich rather than impoverish people’s work and life conditions (Rosenbrock 2008/1980). This statement should be obvious to agree upon. But ‘‘enrichment’’ and ‘‘impoverishment’’ are still burning issues despite the
rapid development of technologies in production, and private and public services within education, healthcare, communication and transportation. The despair and violence of the depressed groups of people in European metropolis and cities have not been counteracted by advanced technological surveillance systems. Technology has enhanced the promise as offering great prosperity, but also surveillance, manipulation and annihilation of human genes, minds and lives. Recognizing the interconnectedness of our political, economic, social and environmental challenges, the context of developing and using new technology has changed. Cultural visions of technology, however, are still firmly rooted in images of control, prosperity and hope. But the reverse sides of these images are also present in form of metaphors of surveillance, exploitation and apocalyptic dreams of destruction and annihilation. They occur as paradoxical processes in our dreams, thoughts and actions in our everyday life as well as in scientific and political endeavors to meet the complex challenges of the world (Hanson 2011; Borup et al. 2006; Corbett 1998). In this paper, especially two cultural visions of technology are presented and discussed, namely the panoptic and interactive visions. However, first the concept of cultural visions and related scenarios of the future are framed in order to be reflected more deeply during the process of paradoxes emerging throughout this paper.
2 Cultural visions L. B. Rasmussen (&) DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Denmark, Building 426 A, Produktionstorvet, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail:
[email protected]
2.1 The concept Cultural visions are shared constructs created through linguistic or visual acts. Their purpose is to articulate certain
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traits and issues of what current and future life situations may hold. Although various in form, context and location, they are sufficiently common for the members of a given culture to speculate and dream about. But visions are not just dreams to be enjoyed or scared about. They are not just escapist fantasy. They are significant parts of human culture used to promote or trust benefits of new technologies or to discuss the economic, social and ethical risks related to them. Our visions live and grow in our minds as sources of creating stability or change. They may be embedded in origin and destination myths. They may be religious or secular, literary, or political. In a historical perspective, Western technology is deeply rooted in a special kind of linear vision with its preference for detached, objective observation, evaluation and control (Weizenbaum 1976). In place of technology, breakthroughs scientists, managers and politicians are tempted to plot line of progress into infinity. They are also tempted to establish a vision of a highly rational and controlled world based on detached data and technological systems. However, cultural visions of technology appear as both thoughts and dreams like lights and shadows, sometimes in strange and bizarre combinations. As pointed by Romanyshyn: The technological world is a work of reason but of a reason which reaches deeply into dream. (Romanyshyn 1989:10). In dreams, the fixed and stable ground of logical lines on the surface of technological worlds is often suspended. Dreams are like tacit communication in body language that accompanies a spoken conversation (Cooley 1987; Polanyi 1966). They are like a tangled web of interacting images and symbols chasing each other around in a paradoxical process. Both in science and in art, there are numerous examples of dream-inspired visions and creativity: wellknown Shelley’s novel of ‘‘Frankenstein’’ and Coleridge’s poem ‘‘Kubla Klean: or a vision in a dream’’. Drawing on anthropology, ethnography, psychology and neurophysiology, it can be argued that culture is implicated in how dreams are shaped, remembered, reported and envisioned (Glaskin 2011). 2.2 Three cultural visions of the future In particular, three scenarios have been outlined in the public discourse about the political, economic and cultural effects of technology. One scenario is that we are approaching a more and more homogenous world culture mediated by large, international enterprises and IT systems as regulators of the global and local development. This development is enhanced by the revolution of IT and a multitude of new communication technologies
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(Rasmussen 2008; Elmes et al. 2005; Castells 2000). It is related to the cultural vision of technology as means of creating control, prosperity and exploitation of natural and human resources. Another scenario is that much more violent clashes will emerge than those we have witnessed so far, due to increasing inequality between social classes and scarcity of energy resources. This is also likely to enforce more innovations of military technology as well as surveillance technology to protect people from other people as well as from nuclear or nature-made disasters (Rasmussen 2008; Scheer 2002; Castells 2000). This scenario is related to the cultural fear of apocalyptic destruction and annihilation. A third scenario is that we become able to learn from past and present experiences and begin to think in sustainable terms, thus perhaps becoming able to avoid or diminish the effects of present and future ecological crises. The sustainability approach has led to a multitude of innovations for instance concentrated solar power, thin film and recycled plastics. (Tukker and Tischner 2006; Scheer 2002; Charter and Tischner 2001; Nussbaum 2000). It is the cultural vision of hope for a more balanced use of energy resources. The promise in this vision is also to find new ways to use technology enhancing enrichment of human life, and thus an extension of Rosenbrock’s technology vision. These three cultural visions are in various degree related to two technology visions, namely panoptical and interactive visions and their corresponding methods as described and discussed in the following sections.
