Miniaturising

In recent years, I’ve taken to creating tables in an effort to summarise the key points of some posts. But BLOGSPOT, the server I use, is no longer able to cope with these tables which, I realise, might be expressed as poems. My model is not one of the guys I’ve so far owned up to – Brecht, Bukowski, Eliot, Graham, McCaig. Mitchell or Sorescu – it’s rather an unknown 90 year old Barry Oshry who has a blog; and several poems such as Encounters with the other

In view of the suffering in Gaza and Ukraine, I’ve chosen some excerpts 

from his The Terrible Dance of power 

Enter the Radicals

A new force develops among the Low-Power people—

a radical force.

The Radicals call for more drastic action—

not accommodation,

but fundamental change;

overthrow the power structure

or separate from the nation.

The Radicals become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power people are "Them,"

but so are the Moderates.

And you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Radicals can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the High-Power people as "Them,"

and they see the Moderates as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Accommodators and the Extremists

In the High-Power group,

there are the Liberals

who want to accommodate the Low-Power people—

redress their grievances,

right their wrongs.

But, in response to the Radicals' actions,

a new force emerges among the High-Power people—

an Extremist force.

Angered by the Radicals,

threatened by "Them,"

the Extremists stand against any accommodation.

The Extremists become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The Radicals are "Them";

the supporters of Radicals are "Them";

the Accommodators are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Extremists can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the Radicals

and the moderates

as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Privileged Radicals

Among the High-Power people,

there emerges a Privileged Radical group—

the privileged sons and daughters of the High-Power people,

who align themselves with the Low-Power Radical group.

The Privileged Radical people

also stand for radical change—

fundamental change in the power structure,

redistribution of wealth, power, and privilege,

or separate homelands

or nations

for the Low-Power people.

The Privileged Radicals see themselves

and the Low-Power Radicals as a "We,"

and all who are not part of the "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power Accommodators are "Them";

the Low-Power Moderates are "Them";

the High-Power Extremists are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can humiliate "Them,"

hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Privileged Radicals can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the others as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Change Partners

Sometimes the Low-Power people win;

they overthrow the High-Power people

and they become the new High-Power people,

seeing themselves as the bearers of a new vision—

a higher vision,

The New Society,

Manifest Destiny,

The New Man,

The Master Race,

The One True Religion,

The Way.

And standing in the way of this vision

are the new Low-Power people—

"Them."

And the terrible dance goes on:

"We" humiliate,

"We" hurt,

"We" kill,

"We" maim,

"We" bomb,

"We" hack,

"We" hang,

"We" mine,

"We" strangle,

"We" starve

"Them."

Always justified in what "We" do,

"We" are the right and the righteous.

Who wouldn't do such things to "Them"?

How can the US be so stupid?

Completely coincidentally, after yesterday’s post, Youtube took me to a fascinating discussion about how post-1968 developments had helped create the right-wing backlash which brought us Trump, Johnson, Orban et al  The focus was journalist Kurt Anderson who has written two fascinating books which offer a highly plausible explanation of US history – going back to the Puritans. First up in 2017 was Fantasyland – how America went haywire; a 500-year history which was followed 3 years later by Evil Geniuses – the unmaking of america; a recent history

Whereas Fantasyland concerned Americans’ centuries-old weakness for the

untrue and irrational, and its spontaneous and dangerous flowering since the 1960s, Evil Geniuses chronicles the quite deliberate reengineering of our economy and society since the 1960s by a highly rational confederacy of the rich, the right, and big business.

I’ve already revealed hom much I appreciate what might reasonably be called “Confessionals” where people have revelatory Damascan moments when they suddenly see the world differently

I’d mostly just read the news, skimmed along day to day and month to month like anybody whose job never required knowing a lot about deregulation, antitrust, tax codes, pensions, the healthcare industry, the legal fraternity, constitutional law, organized labor, executive compensation, lobbying, billionaires’ networks, the right wing, the dynamics of economic growth, stock buybacks, the financial industry and all its innovations—so many subjects of which I was mostly ignorant.

