In his 2017 book, Indian writer Pankaj Mishra describes the present as the “Age of Anger,” where “ressentiment” is “the defining feature of the world….and where the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership.”
Yet, as Mishra’s extensive references in the book evidence, anger has defined many eras in history, especially in the past 200 years. Oppressed groups, where they were led or influenced by those who could and did forge systems of thought, have often thought of utopias or a transformation. Karl Mannheim, the Hungarian-German sociologist, argued that the purpose of social thought was not just to diagnose present reality, but to provide a system of ideas to legitimate and direct change.
Mannheim also noted, and Mishra begins his book with a 1922 quote from him, that “Everywhere, people are awaiting a messiah, and the air is laden with the promises of large and small prophets” because “we carry within us more longing than today’s society is able to satisfy.” Ressentiment appears throughout Mishra’s work. In the mid-19th century, Alexander Herzen thought Europe was “approaching a terrible cataclysm.” He wasn’t the only one.
Anger has defined many ages. This one is part of another cycle. It seems to impact us more only because we are passing through it. The sociopolitical and economic structures within states appear to be under pressure or crumbling; interstate conflicts are reappearing. In both cases, neoliberal ideas that had come to define distribution and cooperation are giving way to a world in the throes of change.
The question is, what kind of change? Is today’s anger about ideas and ideologies, some programme of action or just mobs following popular leaders, the “small prophets” mentioned by Mannheim?
If we assume the desire for change is about disparities and reinstating the promise of equality which has gone sour, are we talking about equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes? Because while societies may strive as much as they can to achieve the former, the latter cannot be guaranteed. Just like it is absurd to argue, as Jeremy Bentham did, that “quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry,” it is absurd to think that outcomes can be engineered to be equal.
Put another way, disparities will always emerge because outcomes cannot be equal. What can be done, and that’s perhaps what must be strived towards, is to raise the quality of the averages in a society. But it’s a constant struggle because unlike what angry groups think of the utopia that’s being denied them, there is none. If we consider the groups calling for change, even using violence, as the heterodoxy and the existing structures as the orthodoxy, and if, as evidenced by social revolutions, the heterodoxy does upend the orthodoxy, it’s not long before that heterodoxy creates its own privileged orthodoxy; before we move from the belief that ‘all animals are equal’ to the qualified belief that ‘some animals are more equal than others.’
Let me at this point assure the reader that this is not about Trump, Bolsonaro, Khan or their supporters. I do intend to write about the “zealotry” of Mr. Khan’s supporters, which was on display on May 9, but that’s not for this space. However, to the extent that I do want to disabuse those who think “real” change can be brought about, one so radically different from what it uproots as to ensure total happiness for everyone.
That one cannot escape the structural trap in any system because every system relies on certain structures, and finds enforcement mechanisms for its perpetuation should be obvious to anyone except the zealot. Let me explain through some examples.
In a 1973 article for Policy Sciences, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Professors Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, design and planning theorists, presented the concept of “wicked” as opposed to “tame” problems. The “wicked”, according to them, belonged to the domain of social policy, the “tame” to science and its tools.
Let me reproduce the abstract from the paper:
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame” problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described….in a pluralistic society there’s nothing like the undisputable public good; there’s no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about “optimal solutions” to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no “solutions” in the sense of definitive and objective answers.
What does this mean? Essentially, that a wicked problem is either difficult or almost impossible to solve because of contradictory and changing requirements and where information is incomplete. To add to the degree of difficulty, a wicked problem involves complex interdependencies, such that tackling one aspect of the problem can create other problems. This means that no course of action can be based on a definitive formulation because a wicked problem successfully eludes one; courses of action cannot be correct or incorrect or true or false, but only relatively better or worse; every attempt is a one-shot experiment which may or may not work; stakeholders have different frames for understanding and solving the problem; there are multiple value conflicts and so on.
The zealot displays simple consciousness, the life before Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit. The banishment from Eden is perhaps less a literal physical ousting from Eden and more a metaphor for getting trapped in the paradoxes of complexity. An understanding of that entrapment is about self-consciousness. For instance, anyone promising “real” change must, in theory, meet two imperatives: they should be able to understand the structures and ensure desired outcomes; two, they should ensure that change will create a structureless society where opportunities and outcomes will be the same for everyone.