3 The panoptic vision of technology 3.1 The vision of panopticon According to Bentham, a panopticon, or ‘‘all-seeing prison,’’ is an ideal architectural structure for a prison with a central tower for observation of the cells around the central tower for each prisoner. The key concept in panopticon is the ‘‘gaze,’’ that is, hierarchical and one-way surveillance. It is hierarchical in the sense that superiors can observe their subordinates, who again can observe their subordinates. It is one-way because the subordinates cannot see their superiors or each other. In addition, subordinates cannot know whether they are being observed. The gaze need not actually be continuous, because the subordinates will gradually be disciplined to act as though they are under the gaze even when they may not be. Later on, Foucault has used the panopticon to analyze institutions in military, hospitals, schools and factories (Foucault 1977). According to him, the ‘‘gaze’’ is also a metaphor for how bodies could be disciplined and controlled throughout societies by means of the internalization of disciplinary structures.
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3.2 Roots of the panoptical vision The panoptic paradigm can be traced back to Newton (1642–1727) and Descartes (1596–1650). According to Newton’s mechanical model, the universe is made of indestructible atoms. They influence each other by forces of gravitation, which are supposed to be fixed and unchangeable natural laws. Their interaction occurs in a three-dimensional and homogenous space. Time in this mode is flowing from the past through the present to the future. Newton’s model of the universe resembles a gigantic super-machine governed by linear chains of cause and effects. Hence, it is strictly deterministic in the sense that if we know all the factors operating at present, we should be able to reconstruct any situation in the past as well as any event in the future. Although this assumption cannot be scientifically proven, it constitutes one of the cornerstones of Newton’s model of the universe. Descartes contributed to this model with the absolute dichotomy between matter and mind. According to him, the universe exists objectively in the form in which a human observer would perceive it, and its existence is entirely independent of the process of observation. These ideas of Newton and Descartes became the most important driving forces behind the scientific and industrial revolution the past 350 years. They were far most dominating within natural sciences, but other disciplines like anthropology, sociology, psychology and psychiatry were also heavily influenced by it. During the nineteenth century, they tend to become the ideal prototype of all scientific thinking and technological development. Similar to the view of the universe, human beings are viewed as biological machines. Since the nineteenth century, a number of attempts have been made to codify and promote the ideas that could lead to an efficient organization of workers as if they were biological machines or parts of a machine (Morgan 1986; Weber 1930; Taylor 1911). 3.3 Panoptic performance measurement systems in work life Several authors have used the panopticon perspective on the application of information technology (Zuboff 1988; Castells 2000; Sia et al. 2003, Elmes et al. 2005). For instance, electronically mediated performance measurement systems with their integrated common database provide a panoptic structure, because they record all user actions, which can be observed in real-time or stored for possible later observations. The potential control of employees and their activities has become even more powerful as information and communication systems become more and more ubiquitous. Instead of everyone being subjected equally to the ‘‘gaze,’’ advanced social
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sorting is used by sophisticated electronic surveillance (Mohanan 2009; Lyon 2003). Though plenty of management literature is stressing the importance of motivation and activation of employees as ‘‘social capital,’’ the policy in use often seems to conform the implementation of alignment to expert defined systems. In general, performance measurement systems can be grouped in five types of approaches (Shaw 2003): (1) Surveys of customer experience used to describe the performance of an organization from the customer perspective; (2) Third-party assessments linked to certification and accreditation by national or international standards; (3) Statistical indicators used as a guideline for performance measurement according to predefined criteria; (4) Internal assessment performed by dedicated staff according to specified standards; (5) National inspections performed by a legal authority according to preset standards. The management literature is filled with naı¨ve and simplified beliefs concerning the usage of these performance measurement systems. For instance, statements like ‘‘What you measure is what you get’’ are common in this sort of literature (Neely and Al Najjar 2006). In an attempt to cover all aspects of performance in work and organizations, performance measurement systems have become broader in scope and the use more widespread (Lauras et al. 2010; Chen 2008). The enlightened visions and promises of performance measurement systems are to cast light upon what would otherwise remain obscure and ineffective. An example is the balanced scorecard approach focusing on four dimensions: finance, customers, internal business processes and innovation and learning (Kaplan and Norton 2006). It leaves each organization with the dilemma of defining a system customized to their own settings, but with little chance of covering all issues and details satisfactorily. For instance, the practical implementation of balanced scorecard framework is still criticized for a too intense focus on finance and too little on innovation and learning (Wicks et al. 2007; Greiling 2006; Nørreklit 2003). The increasing use of performance measurement has resulted in heavy administration as well as an overwhelming amount of data. Contradictory to the expressed policies, the load of reports, standards and registrations have restricted the abilities to comprehend all the information provided. The consequences are that performance measurement systems often are used as retrospective information rather than as proactive decision support (Traberg 2011). These systems are riddled with paradoxes (Chae and Bloodgood 2006) that prevent them from satisfying the promises of their creators. One paradox is that they promise more transparency in order to govern the organization in a more rational manner, while the actual result often seems to be less transparency due to an overload of information and lack of coherence between the different systems (Traberg 2011; Lozeau et al.
