FRIED
There’s no shortage of hot topics to blog about but my brain is completely fried by a combination of very long hours since Thursday of last week, deep thinking about two special projects, lack of sleep and the joys of two high intensity small children.
I am drinking a Sam Adam’s that I chiled in the freezer for a bit and I will then turn my attention to something entertaining, yet, completely mindless.
Cheers !
NETWORKS ARE SURPRISINGLY RESILIENT BECAUSE THEY ARE NETWORKS, NOT HIERARCHIES
According to ScienceDaily, researchers Mark Newman and Valdis Krebs have mapped networked political communities in the blogosphere and from Amazon and discovered that political networks can become so “tight” in terms of internal links that they resist becoming fragmented:
“When analyzed using Newman’s method, the network of books separated into four communities, with dense connections within communities and looser connections between them. One community was composed almost entirely left-wing books, and the other almost entirely of right-wing ones. Centrist books comprised the other two categories. The computer algorithm doesn’t know anything about the books’ content—it draws its conclusions only from the purchasing patterns of the buyers—but Newman’s analysis seems to show that those purchasing patterns correspond closely with the political slant of the books.
“It is particularly interesting to note that the centrist books belong to their own communities and are not, in most cases, merely lumped in with the liberals or conservatives,” the paper stated. “This may indicate that political moderates form their own purchasing community.
In another example, Newman used the algorithm to sort a set of 1225 conservative and liberal political blogs based on the network of web links between them. When the network was fed through the algorithm, it divided cleanly into conservative and liberal camps. One community had 97 percent conservative blogs, and the other had 93 percent liberal blogs, indicating that conservative and liberal blogs rarely link to one another. In a further twist, the computer analysis was unable to find any subdivision at all within the liberal and conservative blog communities.
“This behavior is unique in our experience among networks of this size and is perhaps a testament not only to the widely noted polarization of the current political landscape in the United States, but also to the strong cohesion of the two factions,” the paper stated. The network of blogs was compiled by another U-M professor, Prof. Lada Adamic of the U-M School of Information.”
The implications here are very interesting, both good and bad. First the bad:
Of immediate concern, it would seem that in terms of its political partisans, America is on a trajectory for the kind of mutually hostile, mutually self-isolating, societal dynamic that is so often seen preceeding civil wars. Or for that matter, our own Civil War, where intense sectional feelings destroyed the Whig and Democratic Parties and nearly the United States along with them. It would also seem that the alienation of moderates and independents from the two major political parties is ” condensing”. Meaning that no matter who wins elections, it is a conceivable that a majority of the population, if not the voters, would regard the winner as illegitimate.
This utter resistance to communication, engagement or dialogue with the ” other” is actually a form of resilience taken to an unhealthy extreme. Sort of an ideological immune response to prevent ” invaders” – links – from connecting to ” the network”. Socially, one example of this behavior can be seen in the comments sections of many blogs where some “regulars” act as enforcers of the party line, parroting pet phrases (whether or not they actually make sense in terms of relevance) and using ad hominem abuse to attempt to smother dissenting views.
Now for the good:
4GW thinkers and Global Guerilla theorist John Robb have been acutely attentive to fragmentation and reversion to primary loyalties – or going toward an even greater breakdown that John has described as “ granular“. I agree with Robb that this phenomenon is happening and it is a powerful, entropic force, but how might it be prevented or reversed ?
In light of the research by Newman and Krebs, the answer would seem to be to create networks that horizontally cross the primary loyalties existing within a society, the more links the better. Historically, Americans had a particular genius for doing this kind of social linking across class, ethnic, regional and sectarian lines, foundering only upon race, an aspect noted way back by Alexis De Tocqueville in Democracy in America. While totalitarian societies were specifically designed to atomize demographic groups into isolated, disconnected, individuals vis-avis an all-powerful state, America’s individualistic ethos allowed its people to freely aggregate themselves into a powerful and dynamic civil society.
“Disconnectedness defines the danger”.
UPDATE:
Steve DeAngelis, the noted expert on resilience at ERMB, was also intrigued by the research of Newman and Krebs (Valdis Krebs is frequently cited for his social network analysis of the 9/11 highjackers) and expanded on another point in the article:
“Safranski ends by referencing Tom Barnett’s mantra, “Disconnectedness Defines Danger.” I wish I could be as sanguine as Safranski. I agree with his prescription – dialogue and honest debate are good things. But in a world where people are deliberately avoiding such dialogue and prefer retrenchment to rapprochement, making connections is difficult. Does that make me a pessimist? Not exactly. I’m by nature an optimist and by training a problem solver. So what is to be done? The ScienceDaily article points to an answer from nature:
Newman’s methods have also been adapted by researchers working in molecular biology to study metabolic networks, the chemical networks that power cells in human and animal bodies. In a recent paper in the journal Nature, researchers Roger Guimer and Luis Amaral from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., found that metabolites that straddle boundaries between groups in metabolic networks show persistence across species. Commenting on the work of Guimerà and Amaral, Newman says that this could be a sign that the division of the network into modules corresponds to different roles that metabolites play within the cell, and could suggest new directions for interpreting data on biochemical networks.
