On Durkheim’s exploration of Rousseau and Montesquieu: the immediate impression is that Rousseau, when stripped of the colloquialisms of the time, has a greater precision in circumscribing the social order than Montesquieu. More on that later. But given the situation that Obama is currently mulling over, Afghanistan, a bit of Rousseau would probably have eliminated the entire issue in the years earlier, had the enormous hubris not entirely blinded those in power at the time:

Just as an architect, before putting up a tall building, studies and tests the ground to see whether it can bear the weight, so the wise organizer does not begin by drafting laws which are good in themselves, but first tries to determine whether the people for whom they are intended are able to submit to them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1987c[1762]) On The Social Contract in The Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Donald A. Cress (trans. and ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett

What a lesson to learn! Completely counter to the previous US regime’s goal of bringing Democracy (with a Big Dee) to those places that they think need it, with no awareness of the actual suitability of that particular (theoretical no less!) social framework for that localized human situation. One needs to consider all prior flows extant in a social system in order to ascertain whether the system can stand a modification of those flows that are likely to be imposed by external forces. Oracle, prophesy, the I Ching, mixed with Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. And recognizing that variability is a human trait.

With a close-to-infinite availability of energy, an external power can accomplish finite changes in an arbitrarily limited system in a finite time. Imagine a squad of high-tech equipped Special Forces for every household in Afghanistan, staying for two or three generations. That would do. It would cast iron-order on the country, and re-educate any young people to the Amurikan way. Of course, you would need one Amurikan teacher for every five children for that entire time as well.

Durkheim, Emile (1960[1893]) Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology, Georges Davy (trans.), Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1960

A few minor references to energy and socio-cultural systems.

This view is simple, but outlines the fundamental situation. Research in thermodynamics (Prigogine, etc) has looked at the actual counter-intuitive problem of living systems countering thermodynamics. It may come back to the mystical view of Simone Weil:

Two forces rule the universe, light and gravity.

with gravity driving the coalescing of matter, the concentration of energy, or fluctuating densities (or simply fluctuation) of the cosmos. And Light, well, what may or may not be said about Light.

A Believing Humanism: Gleanings, Martin Buber (Credo Perspectives Series)
Edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, Touchstone, 1969 ISBN-13 9780671203443

The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world. — Wilhelm von Humboldt

Then the question of how to deal with all these books at once? Where to read them, how to take notes, how much to read in any one at a time, and such. Reading in the evening before sleeping isn’t very good, although restful. Mid-afternoon is optimal, but carving out several hours from the daily to-do grind makes that difficult. Having a space in the CMAI office is very helpful now, as there are more comfortable chairs. The collective grad offices are too noisy and busy. Dislocating to Bronte or a cafe elsewhere is possible, but not time-effective if only for reading. Ach!, the questions of methodology …

Hunting in the communications area of social research, doing a basic review of various theories of communications to focus in on what might be a useful jumping-off point. I’ll need one that is anchored, but also with some degrees of freedom to map the important new characteristics of my broader definition of dialogue. Craig and Muller’s survey of the field of communication theories (seven by their count) is a helpful text, allowing me to zoom into the phenomenological area of inquiry (anchored by Buber and people influenced by his committed I-Thou dialogical approach). More on that shortly. I’ve got 15 books out from the library already, and have made more than 200 entries in Zotero… yikes, how to cope with all that material! Still generating a internal process methodology that brings at least some impression of progress on a daily basis.

Theorizing Communication: Readings Across Traditions, Robert T. Craig (Editor), Heidi L. Muller (Editor), Sage Publications, Inc; 1 edition (April 5, 2007) ISBN-10 1412952379

It’s a pity that I didn’t previously know this book and that the editors were at CU-Boulder in the Communications Department. That would have been a nice coincidence, and perhaps if I get up there sometime in the long-term, I’ll drop them a line.

The most daunting challenge is the difficulty of mind-mapping all the disparate sources. I’m thinking a big wall with sticky notes might be good. That technique has served me well in workshops situations. Howard has been using some mind-map software (think Minority Report data-space interface), but I find them too clunky. In theory that would be an excellent way to map and interface with the substantial data-cloud that will eventually accrete. But on this old G4 PB running Firefox, the Java scripting seems to dog the whole machine, consuming the CPU and rendering the machine worth-less.