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2002; Tsoukas 1997). Another paradox is that more information may lead to less understanding and undermine trust, though these impacts might not be intended (Roberts 2009; Rasmussen 2007; Bro¨dner 2003; Strathern 2000; Tsoukas 1997). Such systems tend to develop their own distinctive values and esoteric languages of specialized, codified and abstract knowledge (Gardner and Wright 2009). Creative actions among the employees may be seen as a threat to the effectiveness of the control systems and hence to the effectiveness of the management. Such control systems may act as a drag chain on progress adversely affecting knowledge sharing and openness among stakeholders. Despite the rhetorical commitment to displacing dislodging hierarchy and dysfunctional silos, the continuities with the past are often more striking than the creative jump into a changed future. How do managers and consultants typically try to overcome organizational and mental barriers? One rational response to overcome organizational and mental barriers is, as mentioned, the implementation of performance measurement systems as for instance balanced score card (BSC). Another rational strategy to overcome barriers is implementation of more effectively planned time typically introduced as following the ‘‘Toyota Way’’ of using LEAN principles. A third rational strategy is to focus on coreknowledge defined as knowledge that contributes to essential organizational processes or outcomes. A fourth strategy is to focus on social alignment to corporate values as they are. Together, these four strategies are supposed to enhance corporate identity and control. They permeate more and more aspects of the world of work, but there is a fundamental knowledge asymmetry between the creators of the users of the systems. This asymmetry cannot be removed with generating more measures, for they need to be interpreted, and the users do not have the insider knowledge of the systems at the same level as the creators of the systems. As pointed out by Tsoukas: …The paradox is that the more information on the inner workings of an expert system observers seek to have, the less they will be inclined to trust its practitioners; the less practitioners are trusted, the less likely it is for the benefits of the specialized expertise to be realized. (Tsoukas 1997: 835). 3.4 Panoptic surveillance in domains of everyday life As pointed by Mohanan (2009), the cultural vision of technological surveillance is also implemented in healthcare and transportation. For instance, in hospitals radio frequency identification systems (RFID) are used to track equipment, patients or
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nurses. These systems are intended to make the system more transparent, so computers can tell anyone where human resources or equipment are at any time. However, local databases can also be generated to scrutinize the activities of people or objects at a later date (Mohanan 2009; Fischer 2006). Another example is ‘‘intelligent transportation systems’’ including interrelated technologies like road sensors, traffic cameras, global positioning systems (GPS), smart cards for public transit payments, traffic advisory signs that can be updated remotely and so forth (Mohanan 2009; Camaron 2006). In both cases, surveillance is facilitated by electronic systems of identification, monitoring, tracking and analyzing a multitude of data input of movements and activities. The paradoxes of using electronically mediated surveillance in these domains too are similar to those in work life as pointed out by Tsoukas above. 4 The interactive vision of human-centered technology 4.1 The concept The interactive vision of human-centered technology refers to two aspects of human creativity. First, shaping of technology is a fundamental expression of human life activity. This ability has crystallized into the evolutionary process that has allowed mankind to enter a social/historical process. Second, participation in the shaping of technology includes the capacity for understanding one’s own societal conditions as well as active participation in the shaping of these conditions. Both individuals and social organizations contain the potential for self-renewal and transformation. Self-renewal refers to the ability of organizations and individuals continuously to renew and recycle their activities, while maintaining the integrity of their overall structure. Transformation refers to the ability to reach out creativity beyond physical, mental and organizational boundaries by using interactive methods and technologies in the processes of communication and learning Corbett et al. 1991). 4.2 Roots of the interactive vision The interactive vision of technology is connected to modern theory of relativity. The physicist, Niels Bohr (1885–1962), believed that the problems created by the paradoxical status of human beings are resolved by using complementary descriptions instead of using a single ‘‘objective’’ frame as in the classical physics. According to Bohr, human beings are part of the world and yet put