My immersion was revelatory. Reading hundreds of books and scholarly papers and articles and having conversations with experts made me more or less fluent in those subjects and, more, taught me many small things and one important big thing: what happened around 1980 and afterward was larger and uglier and more multifaceted than I’d known. Inequality is the buzzword, mainly because that’s so simple and quantifiable: in forty years, the share of wealth owned by our richest 1 percent has doubled, the collective net worth of the bottom half has dropped almost to zero, the median weekly pay for a full-time worker has increased by just 0.1 percent a year, only the incomes of the top 10 percent have grown in sync with the economy, and so on.

Anderson then goes on to say that -

Evil Geniuses is the book I wish had existed a dozen years ago to help clarify and organize and deepen and focus my thinking and understanding and anger and blame.

Like most people over the past decade, I’d noticed this fact here or that infographic there about inequality or insecurity or malign corporate power, but quickly moved on, flittered off to the next headline. But then I decided to go deep into the weeds in order to understand, then come out of the weeds to explain what I’d learned as clearly as I could. I wanted to distill and gather and connect the important facts and explanations in one compact package, to make a coherent picture out of all the puzzle pieces.

There are lots of facts and figures in here, but not much jargon at all. By chronicling CEOs and billionaires and intellectuals and zealots and operators planning and strategizing for years, together and apart, networking and plotting, even memorializing some plots in memos—so many jaw-dropping memos—I’ve tried to tell a compelling story as well as make a persuasive argument about what’s become of us.

PROJECT 2025

One of the bloggers I most respect is indi.ca - a writer called Indrajit Samarajiva, born in Canada, raised in America and now living in Sri Lanka. He is the first to draw our attention to Project 2025 – mandate for leadership; the conservative promise the 920 page plan the US Heritage Foundation and the Republicans have just released for the US elections later this year. Even more importantly, he has read the documents carefully and summarised it for us all – the first two installments are https://indi.ca/i-read-trumps-plan-so-you-dont-have-to/ and https://indi.ca/trumps-transition-plan-plumbing-the-deep-state/

One of the core ideas of conservatives for generations has been broad executive 

power. The prerogative of the President. Trump I's main problem was whipping a 

recalcitrant bureaucracy into place (what he called the 'Deep State'), and they 

ended up rebelling against him. The whole point of the first section of Project 2025 

is 'never again'. The first section clearly labels what all the important departments 

and personnel are, prioritizes placing loyal political appointees in charge of them 

immediately, and philosophically claims a 'tyrannical' Presidency that 'commands' all 

executive function.
This is actually an interesting political dynamic that conservatives aren't necessarily 

on the wrong side of. One of the weird delusions of liberal democracy is that they 

live in a democracy at all and not an oligarchy. The delusion of liberal democracy 

is that there is one form of democracy and that it fits in bombs. And what is that 

form? Well, Aristotle would more properly call it oligarchy, not democracy at all. 

Which government do you think best describes America, or any of its vassal states? 

As Michael Hudson says about China vs the USA, in China the state controls capital, 

and in America it's the other way around. America is an oligarchy with voting, and 

the voting is increasingly superfluous. They're literally having the same election 

again. America is marketed as Democracy™, but it's really oligarchy most foul. 

This is not a feature, it's a bug. It was founded that way.
America was founded with only property owners able to vote, and the entire system 

of 'checks and balances' is structured that way. It creates a purposefully divided 

government so capital can conquer. American Democrats, who actually believe their 

own propaganda, are fond of calling Trump a tyrant, with little historical understanding 

of what that means. Tyrants were, in Ancient Greece, the people that overthrew 

entrenched aristocracies and oligarchies and saved the people.

Can we ever get into someone's soul?

