Anatomies and Dynamics of the Society-Mechanism: Among Myths of Simplification, Facilitation, and Disintermediation

by CHAOS STAFF

It was post-modernity that first told us that facts were now to be considered

interpretations, whereupon the value of theorization diminished to the point where

theories became little more than opinions. As a reaction, the reductionisms and

determinisms that had previously been dismantled by a novel, non-Newtonian

perspective returned as a “tyranny of concreteness,” foreshadowing tomorrow’s

post-normality. So, what then is “normality”? Human societies have always been

wrapped in chaos, complexity, and contradictions: this is normal for all living

beings and for all living systems. A volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous

(VUCA) world, therefore, has always existed, and as such is perfectly normal and

natural. Therefore, a science based on “post normality” should take into account

that normality itself implicates unpredictability, uncertainty, and the impossibility

of controlling or managing complexity, including the unexpected events called

“black swans,” which are simply intrinsic features of the complex adaptive systems

we inhabit.