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themselves outside of it when claiming to possess knowledge of the world. Hence, complementary frames must be used to describe the observed processes in the natural as well as the social world. Concepts, which seem to be firmly grounded in facts, divide into mutually exclusive or ‘‘complementary’’ groups all of which are needed for stating what we know, though the use of any particular group seems to rule out the use of the rest. Bohr believed that different cultures, different concepts and different methodological approaches are related in a similar way (Rasmussen 2011a, b). His paradoxical view promotes both/and rather than either/or thinking through complementary, opposite powers. His escutcheon shows the YinYang symbol from old Chinese philosophy. Yin stands for ‘‘…the receptive, recessive, hidden, informed and background force and has the female and earth as its main images’’. Yang stands for ‘‘…the creative, forward-pushing, manifest and systematic force and has the male and heaven as its main images (Cheng 1987:34). According to this symbol and old Chinese philosophy opposing forces not only are in a dialectical interaction but they also complement and contribute to each other. The interesting aspect of this is that Bohr’s paradoxical thinking resembles that of the ancient Chinese philosophies. This is also to some extent occurring in the thinking of another quantum physicist, David Bohm (1917–1992)—who made significant contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology—understands the universe as a flowing and unbroken wholeness. According to Bohm, the phenomenal world that we observe in our everyday life represents only a partial aspect of reality: the explicate order. Its generative source—the implicate or unfolded order—exists at another level of reality and can normally not be directly observed. The implicate order generates the explicate order. An example of implicate and explicate order: Imagine a whirlpool in the river. While possessing relatively constant and recurrent form, it has no existence other than in the movement of the river in which it exists. It illustrates how an explicate order (the whirlpool) flows out of the implicate order (the structure of the river) (Morgan 1986:234). According to Bohm, the world unfolds and infolds from moment to moment as a form of pulsating wholeness. Each moment of explicate order both differs from and has similarities with its predecessors. This dual relationship creates the appearance of continuity in the midst of change. The explicate order, as we observe it in everyday life, is only the surface of the more or less hidden processes of the implicate orders. Bohm believes that it is necessary to search for these hidden dynamics in order to understand the changes we are observing in the explicate order. In a
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similar vein, human beings are viewed as holistic organisms far more complex and interconnected to the mechanical view of human beings as biological machines. The relevance of explicate and implicate order for understanding organizational life can be specified more precisely. If we assume that observable forms of organizational life, for instance explicitly stated norms, procedures and behaviors, are the explicate orders, the implicate orders are the more or less hidden source that generates and sustains the observable activities. This source is the underlying assumptions and values rooted in the culture and the environment of the organization or community. 4.3 The interactive vision of integrating social and ecological life cycles Bohr’s principle of complementary and Bohm’s explicate and implicate orders are also visible in the holistic model of the interaction between the bio life cycle and the industrial life cycle as illustrated in Fig. 1: Under the term of six ‘‘Rs’’, sustainable innovation may focus on (1) Reduction as development of services and production that use fewer raw materials and energy, and generate less waste; (2) Re-use as design of new products that are able to be used multiple times; (3) Recondition as extension of the life of a product by overhauling it; (4) Repair as extension of product life by repairing its parts; (5) Remanufacturing as change of an old to a new and more sustainable product; (6) Recycling as reprocessing products into new materials for other products. (Lee and Green 1994/Deutsch 2004). Using the six ‘‘Rs’’ as innovative guidelines both in bio life cycle and product life cycle perspectives can provide a more effective use of natural capital, as well as a high degree of efficiency, effectiveness and added value. The vision is to develop sustainable innovations, combining new product-service concepts with new product-service systems, new components and techniques and new structures between producers and users (Scheer 2002). The rapid improvement of possibilities for using system technologies, interactive networks and strategic simulation modeling has supported the opportunities to cooperate within and across regional borders. The vision of shaping technology to be part of more sustainable ecosystems is also a vision of systemic control of political, economic and ecological crises. While the fight and hope for sustainability started as a grass root movement, in recent decades it has been accepted and adopted by corporations as well as national and international institutions. The wind power industry is one of many examples, how this trend has transformed many critical actors of left-wing youth to high-tech oriented researchers and managers associated with or employed by large international
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Fig. 1 Two complementary life cycles (Hopkins 2010)