At the moment I have half a dozen drafts of mini E-books on the go. And what do I mean by a mini E-book? Simply something of around 40 pages, generally an edited version of posts I’ve done on a subject. The collection now boasts the following topics -

• populism

• world views

• memoirs and diaries

• public strategies

• postmodernity

• social democracy

To reread the various pieces you’ve written on an issue and then ask yourself 

what’s missing is a fruitful exercise . It allows you to read as a bit of an outsider

 and question where it seems to be going. It also gives you the opportunity to 

identify an appropriate list of recommended books – ideally with an explanation 

of why they’ve been selected

Let me start with what should be the easy one – Memoirs and Diaries – easy 

because it consists largely of lists of books. The catch is that each requires 

a short note to explain its choice. And that’s enormously difficult – how to grab the interest of readers in less than 40 pages??? How much does anyone ever reveal their inner thoughts - whether in memoirs or diaries? But here it is - Memoirs, diaries and intellectual biographies

MEANINGS

Last week I discovered no fewer than 3 books I needed to add to Just Words? A sceptic’s glossary – with the hyperlinks, that adds a couple of thousand pages you can now access to the dictionary. The books are -

• The Palgrave Dictionary of Political Thought by Roger Scruton (1982 3rd 

ed 2007) This may have been produced by a conservative thinker but the conservative tradition is an honourable one and the 750 pages seem to offer very fair and acceptable definitions

• I had forgotten that Ralston Saul had produced The Doubter’s Companion (1994) which he sub-titled ”a dictionary of aggressive common sense” and introduced thus

In the humanist view, the alphabet can be a tool for examining society; the dictionary a series of questions, an enquiry into meaning, a weapon against received wisdom and therefore against the assumptions of established power. In other words, the dictionary offers an organized Socratic approach.

The rational method is quite different. The dictionary is abruptly transformed into a dispensary of truth; that is, into an instrument which limits meaning by defining language. This bible becomes a tool for controlling communications because it directs what people can think. In other words, it becomes the voice of Platonic élitism.

Humanism versus definition. Balance versus structure. Doubt versus ideology. Language as a means of communication versus language as a tool for advancing the interests of groups.

John Ralston Saul’s “Voltaire’s Bastards – the dictatorship of reason in the west” (1992) was already there – with its stunning portrait of Robert McNamara first as a bean-counter whizz-kid at General Motors, then as an infamous “body-counter” in the Vietnam War and finally as the ruthless head of the World Bank who inflicted “Structural Adjustments” on poor countries.

• Lean Logic – a dictionary for the future and how to survive it David 

Fleming 2016. A curious endeavour from an ecologist with the full list here and random entries available below

https://leanlogic.online/glossary/anarchism/

https://leanlogic.online/glossary/community/

https://leanlogic.online/glossary/lean-economics/

So if definitions are your thing, click on….

CAN GOVERNMENTS THINK STRATEGICALLY?

The revelations from the official COVID inquiry of the tensions between the various parts of the government machine have been the last straw for the public – which needed little persuasion that the UK government machine was not “fit for purpose” and required a complete overhaul. Such indeed  is the conclusion of no less than 2 reports which hit the press this week - Power with Purpose – final report from the Commission on the Centre of Government (Institute of Government 2024): and The Radical How (Nesta 2024)

I have mixed feelings about the Institute of Government. At one level, it clearly 

produces useful reports but, at another, it so obviously consists of the “Great 

and the Good” who consistently fall into the trap of groupthink. The Nesta 

report seems to reflect a more inclusive style of thinking. As someone with 

16 years of experience of leading and implementing strategic change in a 

huge government body (admittedly finishing in 1990) this post offers some 

tentative thoughts on the challenges involved. More systematic thinking can 

be found in the reading list below

we may have been dealing with more than 2 million citizens but knew that 
the people we needed to persuade numbered in the hundreds – namely 
the officials of such departments as Education, Police and Social Work, but also community activists

As a first step, we simply signalled (in 1975) that dealing with the issue we defined as “multiple deprivation” was our first priority.
It took a year to come up with the first statement of that strategy and a 
further few years to test that and produce in 1982 a Social Strategy for the Eighties which was further tweaked in 1988 dues to the changed political conditions 