Energy and Economic Myths, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Elsevier Science & Technology, 1977. ISBN 0080210562

Georgescu-Roegen critiques the mechanistic basis for much economic theory (which predominantly focuses on the movement of goods — a state which, thermodynamically, appears as a reversible process — and one which leads, at least conceptually if not in fact to the infinite cycle from production to consumption). It would appear that our current situation is the result of that infinite cycle occurring in a locally finite system.

this book leads to:

More heat than light : economics as social physics, physics as nature’s economics, Mirowski, Philip, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN: 0521350425 (hardback)

and the reflection from Borges:

It is useless to answer that reality is also orderly. Perhaps it is, but in accordance with divine laws – I translate: inhuman laws – which we never quite grasp. Tlön is surely a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth devised by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men.

and in the introduction some good inspiration coming from Mirowski in his struggle to bridge between physics and economics. understanding that economics is an important dimensional descriptor of the techno-social system is a nice advance. although the number of economists who have made this connection are few, and the bulk of the discipline are still mired in juggling abstractions. he extends his argument, marking the parallel between the terms value in economics and energy in physics. and later, to developing the concept of energy as critical to understanding economics. this is a good find indeed! and it might end up, indeed, studying the principles of conservation too much and I end up a conservative. (no chance of that, as no one ends up as anything but energy anyway…)

on pages 56-57 there is a symmetric coffee-colored ring, a primitive of a Rorschach test, and on 58-59, some bits of roll-your-own tobacco. the last record of being checked out was 1998. more than a decade ago.

to the indeterminacy of human tendencies towards abstraction:

In describing his ideas on electromagnetic fields,

The substance here treated must not be assumed to possess any of the properties of ordinary fluids except those of freedom of movement and resistance to compression. It is not even a hypothetical fluid which is introduced to explain actual phenomena. It is merely a collection of imaginary properties which may be employed for establishing certain theorems in pure mathematics in a way more intelligible for many minds … I wish merely to direct the mind of the reader to mechanical phenomena which will assist him in understanding the electrical ones. All such phrases in the present paper are to be considered as illustrative, not explanatory. In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. — James Clerk Maxwell

Energy and society : the relationship between energy, social change, and economic development, Cottrell, William Frederick, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1955.

Excellent resource which will allow me to trace both forwards and backwards in time on this particular worldview which, although the definition of energy is strictly based on contemporary physics and thermodynamics (of that time), it provides a valid and detailed approach to the issue.

(not to mention that the copy I got from Newcastle University was “donated by the Newcastle District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union.”)

Cottrell maps out in some detail the inter-relationships of technological (energy-usage) and the consequent/subsequent social change/evolution that occurs.

He does perhaps miss a point where he attaches the energy advantage of a rising mercantile-class in Europe in the 16-1700’s to the energy of sail. I would suggest that it was not the energy of sail, but the potential energy brought about by the technologies necessary to take advantage of this naturally-available store of energy (flows). That is, the social structure (organization of individuals) necessary to construct boats, the availability of the resources necessary for their proper construction — tall trees, steel tools (not merely iron) for working the wood, enough to build numerous boats to maintain a sufficient flow of trade (read: energy). And finally, of course, the existence of suitable natural resource reservoir, ultimately driven by the sun, wind.

He introduces the term high-energy technology which is essentially a set of technologies that have a high rate-of-return relative to the input (read: hydrocarbons, nuclear, large-scale hydro). In contrast with low-energy converters which would include plants and animals (as a food/energy converter for human consumption).

And he makes the deep connection between the energy regime (my word!) and the consequent social/institutional structure — recognizing the complexity of the deeply embedded relationship and the conditional and continual evolution and change of whatever social system is being examined. The power of this approach is in its ability to idiosyncratically unravel numerous geopolitical problems. (The imposition of one form of social institution developed in one energy regime on another regime that does not have the same energy/resource availabilities will often simply not work!). The energy regime would equate to the holistic natural system.

Factors he ascribes that affect the adoption (and optimized/maximized use of) available resources — technological, geographical, economic — are a mixed bag, and need to be treated separately in their relation to real energy flows. (p.53) Especially the economic factor — for it is here that the concept of energy is misused, or confused — as economics, in the contemporary sense, centers on the concept of exchanges of convertible value as mediated by money. Money as a socially abstracted representation of power (energy). And trade as an equalizing process — where energy-rich, concentrated resources are redistributed (possibly after going through numerous steps of further concentration). The equalization will, in the sense that terrestrial systems are dynamic, cause variable temporal and spatial re-distributions until the concentrated energy resource is no longer an energy asset that can be utilized by the social formation.

Multimodal discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication, Kress, Gunther R., van Leeuwen, Theo, New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Gramophone, film, typewriter, Kittler, Friedrich A., Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, c1999.