Estimated reading time: 6 minute(s)
I mentioned earlier that I would be sharing some quotes from the book I have been reading. The Starfish and the Spider is about two different ways to approach organzing people. One way is to have a structured organization with centralized leadership, like a spider whose functions are all tied into its head. When the head is destroyed, so is the spider. The other option presented is the decentralized organization, where every member is a leader – much like the starfish, who when any part is severed not only continues to exist, but the severed part can even become a new starfish!
In giving examples of recent virtual “starfish” like Skype, Craigslist, file-sharing software called eMule, Apache web server software and Wikipedia, the recurring theme is that when the users or members of an organization are not only allowed to almost required to contribute (in order for it to continue its existence), the organization – along with its members – thrives.
As I read story after story in the book of members taking on various responsibilities to the group and just to individuals within the group I couldn’t help but think of my occasional posts about life in a “Star Trek world”. (The book referenced a strange gathering in the Nevada desert called Burning Man where there is a policy of a “gift economy”. Each person may contribute any goods or services, but may not sell. Nor buy. Everything is done/offered for the good of the community.) Jen is convinced this can not work, but, at least the way it was presented in “Starfish”, it already isworking.
The strength of Skype is that it has very low costs, using its users computers to store directory information for other users, for example. The strength of CraigsList is that the focus is on the people. What the users want is what CraigsList does. Each user contributes, and there is a sense of trust and community that has been built and makes the site what it is. Similarly, Wikipedia was first begun as Nupedia – an online encyclopedia written by experts, but free to the public. It found its success when instead of traditional editors and contributors, it opened up the content creation and management to the users. Instead of 24 articles generated somewhere around a year’s time, Wikipedia users have contributed well over a million articles to the English section alone in its five years of existence. And the articles are “suprisingly accurate” says the “Starfish” author.
The other interesting thing about Wikipedia is that, although every user has an equal ability to add to, edit, or even delete content, there is virtually no vandalism. There are even self-appointed Wikipedia “custodians” who go around either cleaning up code to make a page look better, or catching any juvenile vandalism that mars otherwise excellently presented articles.
”Wikipedia proves that people are basically good.”
I can’t find the source again (sorry!) but that quote stood out to me. The problem that my wife has with decentralized organizations is that she basically doesn’t trust people. She would probably say the opposite. That people are basically bad, and Jesus helps them change… a bit. 🙂 And I know I tend toward the positive, but how can you argue with a site that has articles in 200 languages, and over a million articles in English alone with so little vandalism – though it’s so easy to do? And generally, it’s “policed” by the users.
Concluding a story from the Burning Man festival – where 30,000 people congregate in a dry lake bed in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada, the authors say:
But that demonstrated something important – open systems can’t rely on a police force. On the one hand, there’s freedom to do what you want, on the other hand, there’s added responsibility: because there are no police walking around maintaining law and order, everyone becomes a guardian of sorts. You become responsible for your own welfare and that of those around you. In open systems, the concept of “neighbor” takes on more meaning than just the person next door.
I loved this. Just loved it. This is what I want the church to be. Without a doubt. When he mentioned police, I immediately thought of the pastor, or the elders, or whoever is “responsible” for the people’s “well-being”. That level of responsiblity and oversight is not only unfair and restrictive to members, but really equally so to the leaders/pastors.
And it’s just not as good. It might be better in a way for “controlling”, but in my mind, the system where everyone is equally responsible for themselves and for others works better for everyone. And is a much more inclusive, participatory, open system. Which is what I believe the church to be. We have one head. Beyond that, we are all equal. (No slave nor free, male nor female, etc. The lines are gone.)
I think overall the coolest thing about open systems to me is that they are entrusted to each member. No one is trying to “steer the ship”. The “steering” is done together, or just not done at all. Members are free to contribute equally, and really, without their contributions to each other… the group does not exist.
I love the ideas we can learn here for the church. To live together as a family, a unit, an organization where there is no central office, no heirarchy of leadership, no CEO… everyone contributes and receives equally. Everyone is responsible for everyone else. Obviously that does not apply to a group of 10,000 people. In fact the book said it seems like somewhere around 14 people is the max for a decentralized group to function best. Beyond that you begin to have too much anonymity. I love that idea too, and am trying currently to live that. We have a small circle of people with whom we do life the most, and that is who we learn from and share with and perhaps that is our “church”.
God can always change that. And it seems he does. There are seasons when the people in that circle of 14 or so change. Where we are part of a “different church”. But it does seem that there is generally a small group of folks whom we share life with Jesus with.
It’s certainly not perfect. And I feel like we’re still actually looking for that. But perhaps we have more than I sometimes think we have. 🙂
I do encourage you to get the book if you get a chance. I would love to talk some more about it, but I have already taken enough of my family’s time here on vacation. 🙂 The kids have all awoken from their naps… time to start dinner!