Some Dilemmas of Social Reform is a recent article in which I try to explain 

the process in more detail - Rosabeth Kanter is one of the most famous management 

writers and offered, a few decades ago, 10 Commandments for implementing Change1 - 

starting with the need for analysis and, more specifically,

Create a shared vision and common direction
Separate from the past
Create a Sense of Urgency
Support a Strong Leader
Line up Political Support 
Craft an Implementation Plan
Develop Enabling Structures
Communicate, Involve People and be Honest
Reinforce and Institutionalise the Change

I used this checklist as a retrospective test of my own experience, over a 15 year period, of developing and applying a strategy for the West of Scotland -

• The shocking 1973 “Born to Fail?” report identified the West of Scotland as a UK 

leader in “multiple deprivation” and a few of us – instead of acting defensively  - saw 

this as an opportunity to ensure that the Region, set up in 1974, recognised 

this need as its basic priority - and it certainly did establish and sustain a shared vision.

• “Separating from the past” was easy at one level since the Region was starting from 

scratch but enormously difficult at another since it was an amalgamation of six 

large powerful bodies – each with its distinctive style – let alone the strength of 

the professional cultures to be found in departments such as Education, Police, 

Water, Fire and Social Work

• That indeed had created a lot of potential enemies for the new Region – its very 

scale made it difficult to defend and its power left a bitter taste in the mouths 
of the politicians and officials working in the lower tier of local government. 
There was an urgency in the Region having to prove itself – which gave us the incentive to do things differently.
For the first 4 years, leadership was shared by 2 very different characters – a community minister being the public persona and a miner being the behind-the- scenes deal-maker. It allowed a rare combination of practicality and idealism to flow in the wider leadership

• And community activists were brought into that

• With the implementation plan taking several years to evolve

• and appropriate enabling structures – at both political, administrative and 

community levels 

• Communication was intense and continuous – as you would expect of a 

democratic system

And appropriate structures reinforced and institutionalised the changes

Whether by luck or by design, the Region got it about right. Our management of 

the strategy may not have met everyone’s standards but least we were spared 

Gordon Brown’s infamous target-setting!  

And here's one guy who disputes the Institute for Government analysis 

Recommended Reading

How Institutions Think Mary Douglas 1986 Although an anthropologist, Douglas uses the 
latest thinking on institutional theory to offer a very distinctive and unique presentation

Strategy – a history Lawrence Freedman 2009 A very accessible read by a military historian 
which does justice to both top-down and bottoms-up approaches

The Art of Public Strategy Geoff Mulgan 2009 From someone who has experienced 
both the theory and the practice.
There is no single formula for organizing strategy in public organizations. It can be 
led by specialized strategy teams and units, task forces and commissions; it can grow 
out of the discussions and collaborations of networks that cut across departments; 
it can have its roots in political parties, or in the civil service. It can be open and
inclusive, tapping into the collective intelligence of a society, or it can be closed and 
tightly controlled. But all successful governments have created spaces for thought, 
learning, and reflection to resist the tyranny of the immediate, and any
government or public agency that takes its responsibilities seriously
needs structures and processes to do these things. Otherwise the
competing forces that can be found within government, including party
tacticians, media and public relations experts, cynics, and
time-servers, are even more likely to sacrifice the future for the
present. The costs of strategy need not be high, but the benefits
can be, focusing energieswhere theymatter, and refreshing governments
that otherwise go stale.
Leading Public Sector Innovation Bason 2010 A Danish take

Strategic Thinking in Government Vol I HMSO 2012 A UK Parliament Select Committee 
report
Strategic thinking in Government (Vol II 2012) some written evidence to the Committee
UK govt response  

Matt Flinders ‘ review of “The Blunders of our Government” A superb take-down of an 
over-ambitious book

Leading Public Design Bason 2017 The Dane’s further thoughts

Strategies for Governing – retinventing public admin for a dangerous century 
Alasdair Roberts 2019 A canadian political scientist rethinks PA

Why Governments get it wrong; and how they can get it right Dennis Grube 2022
An Australian public servant now a Cambridge academic takes on the subject with an unusual if  not flippant book

https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/