corporations and institutions. Thus, the vision and endeavors to create a more sustainable future and technologically mediated control of crises seem to create new paradoxes. In the absence of a clear mandate to regulate crises, the precise forms of crisis management appear to be ambiguous and dependent upon political negotiations with a rather shortterm perspective of avoiding collapses instead of long-term plans for saving the human kind from economic and ecological crises. The hope for a more sustainable future is still alive not at least at the municipality level where a multitude of sustainable energy and social welfare projects are taking place. What seemed to be a breakthrough of a new cultural vision as hope for sustainability has become a mixture of frustrations and potential ways of survival for corporate capitalism. However, even in such a situation, the creative spirits of local agents seem to continue to create new hopes. An example is the networking of several thousands of European Municipalities inspiring each other to transform the local production and consumption of energy from fossil to endurable energy. Another example is the increasing collaboration between communities, companies and research institutions (so called ‘‘Triple Helix’’ constellation). The creative spirits of using new health care systems, new sustainable energy systems and new environmental protection technologies can be encouraged by this form of collaboration. However, the result may also be the opposite, when the triple helix constellations become ‘‘closed fora’’ for the powerful actors in regions and communities leaving out the possibility for rank-and-file people to be involved in the shaping of possible futures for the communities in question. In a paradoxical process, the panoptic and interactive visions are creating new bio and industrial life cycles, whose form is imaginative as well as factual, whose style is
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told as well as seen, whose landscape is multi-perspective rather than fixed in one dimension, and whose structure is plural and relational rather than singular and individual. The dilemma is, however, how it is possible to keep the cultural vision alive for more enriched work and life conditions, while the scarcity of resources and the political establishment seems to be locked into short-term crisis management without will or means to break the negative spiral of capitalist opportunism and political populism? A way forward to handle this dilemma is opined by Corbett: From a post-humanist perspective, the issue becomes one of rejecting the modernist ideal of human mastery and sovereignty, and attempting to formulate non-repressive codes of conduct to guide human– human, human–machine and machine–machine interconnectivity. This not only raises questions about system design, but also about codes of conduct defined by such systems within a broad socio-economic and ideological context’’ (Corbett 1998:226). Following this point, the challenge is to create interconnectivity between interactive visions and interactive methods. In the following section, examples of nonrepressive and interactive methods are introduced and discussed based on the author’s practical experiences of using such methods in various contexts (Rasmussen 2011a, b). 4.4 Relationships between interactive visions and interactive methods The restructuring of capitalism and technological developments are inducing new forms of challenges to intra- and inter-organizational cooperation. New forms of networks
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have established a formidable presence. More and more organizations and groups are engaged in contractual joint ventures, alliances and other forms of inter-organizational relationships. In addition, we also see trends toward increasing instability of work and individualization of labor (Garibaldo 2011). Virtual connections mediated by diversified media systems (Brandt 2011) are becoming more and more common (Rasmussen 2011a, b, Castells 2000). These new forms of technical, social and economic interaction systems imply new cooperative efforts and capabilities within and among firms, governmental bodies and educational systems. Given the pervasiveness of these societal and organizational changes, the key question is how to prepare individuals and groups? What kinds of interactive capabilities should they acquire and how? Knowledge sharing, open dialogue, personal responsibility and curiosity are basic to interactive collaboration, and they require that the group takes advantage of the full range of skills and knowledge that resides in its members. This entails the encouragement of people to speak up (Mu¨llert 2011), but it also demands that they try to understand one another. It means invitation of different viewpoints and beliefs, rather than fearing them because they might disturb or make the decision-making difficult (Mehra 2011). In short, it means guiding the interactive process according to participatory values (Kaner 2007). Creative cooperation depends on the process of tapping into synergy, defined as: ‘‘….Cooperative action of discrete agencies [so that] the total effect is greater than the sum of the effects taken independently’’ (Webster 1996). This synergy may be achieved through explicit as well as tacit knowledge about for instance nonverbal cues, gestures, the meaning of pauses as well as how to perform and use certain artifacts. Rhythm, pulse and tempo of bodily gestures are part of our social, creative behavior (Gill SP 2008). In doing so, the participants may enter into a symbiotic interaction space, which facilitates the merging of their common and personal capabilities (Gill KS 2008). Creative thinking, however, is far from always easy to facilitate (Zwaenepool 2011). Often, the workshop participants have a hard time using creative methods, if they are not used to work this way. What are the perspectives of the art of creative cooperation? First, it may release a creative power to increase the visionary and productive abilities of the group (Tassou 2011; Rasmussen 2011c, d). The author has sometimes been amazed at how much creative and productive power synergy can impose in a group. It does not always happen; of course, but if it does, it ‘‘lifts’’ the energy level of the whole group. One of the most enjoyable experiences as facilitator during the workshop is observing the transformation of the participating group. From being diverse individuals with different backgrounds, they become a unified collaborative group where creative thinking is supported by detailed action