What jumped out for me in that paragraph were the “metabolites that straddle boundaries between groups.” I was also interested in the fact that these metabolites were shown to be persistent across species. In any given situation, we must ask, “Who or what are the metabolites that straddle groups?” Those individuals or groups are the keys to success because they represent the connectedness about which Safranski writes.
In many post-conflict situations, the “metabolites” are business people or women’s groups. NGOs are often such metabolites because they seek to relieve suffering not take sides. Finding existing “metabolites” and supporting their efforts are key factors in stopping (even reversing) the fracturing process. Strategies that try to fracture tightly grouped networks are doomed to failure. It is the connections between them (not within them) that is the key to a better future.”
An excellent point by Steve, one that I unfortunately had missed. The role of women, household or community ” economies” (those involving an array of exchanges, usually non-monetary but significant to the actors) and market actions are playing a critical role here but have been insufficiently examined ( Another vital point of investigation is the develpment of modules within networks in the research of Luis Amaral and Roger Guiner).
DOWNFALL FOLLOW-UP
The movie Downfall sparked some enthusiastic responses in the comments section. Lexington Green of the Chicago Boyz reviewed Downfall in some detail back in April of 2005. An excerpt:
“The Third Reich was hammered into the dirt once and for all sixty years ago this month. To celebrate this most fortunate turn of events, I went to see the movie Downfall. (Incidentally the Amazon reviews are very good and worth looking at if you want to know more about the movie.) My short version: It is a 4.5 star movie. Brilliant acting, sets, costumes — impeccable. Bruno Ganz is a very convincing Hitler. The films is shown mainly from the point of view of Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge, played by a talented and beautiful actress Alexandra Maria Lara, which is an effective way to tell the tale. It loses half a star because the battle scenes, raved about by other reviewers, struck me as inadequate. Mostly people running across rubble-strewn streets and diving to the ground as shells come down. We get only one T-34/85 tank? And we see Hitler pinning an Iron Cross on a kid for killing two Soviet tanks with a panzerfaust, but we don’t see him do it. This is just not sufficient. The capture of Berlin was the crescendo of the Soviet war effort, and this movie conveys nothing of the vastness of what was going on. The people who made this movie should have spent the money to have at least one scene with swarms of Soviet tanks, or a duel between tanks and anti-tank guns, or something. Film-makers used to know how to make massive war movies that were appropriate in scale to their grand themes. They don’t want to spend the money anymore, alas. These are decadent times we are living in. (Where are Lord Lew Grade or Darryl F. Zanuck when you need them?) But this quibble aside, this is far and away the best of the three Hitler-in-the-Bunker movies. You must go see it. “
Lex’s post makes me think that while reenacting the scale of major WWII battles on the Eastern Front would be prohibitively costly with live actors and 1:1 replica tanks( Kursk would not be “Braveheart with Panzers”, too much space with roughly 3000 tanks- what would constitute the set ? Western Kansas ?), computer animation is a real possibility.
A CRUSADE IN EARNEST -JUNE 6, 1944
“This was an emotional day.
The ceremonies honoring the fortieth anniversary of D-Day became more than commemorations. They became celebrations of heroism and sacrifice.
This place, Pointe du Hoc, in itself was moving and majestic. I stood there on that windswept point with the ocean behind me. Before me were the boys who forty years before had fought their way up from the ocean. Some rested under the white crosses and Stars of David that stretched out across the landscape. Others sat right in front of me. They looked like elderly businessmen, yet these were the kids who climbed the cliffs.*
We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.
Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.
And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”
I think I know what you may be thinking right now — thinking “we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.” Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren’t. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.
Lord Lovat was with him — Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late,” as if he’d been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he’d just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.
There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.
All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots’ Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet,” and you, the American Rangers.
Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought — or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.
Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: “Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do.” Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”
These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.
When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance — a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.
In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They’re still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.
We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.
It’s fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.
We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.
We’re bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we’re with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.
Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”
Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.
Thank you very much, and God bless you all. “
– Ronald Wilson Reagan, President of the United States, June 6, 1984
REVISITING THE GUNS PART IN ” GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL”
The Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs and Steel offered a geographic-latitudinal thesis to explain ” the success of the West over the Rest”. Historian Philip Hoffman of Caltech considers a different, evolutionary, explanation – the military sector of preindustrial Europe was the most dynamic, productive and expanding part of the Western economy(PDF).
(Hat tip to Ralph Luker of Cliopatria for alerting me to the online papers of The Historical Society conference)
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