A Letter to Al Gore
September 17, 2006 - The first letter
May 29, 2007 - The second letter
On September 17, 2006 the Washington Post ran an article on Gore's
2008 Plans May Become Clearer After Release of Book. According to
the article: (Bolding added)
"[May of 2007] is when Gore is scheduled to publish his next book.
With no fanfare, he signed a few weeks ago with Penguin
Press to write 'The
Assault on Reason.'
"As described by editor Scott Moyers, the book
is a meditation on how 'the public arena has grown
more hostile to reason,' and
how solving problems such as global warming is impeded
by a political culture with a pervasive 'unwillingness
to let facts drive decisions.'
"While
that may sound abstract, both the subject matter and
the timing of the release have an unmistakable subtext.
In 2004, Gore cheered liberals when he lashed at President
Bush for allegedly falling captive to right-wing
special interests and taking flight from 'fact-based
analysis.' If
the book strikes a chord, it will produce new momentum
for Gore to make another bid for the White House, presumably
fueled in large part by anti-Iraq-war Democrats."
If you have read The
Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace paper
you will immediately recognize that Al is slowly but
surely discovering the structure of the Dueling Loops.
His intuition is so good that even without a simulation
model, he has noticed that those opposing solving the
sustainability problem have launched "an assault on reason."
They are using tactics that Al calls "a pervasive unwillingness
to let facts drive decisions" and the Dueling Loops paper
calls deception. Better would be politics driven by the
truth, as in "An Inconvenient Truth." In other words, Al
Gore wants to take the high road of a race to the top,
but the American political world is trapped in a race to
the bottom, where it is waging a ferocious "assault on
reason."
Just think how much more effective
Al's book might
be if he could see the invisible social structure of the
Dueling Loops. This is what his upcoming book is actually
all about.
To let Al know about the concept of the Dueling Loops, we sent him and
his editor the following letter the day after the article came
out:
September 18, 2006
Former Vice President Al Gore
c/o Penguin Press
(address)
I saw the September 17th article in the Washington Post about you
signing with Penguin Press to write The Assault on Reason. I
would like to freely offer some extensive research I’ve done in
this area that may perhaps be useful.
The article says “the book is a meditation on how ‘the public
arena has grown more hostile to reason’ and how solving problems
such as global warming is impeded by a political culture with a pervasive ‘unwillingness
to let facts drive decisions.’ ”
In the course of research on the environmental sustainability problem,
I’ve developed a simulation model that explains why the above is
happening. Basically the model identifies the feedback loops in the political
system that are causing such strong resistance to solving certain problems,
such as sustainability.
The model is small and simple enough for nearly anyone to understand.
It is described in The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace paper,
which is enclosed. While the model uses the identical stock and flow approach
that Limits to Growth did, it is a much smaller model that focuses
on the social side of the problem, rather than the technical side.
Briefly, the dueling loops consist of the race to the bottom pitted against
the race to the top. The race to the bottom employs corruption and falsehood
to win supporters, while the race to the top employs virtue and truth. The
model shows how the race to the bottom has a very strong inherent structural
advantage, which explains many things.
Once you understand the model, you will see exactly why the facts are
not driving decisions in American politics today. You will see how a dominant
race to the bottom (controlled by right-wing special interests) has replaced
reason and fact-based analysis with the rhetoric, emotion, and near hysteria
we have seen in the current administration’s manipulation of the
American public to support nearly any goal the administration wishes to
achieve.
Thank you very much,
Jack Harich
Enclosure: The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace
cc: Senior Editor Scott Moyers
However, in the last few years we've sent out about fifty similar emails
and letters, and have received only two replies.
Probably this is because Thwink.org is still relatively
unknown, so
the letters are ignored.
This is probably about to happen
again. We need your help. Have you read the Dueling Loops
paper? Do you believe it could help Al write a better book?
Do you know him or have contacts that do? If so, then please
contact him. You can explain how the Dueling Loops would
provide a solid theoretical basis for his upcoming book,
which would allow a more effective book. Or you can send
him a link to this page.
Thanks a bunch. Sustainability not only requires an analytical approach.
It also takes a boatload of cooperation.
As events unfold, we will update this page....
There has been no reply, which is understandable. On May 29, 2007 I sent
this letter to Al Gore at his Nashville address:
Dear
Honorable Al Gore,
My complements for such a penetrating analysis of the present state of
the American political system, in The Assault on Reason.
In your book you say: “So the remedy for
what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important
as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the
reestablishment of a genuine
democratic discourse….”
I’d like to help you accomplish this.
My own analysis agrees with yours on a number of points. One is the
use of falsehood to achieve questionable ends is rampant in politics.
Another is the skillful use of pushing the fear hot button to make those
falsehoods work. Yet another is the crucial role of transmission mediums
like TV.
My approach to this important problem has been to apply my engineering
skills, using the same key tool that the Limits to Growth project
and book used: simulation modeling. The enclosed book should show how
it is possible to take the same line of analysis you took in The Assault
on Reason, but take it much further. In fact, your analysis and mine
are so similar that I suspect that if you had modeled the core of your
analysis, it would have ended up about the same as mine.
As you read the Dueling Loops book, you will
see a fundamental social structure that explains why the American political
system has broken down, and is no longer capable of “a genuine democratic discourse.” The
existence of this structure is essentially the scientific diagnosis of “what
ails our democracy.”
But the book goes even further, and I think this is what will help you
the most. It pinpoints the low leverage point that most
problem solvers have been intuitively attracted to. Pushing there will
not solve difficult progressive problems, because as a minority, progressives
simply do not have the necessary force (number of citizens, money, and
influence) to make pushing there work. What we must do instead is push
on the high leverage points identified in the model,
or ones like them.
I believe that the strategic solution that you
have identified, “the
reestablishment of a genuine democratic discourse,” is correct.
What I hope the Dueling Loops model can help you do is
to serve as an example of how to more efficiently find the collection
of specific solution elements that can achieve that strategy.
Jack Harich
Systems Engineer
Enclosure: The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace book
Also, please see the videos at: www.thwink.org/sustain/videos/DuelingLoops