Here we get into a slight problem. No one can ensure that outcome because no system, as noted above, can be without its structures; nor can anyone ensure or predict outcomes.
In his celebrated work, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, Robert Jervis defined the concept of systems effects as “when a set of units or elements is interconnected so that changes in some elements or their relations produce changes in other parts of the system, and (b) the entire system exhibits properties and behaviours that are different from those of the parts.” The implication should be evident: even if one understands the system (highly unlikely), the outcomes of changes and their directions, given non-linearity, cannot be predicted.
Decades before Jervis, in 1936, sociologist Robert Merton argued in an article, The Unintended Consequences of Purposive Social Action that: “Although no formula for the exact amount of knowledge necessary for foreknowledge is presented, one may say in general that consequences are fortuitous when an exact knowledge of many details and facts (as distinct from general principles) is needed for even a highly approximate prediction.
In other words, ‘chance consequences’ are those which are occasioned by the interplay of forces and circumstances which are so complex and numerous that prediction of them is quite beyond our reach.”
The problem, now generally referred to as “interactive complexity,” is accumulating vast literature not just in relation to public policy but also military operations in changing conflict environments. Two things should be obvious: one, understanding the structures of social (as opposed to scientific-technical) systems is not entirely possible and having information on outcomes which are the result of interactive complexity is even more difficult.
This is not to argue that nothing can change or that nothing has ever changed. Many things can and must change. For instance, the largely misinformed zealotry of Imran Khan’s supporters notwithstanding, their desire for change is understandable. What they and other such zealots across the world fail to appreciate is that change changes many things, but not the structural complexities. Between what can be promised (wished) and what can be achieved (the is), there is always disparity and with time, it becomes visible.
More on that and the current zealotry in another piece. Darwin be praised!
Yet, as Mishra’s extensive references in the book evidence, anger has defined many eras in history, especially in the past 200 years. Oppressed groups, where they were led or influenced by those who could and did forge systems of thought, have often thought of utopias or a transformation. Karl Mannheim, the Hungarian-German sociologist, argued that the purpose of social thought was not just to diagnose present reality, but to provide a system of ideas to legitimate and direct change.
Is today’s anger about ideas and ideologies, some programme of action or just mobs following popular leaders, the “small prophets” mentioned by Mannheim?
Mannheim also noted, and Mishra begins his book with a 1922 quote from him, that “Everywhere, people are awaiting a messiah, and the air is laden with the promises of large and small prophets” because “we carry within us more longing than today’s society is able to satisfy.” Ressentiment appears throughout Mishra’s work. In the mid-19th century, Alexander Herzen thought Europe was “approaching a terrible cataclysm.” He wasn’t the only one.
Anger has defined many ages. This one is part of another cycle. It seems to impact us more only because we are passing through it. The sociopolitical and economic structures within states appear to be under pressure or crumbling; interstate conflicts are reappearing. In both cases, neoliberal ideas that had come to define distribution and cooperation are giving way to a world in the throes of change.
The question is, what kind of change? Is today’s anger about ideas and ideologies, some programme of action or just mobs following popular leaders, the “small prophets” mentioned by Mannheim?
If we assume the desire for change is about disparities and reinstating the promise of equality which has gone sour, are we talking about equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes? Because while societies may strive as much as they can to achieve the former, the latter cannot be guaranteed. Just like it is absurd to argue, as Jeremy Bentham did, that “quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry,” it is absurd to think that outcomes can be engineered to be equal.
Put another way, disparities will always emerge because outcomes cannot be equal. What can be done, and that’s perhaps what must be strived towards, is to raise the quality of the averages in a society. But it’s a constant struggle because unlike what angry groups think of the utopia that’s being denied them, there is none. If we consider the groups calling for change, even using violence, as the heterodoxy and the existing structures as the orthodoxy, and if, as evidenced by social revolutions, the heterodoxy does upend the orthodoxy, it’s not long before that heterodoxy creates its own privileged orthodoxy; before we move from the belief that ‘all animals are equal’ to the qualified belief that ‘some animals are more equal than others.’
