Leaders of the Pack, Part III

Dog Philosophers, Leaders of the Pack, Part III

By John Taylor; 7 December, 2005

Yesterday we discussed what Plato called dog philosophers,
intellectual shock troops trained to snuff out conflict before it gets
out of hand. What techniques would these intellectual watchdogs use to
protect us from the dangers of contention and strife? How would they
defend the general interest without raising the hackles of special
interests? What are the weak points of the conflict-mongering hoards,
the instigators of hatred and war?

A common metaphor for peacemaking operations is "putting out
brushfires," but the problem is that we now know that good forest
management does not mean snuffing out every fire. Forest ecosystems
have dealt with periodic infernos for millennia and actually need
fires to renew themselves; without small periodic burns a forest
becomes overgrown, a tinderbox in danger of being consumed by an
uncontrollable holocaust. On the other hand, the smoke even from
small, controlled fires can in certain weather conditions threaten the
health of large numbers of people living nearby.

Dog philosophers, then, would not blindly run about putting out all
brushfires. Instead they would act in concert with tight discipline to
assure that everyone has a say in problem solving and that for every
issue every aspect and every opinion is duly considered -- just as
forest managers judiciously permit small, limited brushfires at times
when the smoke will not spread into populated areas. That is, there
would be consultation without contention. A dog soldier's chief skill
would be avoiding politicization, the hardening and separation of
concerned parties into opposing factions. As soon as that happens the
fire burns out of control and violence and ill feeling are inevitable.
And worse, even a small amount of politicization blinds all sides in
the dense smoke of strife and personal attacks.

Here is another way to picture how the dog philosopher might conduct a
commando operation for peace. The book "Wisdom of Crowds" reports an
experiment performed by some innovative traffic engineers. Traffic
jams are a waste of every driver's time and cause massive, unnecessary
air pollution, and there were no solutions known that did not involve
billions of dollars for infrastructural expansion. So what these
researchers did was to send a half dozen cars with drivers connected
by walkie-talkie to one another and a central dispatch monitoring the
situation from above. By simply adjusting the driving style, speed and
lane-changing decisions of these few vehicles they found that they
could influence the system to avoid the slowdowns that escalate into
traffic jams. Using a relatively small amount of effort and money,
they proved that a dumb mob can be changed into a smart, efficient
crowd. That is how a pack of dog philosophers would work, by
infiltrating stupid groups, coordinating and unifying them into clever
crowds.

Last night an illustrious reader of the Badi' list drew my attention
to some advice of Baha'u'llah that seems designed to guide the
coordination of dog philosophers.

"Be fair to yourselves and to others, that the evidences of justice
may be revealed, through your deeds, among Our faithful servants.
Beware lest ye encroach upon the substance of your neighbor. Prove
yourselves worthy of his trust and confidence in you, and withhold not
from the poor the gifts which the grace of God hath bestowed upon you.
He, verily, shall recompense the charitable, and doubly repay them for
what they have bestowed." (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, 278)

It can be seen that this is an elaboration of Jesus' "cast your bread
upon the waters" dictum, but it points out in more detail the
methodology involved in peacemaking. That is, whenever and wherever
deliberations threaten to sink into contention a team of dog
philosophers would enter the field and follow these consecutive steps
outlined here to guide the mob in the right direction. They would
first establish what fairness to self and others involves. They would
point out to all sides how their own narrow interests are part of a
greater, transcendent interest and how it is not impossible to be fair
both to self and others at the same time, how "mine," "ours" and
"their's" are all aspects of one common public interest.

Then the dog philosopher would go on to building trust among all
players, and ultimately to coordinating altruistic acts on behalf all
sides for the poor, deprived and underprivileged, that is, those who
are excluded from the forum by structural injustice. This in turn
would increase the common capital by allowing for universal
participation of all members of society, in other words, God will
"doubly repay them for what they have bestowed."

Now this cannot be done without making use of the best means
available. In war, the shock troop is a highly trained, elite soldier,
chosen for intelligence as well as brawn, and needless to say, he uses
the latest weaponry; similarly, the first Indians to get their hands
on rifles and learn to use them would have been the dog soldiers. In
the same way a traffic jam is not avoided with guidance cars that are
not carefully coordinated by a unified communication system. The dog
philosopher pack, then, would use the internet to publicize the above
methodology and mark their progress every step of the way. Unlike
commandos in a war, their operations would not be secret, they would
invite public scrutiny. Furthermore, they would use the Manifestation
of God's methodology of "going to the need," that is, seeking out and
choosing the worst, the most afflicted and corrupt problem area in the
world and proving their expertise by setting that place on the road to
recovery first.

Again I say, philosophical shock troops cannot go into battle unarmed,
unequipped with high tech weaponry to coordinate their consultative
initiatives. Next time we will peek further inside a dog philosopher's
weaponry storeroom.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com