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plans. To be able to achieve such a group environment, the facilitators need to possess certain abilities such as sensitivity, awareness and flexibility. The abilities of taking decisions at the right moments and have empathy with the participants are also important aspects of the facilitation process in order to achieve the synergetic level. If more groups and networks can be helped to release such creative power, new possibilities for participatory initiatives in organizations and local communities are multiple (Rasmussen 2011c, d). One example is the combined approach of participatory search conference and interactive scenario analysis as the author facilitated together with an Italian Colleague for some years ago (Rasmussen 2003). As shown in Fig. 2, the phases of setting up goals and making diagnosis from the search conference method are followed by the phases of scenario building, back-casting and action planning from the scenario analysis method. Two of the participants of such a proactive-creative workshop in New Delhi for some years ago evaluated the outcomes as follows: The important experiences of all participants were the sharing of the Action Research perspectives by European and Indian partners. Both the European and the Indian groups gained the experience of building new traditions of Action Research in India in the dairy sector. It was cross-cultural exchange between two continents on the global level. (Mehra and Kalra 2003: 291–292). In difference to deterministic forecast approaches, one of the strengths of a combined use of for instance search conference and scenario workshops is that it does not pretend to predict the future. Instead, it provides stories of several possible futures (van der Heijden 2004; Alexander and Maiden 2004; Godet 2000). Hence, in a world characterized by many uncertainties, this approach is able to cope with uncertainty, because it can help the participants to visualize and describe what might happen, if certain kind of trends are becoming stronger, weaker or perhaps ‘‘overruled’’ by other trends (Heijden and 2004; Mintzberg 1994). As they evolve over time, the scenarios are like ‘‘laboratories’’ in which different strategies and development plans can be tested. Another type of strength is that proactive-creative methods like search conferences, interactive scenario analysis, and future creating workshops can provide a common platform for interdisciplinary knowledge sharing and strategy formation (Rasmussen 2011c, d, d). The narrative techniques of storytelling are well suited for the creation of a mutual relationship for many bits of information. Stories are not only to be seen as effective communication devices. They are also creative tools to expose hitherto implicit anticipations (Rasmussen 2011a,
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GOAL / QUESTIONS / SETTING UP
Negotiation
DIAGNOSIS CAUSAL ANALYSIS
Brainstorming basedonR1
SCENARIO BUILDING
Assumptions
Scenario dimensions Agreement
Causal analysis Scenario skeleton
BACK CASTING
Change dimensions
ACTION PLANNING
Concept and goals
Milestones Change agents Sequences ofchange
Needed resources
Obtaining resources Report1 : (R1)
Defined goalsand focal questions
Settingupthe frameofthe workshop
Report2: (R2) Report3: (R3)
Problem understanding
Validating R2 in relation to R1
Enrichmentof scenario skeleton
Report4: (R4)
Enrichment ofback casting
Constraints and howto overcome them
Expected results ValidatingR3 in relation to R1 and R2
Validating R4 in relation to R1, R2 and R3
Project teams
Fig. 2 The combined approach of participatory search conference and interactive scenario analysis
b). By stimulating the mind to think about different possibilities, it becomes more and more trained to move into non-conventional directions, thus improving the ability to imagine unusual situations (Lindgren and Bandhold 2003). Hence, it may inject an element of caution, asking ‘‘what can go wrong’’ if we do it in this way or in that way? Explanations set the need for further inquiry and discussion aside, while narratives invite us to reconsider what we thought we knew. Narratives do not seek to explain. They speak to our conscious and unconscious levels of understanding. They evoke empathy. They may invite us to respond not only with logical reflections but also with our original and deep feelings. They challenge us to confront the gap between experience and what language can say about experience (Rasmussen and Garibaldo 2011). A potential risk of using interactive scenario building is to oversimplify complex issues in order to facilitate the communication and discussion of the key aspects. Often scenarios are presented as rough skeletons without enrichment and back-casting. However, such a superficial approach may turn out to be considered more like an entertaining event than a serious use of an interactive approach. These kinds of risks are becoming more likely to occur, when the participating actors become totally
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absorbed by the interactive and creative power of scenario making, believing that panoptic systems in the society can be totally eliminated leaving the ‘‘space’’ open for interactive technology systems only.
