CYBERNETICS IN AN EVOLVING SOCIAL SYSTEM

Abstract

Human societies can be conceptualized as natural systems satisfying four basic system criteria: Ordered wholeness; negative feedback deviation‐reducing capability; positive feedback deviation‐amplifying, self‐evolving capacity; and dual‐structural adaptation to sub‐ as well as suprasystems. While societies are obviously governable in stable, relatively organized situations, whether in totalitarian or fully participatory ways, it is concluded they are also governable during “crucial epochs” that are characterized by unstable, provisionally disorganized and unpredictable states—although different modes of governance prevail during these periods of rapid self‐evolution, when control is exercised by rapidly shifting and selectively amplifying peripheral movements. Analysis of the forms of transition governance during crucial epochs in self‐evolving social systems is important for suppressing totalitarian trends and consciously amplifying humanistic peripheral movements.

Citation

LASZLO, E. (1984), "CYBERNETICS IN AN EVOLVING SOCIAL SYSTEM", Kybernetes, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 141-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb005684