a triarchy press publication
'Organising and Disorganising:
A Dynamic and Non-Linear Theory
of Institutional Emergence and its
Implications'
by Michael Thompson
Publication Date: 15 October 2008
No. of Pages: 160
Book type: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-9557681-4-9
List Price: £25.00
Offer price: £19.00
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We may believe that our perspective is the right one and that any interaction with opposing views is a messy and unwelcome contradiction. But why should egalitarians engage with individualists, or hierachists with egalitarians?
Using a range of examples and analogies, the author shows how the best outcomes depend upon an essential argumentative process, which encourages subversions that are constructive whilst discouraging those that are not. In this way each approach gets more of what it wants and less of what it doesn't want.
There are five ways of organising: the hierarchical, the egalitarian, the individualistic, the fatalistic and the autonomous. Each approach is a way of disorganising the other four: without the other four, it would have nothing to organise itself against. In Organising and Disorganising, Michael Thompson gives a detailed explanation of the dynamics of these five fundamental arrangements that underlie 'Cultural Theory'.
The lively style of the presentation and its rigorous attention to detail makes this book suitable for a wide audience - from managers and academic theorists to those who are responsible for effective and enlightened action on challenging global issues.
About the Author
Originally a professional soldier, Michael Thompson studied anthropology (University College London and Oxford) while also following a career as a Himalayan mountaineer (Annapurna South Face 1970, Everest Southwest Face 1975). His early research on how something second-hand becomes an antique, or a rat-infested slum part of Our Glorious Heritage ("Rubbish Theory", Oxford University Press 1979), diverted him into teaching at the Slade School of Fine Art, London and at Portsmouth University's School of Architecture, and from there to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an East-West think-tank in Austria. There he worked on energy futures, on risk perception and on environment and development in the Himalayan Region, the key-unifying concept in all that being "plural rationality": people doing very different things and yet still behaving rationally, given their different sets of convictions as to how the world is and people are.
With his mis-spent youth continuing into (and way beyond) middle-age, Michael Thompson is still teasing out the various ideas of fairness that underpin the different rationalities and that are so seldom given adequate recognition in global-level decision-making, devising ways of clumsifying and democratising international development aid, and enquiring into how urban infrastructures (those, for instance, that handle human waste by putting it into the water cycle) can be re-engineered so as to make cities into "forces for environmental good".
Hear Michael Thompson speak
There are no fewer than four events coming up within the next four weeks at which you can meet Michael Thompson and learn about and contribute to his latest work in Cultural Theory. The events are on 28th-30th November and the 4th, 9th and 11th December 2008.
- The Triarchy Group weekend 28th-30th November. Contact Matthew if you need more information about this.
- Thursday, December 4th 2008, 1-2pm at the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). The talk is free but you need to register first by emailing lectures(at)rsa.org.uk.
- Tuesday, 9th December 2008, 4-6pm at the James
Martin Institute , Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
(JMI)
The seminar is followed by a book signing in the Saïd Business School reception area.
Contact Alison if you wish to attend the seminar and we will forward your request. The book signing is open to all, with no registration required. - Thursday December 11th 2008 1:30-6:30pm at the LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) as part of the complexity programme . The cost is £45 for commercial and £25 for academic participants and the deadline for applications is 20th November. Please email complexitygroup(at)lse.ac.uk for an application form or contact Alison if you would like to attend.
