Man’s age-old dilemma in the face of death is the meaning of the thing that is paramount of importance; what man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance. If such astonishment as this can seize Eternal Spirits: or have ye chaos in this place after the toil of battle to repose your wearied virtue, for the ease you find to slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven? Or in this abject posture have ye sworn to adore the conqueror? who now beholds Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood with scattered arms and ensigns, till anon his swift pursuers from Heaven’s gates discern the advantage, and descending tread us down thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts transfix us to the bottom of this gulf. Awake, arise, or be forever fallen. They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung upon the wing, as when men wont to watch on duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight in which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; yet to their general’s voice they soon obeyed innumerable. As when the potent rod of Amram’s son in Egypt’s evil day waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, that over the realm of impious Pharaoh hung like night, and darkened all the land of the Nile so numberless were those bad angels seen hovering on wing under the cope of hell twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires; till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear of their great Sultan waving to direct their course, in even balance down they light on the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain; a multitude, like which the populous North poured never from her frozen loins, to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons came like a deluge on the South, and spread beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Forthwith from every squadron and each band the heads and leaders thither haste where stood their great commander; godlike shapes and forms excelling human, princely dignities, and powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones; though of their names Heavenly records now be no memorial, blotted out and razed by their rebellion, from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve got them new names, till wandering over the Earth, through God’s high sufferance for the trial of man, by falsities and lies the greatest part of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and the invisible glory of hum that made them, to transform oft to the image of a brute, adored with gay religions full of pomp and gold, and devils to adore for deities. This is all the result of the denial of death and an unwillingness to heed to their general’s voice. Humans have such a desire to live, a burning desire of the creature to count, to make a difference on the planet because they have lived that they only come to worship silver and gold, and as a result they will suffer and die and be removed from the Books of life. When two persons are mutually present and hence engaged together in some degree of unfocused interaction, the mutual proffering of civil inattention—a significant form of unfocused interaction—is not the only way they can relate to one another. They can proceed from there to engage one another in focused interaction, the unit of which is referred to as a face engagement or encounter. The term “encounter,” which is much the easier of the two to use, has some common-sense connotations that ought here to be ruled out. First, the term is sometimes used to refer to mediated, as well as to direct, contact between two persons, as when persons have correspondence with each other. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Secondly, the term is sometimes used with an implication of there having been difficulty or trouble during the interactions, as in the phrase “a run-in.” Finally, the term is sometimes used to cover occasions which bring two persons into easy access to each other, regardless of how many times they may come together in a joint conversation during this time, as in the phrase, “I next encountered him at the Hilton’s party.” Face engagements comprise all those instances of two or more participants in a situation joining each other openly in maintaining a single focus of cognitive and visual attention—what is sensed as a single focus of cognitive and visual attention—what is sensed as a mutual activity, entailing preferential communication rights. As a simple example—and one of the most common—when persons are present together in the same situation they may engage each other in a talk. This accreditation for mutual activity is one of the broadest of all statuses. Even persons of extremely disparate social positions can find themselves in circumstances where it is fitting to impute it to one another. Ordinarily the status does not have a “latent phase” but obliges the incumbents to be engaged at that very moment in exercising their status. Mutual activities and the face engagements in which they are embedded comprise instances of small talk, commensalism, pleasures of the flesh, gaming, formal discussion, and personal servicing (treating, selling, waitressing, and so forth). In some cases, as with sociable chats, the coming together does not seem to have a ready instrumental rationale. In other cases, as when a teacher pauses at a pupil’s desk to help him for a moment with a problem he is involved in, and will be involved in after she moves on, the encounter is clearly a setting for a mutual instrumental activity, and this joint work is merely a phase of what is primarily an individual task. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

It should be noted that while many face engagements seem to be made up largely of the exchange of verbal statements, so that conversational encounters can in fact be used as the model, there are still other kinds of encounters where no word is spoken. This becomes very apparent, of course, in the study of engagements among children who have not yet mastered talk, and where, incidentally, it is possible to see the gradual transformation of a mere physical contacting of see the gradual transformation of a mere physical contacting of another into an act that establishes the social relationship of jointly accrediting a face-to-face encounter. Among adults, too, however, nonverbal encounters can be observed: the significant acts exchanged can be gestures or even, as in board and card games, moves. Also, there are certain close comings-together over work tasks which give rise to a single focus of visual and cognitive attention and to intimately coordinated contributions, the order and kind of contribution being determined by shared appreciation of what the task-at-the-moment requires as the next act. Here, while no word of direction or sociability may be spoken, it will be understood that lack of attention or coordinated response constitutes a breach in the mutual commitment of the participants. Where there are only two participants in a situation, an encounter, if there is to be one, will exhaust the situation, giving us a fully-focused gathering. With more than two participants, there may be persons officially present in the situation who are officially excluded from the encounter and not themselves so engaged. These unengaged (an “unengaged” participant may of course be involved in a task or other main focus of attention and hence not be “disengaged” in the situation.) participants change the gathering into a partly-focused one. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

