Arguments against 'self-organisation' by Curtis

An example of the public discourse : A guardian article criticising 'Self-organisation'


"We are a network of people who self-organise. We don't have a position on things. It's about empowering the individual to go out there and be creative."  Lucy Anson 


It is not the old form of collective action that the left once believed in, where people subsumed themselves into the greater force of the movement. Instead all the individuals in the self-organising network can do whatever they want as creative, autonomous, self-expressive entities, yet somehow, through feedback between all the individuals in the system, a kind of order emerges.


At its heart it says that you can organise human beings without the exercise of power by leaders.


history of the rise of the idea of the "self-organising network".


some of the ideas come out of anarchist thought

That underneath the bewildering complexity of the natural world were interconnected systems around which energy also flowed. He coined a name for them. He called them ecosystems. 

 He called it Holism. It said that the world was composed of lots of "wholes" – the small wholes all evolving and fitting together into larger wholes until they all came together into one big whole – a giant natural system that would find its own stability if all the wholes were in the right places. 

the central problem with the concept of the self-regulating system, one that was going to haunt it throughout the 20th century. It can be easily manipulated by those in power to enforce their view of the world, and then be used to justify holding that power stable.

The commune dwellers mimicked the ecosystem idea in their house meetings where they all had to say exactly what was on their minds at that moment – so information flowed freely round the system. And through that the communes were supposed to stabilise themselves.

In many communes across America in the late 1960s house meetings became vicious bullying sessions where the strong preyed mercilessly on the weak, and nobody was allowed to voice any objections. The rules of the self-organising system said that no coalitions or alliances were allowed because that was politics – and politics was bad. If you talk today to ex-commune members they tell horrific stories of coercion, violent intimidation and sexual oppression within these utopian communities, while the other commune members stood mutely watching, unable under the rules of the system to do anything to stop it.

Again, the central weakness of the self-organising system was dramatically demonstrated. Whether it was used for conservative or radical ends, it could not cope with power, which is one of the central dynamic forces in human society.

From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tansley-smuts

His  argument brings up important concerns but fails to acknowledge the importance of understanding  these systems properties and how we can attempt to integrate  awareness of their potential for unfolding harmony.