5 The paradoxes of complementary and antagonistic technology visions 5.1 The starship: a symbol of human freedom over nature or escaping death? The starship can be viewed as a symbol on human created technical power over nature. When the space shuttle at liftoff rises against the pull of earth’s gravity, it is realizing the cultural vision of obtaining distance from nature on the Earth. This vision of creating technological mediated power by distance belongs to the engineering and management visions of the Western culture. Newton’s and Decartes’ scientific paradigm and the associated machine metaphor employed to describe the ordering of cosmos, society and self during the scientific and industrial revolutions led to a mechanized worldview that has legitimized the exploitation of the natural world (Mohanan 2009; Merchant 1980).
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In the classical science fiction novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller 1959) the world teeters again on the brink of catastrophe. A group of monks, however, who have preserved the ancient knowledge, prepare to depart: ..The last monk, upon entering, paused in the lock. He stood up in the open hatchway and took off his sandals. ‘‘Sic transit Mundus’, he murmured, looking back at the glow. He slapped his soles of his sandals together, beating the dust out of them. The glow was engulfing a third of the heavens. He scratched his beard, took one last look at the ocean, then stepped back and closed the hatch. There came a blur, a glare of light, a thin whirring sound, and the starship thrust itself heavenward (Miller 1959:312). Miller’s tale indicates that space flight becomes a means of escape from the earth wired for nuclear and ecological catastrophes. There are at least three aspects of starship visions that symbolize freedom from bodily limits and mortality. First, imagining unrestricted flight for instance in starships give us a feeling of overcoming gravity, and with it our bodily limits and mortality. Secondly, starships imply upward vertical movement, which is commonly metaphorically associated with soul transformation and divinity and in the opposite direction from that the body typically follows after death. Finally, many people associate dreams of flying with escape from danger and transcendence of symbolic and concrete obstacles (Brink et al. 1977; Cohen et al. 2011). Escaping death, however, is an illusionary endeavor as pointed out by Romanyshyn: ..In our dream of escaping death by departing earth we have surrounded ourselves with it. We court death even as we would flee it. The earth we would depart is also the earth we have wired for destruction. Thus the death we would escape comes back to haunt us in the shape of the nuclear cloud of annihilation. In this form, the death we would shun embraces us. In this respect, the death from which we would depart becomes the bomb as cultural symptom (Romanyshyn 1989: 30). Like Faust, we may be able to say: My realm is endless to the eye, behind my back I hear it mocked. (Berman 1983). Starships, airplanes, internet and other technological devices are not only bridging distances. They can also enhance psychological and social distances. Even the most exact mathematical language cannot ‘‘escape’’ our bodies or dreams.
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5.2 Manipulation, polarization or transformation? Rather than viewing creativity as an expert ability separated from everyday activities, it should be understood as a process of coping inventively with the practical challenges in various power relationships. Power appears both as personal and as system power in the form of charismatic persons, technical systems, organizational structures, formal and informal rules of proper behavior. These forms of personalized and depersonalized power can be the precondition for creating ‘‘social space’’ for creative thinking and action. They can, however, also be obstacles for creativity when technological systems are used as means of surveillance (the ‘‘gaze’’) or manipulation of people’s behavior. How does this paradoxical process work out, when interactive approaches are introduced in a hierarchical, panoptic system of power? What might happen is not easy to predict. One possibility is that what pretends to be equal dialogue and spontaneous creativity mask a soft, indirect form of manipulation. Rousseau described this process already in 1762: Let him (the child) always think he is master while you (the teacher) are really master. There is no subjection so complete as that which preserves the forms of freedom; it is thus that the will itself is taken captive….No doubt he ought only to do what he wants, but he ought to want to do nothing but what you want him to do (Rousseau 1911:84–85). When managers or politicians speak about the benefits of dialogue or user-centered communication, their intentions might be double-edged. On the one side, they may want to increase the feeling of being self-managed, because it may enhance productivity or satisfaction. On the other side, they also want others to carry out their superior aims. Dialogues may be seen to create empowerment and democracy, while they sometimes in practice mask the use of pseudo-dialogical techniques of manipulation (Kvale 2011). Another possibility, however, is that people become more aware of their rights and mobilize their common power to call the legitimacy of current leaders into question (Cooley 1987). Such a situation often creates a multitude of tensions and conflicts as well as releasing creativity for instance in art, religion, science, policy or economical areas. Through the arisen spiritual, political, economical or social creativity, an incorporeal fabric of insurgent energies and activities can suddenly appear. It can be the start of a more profound transformation of societies, as for instance the period of the Renaissance. Profound transformation, however, is not necessarily peaceful and gentle. It may also increase violent clashes and brutalism, as it did in the
