Structure

Admittedly, I'm a little behind in my reading here... I didn't realize that each of the parts on these reading assignments were so long! This is my first ever online class, so I am trying to adjust myself to a class that is void of much structure - which is hard for someone like me who generally lacks self-discipline!

My previous journal entry tried to take a look at religion, without considering it as a form of control over human beings. I focused on the inspirational side of religion.

I'm reading Chapter 2 right now, a discussion of precolonial history. I have always felt ignorant to any decent perspective on non-Western culture. Seems like our education system really only emphasizes American history and Western Civ. It's unfortunate that we totally neglect other advanced cultures, especially those in China, the Middle East, etc. Kinda makes you wonder if there's a correlation between that and the current awkward foreign relations the United States has with some of those areas...

It was interesting reading about the stateless societies. The governance of people with a dynamic system of organization is fascinating. The fact that people self-organize so fluidly, based on function - not hierarchy or some other form of self-entitlement - is really interesting. In the informational age, it seems like many organizational bodies are adopting a similar governing structure. Less emphasis is placed on title or ranking; more seems to be placed on competency and specialization. It also reminds me of how some computing systems operate. Some forms of artificial intelligence are based on "nodes" within a computing system that self-organized, based on the nature of the problem. Even in the U.S. government, when confidence is lost in the federal government's competence, it seems like we see local and state governments form coalitions to essentially override the negligence or incompetence of the federal bureaucracy.

This decentralized structure seems suitable during times of peace. However, during times of crisis, this seems vulnerable. Without any definite chain of command, it is not difficult to imagine that these systems would be vulnerable to confusion, miscommunication, lack of consistency, etc. Perhaps this is what explains why the Department of Defense succeeds as a rigidly organized body and why Google is able to thrive with a less structured management environment.

With folks becoming more educated and having better access to information and faster communication, it seems that this day and age favors decentralized systems of governance. It relies moreso on the intelligence and specialization of the individual, as well as their abilities to self-organize in order to solve a problem. This system results in a society that empowers folks towards individual growth and spurs innovation among a society - but perhaps at a cost of added vulnerability to hostilities.