Let me at this point assure the reader that this is not about Trump, Bolsonaro, Khan or their supporters. I do intend to write about the “zealotry” of Mr. Khan’s supporters, which was on display on May 9, but that’s not for this space. However, to the extent that I do want to disabuse those who think “real” change can be brought about, one so radically different from what it uproots as to ensure total happiness for everyone.
To add to the degree of difficulty, a wicked problem involves complex interdependencies, such that tackling one aspect of the problem can create other problems.
That one cannot escape the structural trap in any system because every system relies on certain structures, and finds enforcement mechanisms for its perpetuation should be obvious to anyone except the zealot. Let me explain through some examples.
In a 1973 article for Policy Sciences, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Professors Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, design and planning theorists, presented the concept of “wicked” as opposed to “tame” problems. The “wicked”, according to them, belonged to the domain of social policy, the “tame” to science and its tools.
Let me reproduce the abstract from the paper:
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame” problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described….in a pluralistic society there’s nothing like the undisputable public good; there’s no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about “optimal solutions” to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no “solutions” in the sense of definitive and objective answers.
What does this mean? Essentially, that a wicked problem is either difficult or almost impossible to solve because of contradictory and changing requirements and where information is incomplete. To add to the degree of difficulty, a wicked problem involves complex interdependencies, such that tackling one aspect of the problem can create other problems. This means that no course of action can be based on a definitive formulation because a wicked problem successfully eludes one; courses of action cannot be correct or incorrect or true or false, but only relatively better or worse; every attempt is a one-shot experiment which may or may not work; stakeholders have different frames for understanding and solving the problem; there are multiple value conflicts and so on.
Zealots across the world fail to appreciate that change changes many things, but not structural complexities. Between what can be promised (wished) and what can be achieved (the is), there is always disparity and with time, it becomes visible.
The zealot displays simple consciousness, the life before Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit. The banishment from Eden is perhaps less a literal physical ousting from Eden and more a metaphor for getting trapped in the paradoxes of complexity. An understanding of that entrapment is about self-consciousness. For instance, anyone promising “real” change must, in theory, meet two imperatives: they should be able to understand the structures and ensure desired outcomes; two, they should ensure that change will create a structureless society where opportunities and outcomes will be the same for everyone.
Here we get into a slight problem. No one can ensure that outcome because no system, as noted above, can be without its structures; nor can anyone ensure or predict outcomes.
In his celebrated work, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, Robert Jervis defined the concept of systems effects as “when a set of units or elements is interconnected so that changes in some elements or their relations produce changes in other parts of the system, and (b) the entire system exhibits properties and behaviours that are different from those of the parts.” The implication should be evident: even if one understands the system (highly unlikely), the outcomes of changes and their directions, given non-linearity, cannot be predicted.
Decades before Jervis, in 1936, sociologist Robert Merton argued in an article, The Unintended Consequences of Purposive Social Action that: “Although no formula for the exact amount of knowledge necessary for foreknowledge is presented, one may say in general that consequences are fortuitous when an exact knowledge of many details and facts (as distinct from general principles) is needed for even a highly approximate prediction.
In other words, ‘chance consequences’ are those which are occasioned by the interplay of forces and circumstances which are so complex and numerous that prediction of them is quite beyond our reach.”
The problem, now generally referred to as “interactive complexity,” is accumulating vast literature not just in relation to public policy but also military operations in changing conflict environments. Two things should be obvious: one, understanding the structures of social (as opposed to scientific-technical) systems is not entirely possible and having information on outcomes which are the result of interactive complexity is even more difficult.
This is not to argue that nothing can change or that nothing has ever changed. Many things can and must change. For instance, the largely misinformed zealotry of Imran Khan’s supporters notwithstanding, their desire for change is understandable. What they and other such zealots across the world fail to appreciate is that change changes many things, but not the structural complexities. Between what can be promised (wished) and what can be achieved (the is), there is always disparity and with time, it becomes visible.
More on that and the current zealotry in another piece. Darwin be praised!