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Renaissance and still do in the current conflicts in the Middle-East and other places in the World. The three cultural visions described briefly earlier in this paper can perhaps be viewed as fragmented aspects of a more general long-term process of transformation. The homogenous world-culture scenario may become a threat against cultural diversity, controlled and manipulated by large international corporations and associated political regimes. However, it may also be part of a more communicative and sustainable future where the necessity to collaborate across national borders becomes more and more urgent in order to reduced the negative impacts of ecological and economic crises. The second scenario describing a future of more violence due to increasing inequality between social classes and scarcity of energy resources may also be seen as the first step toward a profound transformation toward sustainable societies, where sustainability is not only a matter of environmental protection, but also includes changes of spiritual, political, social and economic thinking and behavior. In order to support such a profound transformation both at societal and individual levels, it becomes even more important to enchant ourselves and our children with a ‘‘delicate magic of life’’ referred to by D.H. Lawrence. The challenge is to captivate their erective imagination in an age when media and consumerism tend to drown the deep creative aspects of life under a tidal wave of triviality and stylishness of fashion. The ‘‘magic of life’’ is time for creative adventures, time for meditation, time for concentrating our awareness, for bringing our spirit, mind and body together in a genuine endeavor to form interactive communities based on technology as a mean to serve lives rather than to control them. In this way, Rosenbrock’s enrichment vision of technology is still a relevant issue. Enrichment is the process by which estrangement is turned into new levels of understanding, care and respect of the integrity of life. However, one cannot be human by oneself. The adventures journey of self-discovery cannot be undertaken in isolation from collective interaction with other human beings or nature. It is our participation in a multi-cultural interaction that shapes our imagination, creativity and visions. Enrichment is the paradoxical nucleus of authentic creativity. The shaping of technology systems should not be freedom over nature, but freedom to experience the paradoxes of nature and culture in order to strengthen the integrity of life.
vision approach allows a deeper and more unorthodox way of reflecting panoptic and interactive aspects of technology. Panoptic and interactive visions of technology bring to light the paradox of control in modern organizations as an abiding tension between disciplinary ‘‘rules of the game’’ and overarching needs for creative thinking and action. Corporate capitalism has gained its flexibility at the price of significant risks. By promoting expert systems of performance measurement and panoptic control while at the same time trying to create motivated employees dedicated to interactive expression of self-organizing, innovating and producing activities, corporate capitalism aspires to the state of organizational and individual tensions and conflicts. This form of disharmony may result in schizophrenia of antagonistic visions or transformation to an enriched world of complementary endeavors to integrate fragmented life conditions. Our tale of technology as cultural visions has not come to an end. It never will, because cultural visions are not like a story with well-prepared points to make in the concluding remarks. Both the panoptic and the interactive visions of technology are unfulfilled promises. The panoptic vision calls for control mediated through surveillance and human performance measurement systems. Interactive visions of human-centered technology were originally visions that called for hope of a more harmonious and human-environment-balanced Earth. They still are for many people, but not like decades ago. They have partly been subsumed by the panoptic power systems of corporate capitalism, which are very eager to do ‘‘greenwashing,’’ while they pretend to behave in accordance with ideal sustainable principles. Technology is deeply rooted in a special kind of linear perspective that helps us to establish the vision of a well-ordered, highly rational life. The shadow-side of this vision, however, has shown us the inherent madness resulting from antagonistic rather than complementary relationships between panoptic and interactive visions and activities. The fact that the thinking of modern physicists, like Bohr and Bohm, and ancient Chinese philosophers about the universe and societies resemble each other may have profound consequences for the creative paradoxical thinking, acting and dreaming. As TS Eliot wrote:
6 Instead of a conclusion
Deep down, there is an adventurer latent in us all. To participate in cultural and technological changes is to give free rein to that adventurous, creative spirit, that poet in our hearts. In this way, cultural visions allow creativity by which new visions can breed. We have to find creative
To approach technological worlds as cultural visions is an invitation to the reader to attend to the light and shadow of technology as control, despair and hope. The cultural
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‘‘We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time (T.S. Eliot 1971: 59)
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ways of enchanting our children with the mysteries and paradoxes of cultural visions, including antagonistic and complementary visions of technology. Perhaps they will then be impassioned to accept responsibilities to keep and develop technology enhancing the integrity in our lives that our generation has so flagrantly scorned.
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