If you have any thoughts on these quotes, or open systems in general, post a comment or two below!
So … have you heard about the various scandals involving Wikipedia? Some kid masquerades as a priest, etc. etc. etc. I will never believe that man’s basic nature is “good;” scripture’s pretty clear that we’re definitely not. Read all the stories of the old testament – or even the new testament … the whole Bible is full of guys who screw up big time. But yet they are redeemable, and THAT is why scripture is appealing!
Do you know the “goods and services exchanged” at Burning Man? From what I hear, it’s quite a bit of hippiness – like drugs, sex, etc. sort of like the seventies only with more of the hard stuff.
All to say that I really think that open systems work, but we haven’t made the GOOD open systems go yet. They’re starting to – FORGE in Australia is one of them, CMA in California, etc (read Neil Cole’s “Organic Church”), but for the most part, I think the open systems we see are open systems where very few rules are actually permission to do whatever you want instead of encouragement to truly be GOOD … accountability doesn’t really happen between individual people in the systems that exist because there’s nothing to be held accountable to.
Hey Chris! I am trying to catch up on some of your blog postings. We were on vacation and had very limited internet access. Thanks for your comment here, as always…
But, as often… I do disagree. 🙂
I am not certain that Scripture says that we are basically evil… did you read my post on the nature of Sin? I’m still working through a lot of thoughts on that right now… but I think maybe we are basically good (like adam & eve) but sin has a strangle hold on all of us. So, we are “slaves to sin” but not “basically evil”. (Does the Bible ever actually say that?)
Also, I have not heard of Burning Man before reading this book, so I have no pre-conceived notions. I only know what was reported in the book. And they did say there was plenty of craziness (of the hippy sort) there, but there was also a lot of creativity, and other goodness. I’m not sure I relayed the story that I thought was great… there was a “situation” but the author and friends realized there were no police to take care of it… so… they did! That’s the best! People taking care of each other instead of some “authority” doing it for them. Very cool.
I think open systems only work if there are few (or no?) rules. I believe that freedom (where there is ownership of the group) does work. People want to belong, and I think freedom encourages participation. Not always, but I think in tandem with belonging, and relationship… it does.
Just my two cents, from observation, and from what I read in this book. Good stuff.
See, I didn’t say we’re basicaly evil – I said we’re not basically good. The whole “basically good” view gets a lot of people in trouble because of the way they use it to teach their children … humanists assume that their children are all little angels and then, oddly enough, when their kids grow up they’re selfish, spoiled little monsters.
In fact, children are an excellent example of this – we have to be taught to behave well, to “be good” as it were. Our innate nature seems to be that we act selfishly, or at least, with our own best interests in mind. It’s why I don’t like those versions of Christianity that teach that heaven is in our best interest … it is, for sure, but that’s not why we choose God. We choose to love God because it’s true, because it’s good, not (solely) because it’s good FOR us.
I know that there are some good things that happen at Burning Man, the community stuff is good, but I’m not sure that the way in which it happens is necessarily … appropriate? Community between drug dealers is still garnered by drugs. Yes – it can be redeemed, and should – but we have to be careful how we talk about it. That’s all I’m saying. But you’re right, we also have to be careful not to condemn the whole thing because of parts of it – the best thing to do as a missionary is to start with the common ground, that which is true about something, and work with it, let it be the starting point for the redemption of the the rest of the system.
I’m not a fan of rules, never have been. However, there’s a difference between rules and principles. Rules dictate, confine, remove freedom. Principles liberate, guide. They are not situation-specific, but guide behavior over the broader spectrum. The ten commandments, for example, are fairly broad … ‘don’t murder’ isn’t very specific, it’s pretty general, because then we have to ask what “murder” would be in different situations, whereas a rule might be like “do not drink alcohol” … rules are created by men, principles are what we learn about how to behave from God’s character.
Being a father of four, I have certainly seen my kids (and my own) bent toward self-ish-ness. But I have also seen self-initiated self-less-ness as well. Those are the greatest moments when one sibling will comfort a hurting sibling, or just do something generous, something nice, for another sibling – without any parental prompting. Yes, there is a good deal of training we must do, but some of it actually does come naturally.
I’d say is with all things, we’re probably neither mostly good nor mostly bad. Each choice presents a moral option… do we choose only selfishly, or do we choose while thinking of the impact on those around us. Then the choices are good or bad, not “us”. Eh?
Well anyway… this seems like it could spiral into crazy theoretical areas. I just mean that given a chance to be responsible for themselves and others, I feel like most people would do quite well with that. So I do lean toward the “basically good”. (With a bent toward not so good) 😉