If more than three persons are present, there may be more than one encounter carried on in the same situation—a multifocused gathering. I will use the term participation unit to refer both to encounters and to unengaged participants; the term bystander will be used to refer to any individual present who is not a ratified member of the particular encounter in question, whether or not one is currently a member of some other encounter. In our society, face engagements seem to share a complex of properties, so that this class of social unit can be defined analytically, as well as by example. An encounter is initiated by someone making an opening move, typically by means of a special expression of the eyes but sometimes by a statement or a special tone of voice at the beginning of a statement. When the individual is socially subordinated to the one to whom one is about to initiate an encounter overture, he may be required to use a minimal sign so that the superior can easily continue to overlook it, or can respond to it at one’s own convenience. For instance, the habits of a good secretary, includes waiting to be recognized when one has stepped in to speak to you, before interrupting whatever you are doing. In such cases the fiction is maintained that the superordinate alone can initiate an engagement. The classic case here is the mythical butler who coughs discreetly so that one’s master will take note of one’s presence and allow to deliver a message. The engagement proper begins when this overture is acknowledged by the other, who signals back with one’s eyes, voice, or stance that one has placed oneself at the disposal of the other for purpose of a mutual eye-to-eye activity—even if only to ask the initiator to postpone one’s request for an audience. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

There is a tendency for the initial move and the responding “clearance” sign to be exchanged almost simultaneously, with all participants employing both signs, perhaps in order to prevent an initiator from placing oneself in a position of being denied by others. Glances, in particular, make possible this effective simultaneity. In fact, when eyes are joined, the initiator’s first glance can be sufficiently tentative and ambiguous to allow one to act as if no initiation has been intended, if it appears that one’s overture is not desired. Eye-to-eye looks, then, play a special role in the communication life of the community, ritually establishing an avowed openness to verbal statements and a rightfully heightened mutual relevance of acts. Of the special sense-organs, the eye has a uniquely sociological function. The union and interaction of individuals is based upon mutual glance. This is perhaps the most direct and purest reciprocity which exists anywhere. This highest psychic reaction, however, in which the glances of eye to eye unite men, crystallizes into no objective structure; the unity which momentarily arises between two persons is present in the occasion and is dissolved in the function. So tenacious and subtle is this union that it can only be maintained by the shortest and straightest line between the eyes, and the smallest deviation from it, the slightest glance side, completely destroys the unique character of this union. No objective trace of this relationship is left behind, as is universally found, directly or indirectly, in all other types of associations between men, as, for example, in interchange of words. The interaction of eyes and eye dies in the moment in which directness of the function is lost. However, the totality of social relations of human beings, their self-assertion and self-abnegation, their intimacies, and estrangements, would be changed in unpredictable ways if there occurred no glance of eye to eye. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

This mutual glance between persons, in distinction from the simple sight or observation of the other, signifies a wholly new and unique union between them. There is a whole vocabulary of glances. It is understandable, then, that an individual who feels one has cause to be alienated from those around one will express this through some “abnormality of gaze,” especially averting of the eyes. And it is understandable, too, that an individual who wants to control others’ access to one and the information one receives may avoid looking toward the person who is seeking one out. A waitress, for example, may prevent one’s initiating an customer from “catching here eye” to prevent one’s initiating an order. Similarly, if a pedestrian wants to ensure a particular allocation of the street relative to a fellow pedestrian, or if a motorist wants to ensure priority of one’s line of proposed action over that of a fellow motorist or pedestrian, one strategy is to avoid meeting the other’s eyes and thus avoid cooperative claims. However, sometimes the captain feels out of sorts, or in ill-humour, or is pleased to be somewhat capricious, or has a fancy to show a touch of one’s omnipotent supremacy; or, peradventure, it has so happened that the first lieutenant has, in some way, piqued or offended one, and one is not unwilling to show a slight specimen of one’s dominion over one, even before the eyes of all hands; at all events, only by some one of these suppositions can the singular circumstance be accounted for, that frequently Captain Claret would pertinaciously promenade up and down the poop, purposely averting one’s eyes from the first lieutenant, who would stand below in the most awkward suspense, waiting the first wink from one’s superior’s eye. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

“Now I have him!” he must have said to himself, as the captain would turn toward him in his walk; “now’s my time!” and up would go his hand to his cap; but, alas! the captain was off again; and the men at the guns would cast sly winks at each other as the embarrassed lieutenant would bite his lips with suppressed vexation. Upon some occasions this scene would be repeated several times, till at last Captain Claret, thinking that in the eyes of all hands his dignity must by this time be pretty well blostered, would stalk toward his subordinate, looking him full in the eyes; whereupon up goes his hand to the cap front, and the captain, nodding his acceptance of the report, descends from his perch to the quarter-deck. As these various examples suggest, mutual glances ordinarily must be withheld if an encounter is to be avoided, for eye contact opens one up for face engagement. There is a relationship between the use of eye-to-eye glances as a means of communicating a request for initiation of an encounter, and other communication practices. The more clearly individuals are obliged to refrain from staring directly at others, the more effectively will they be able to attach special significance to a stare, in this case, a request for an encounter. The rule of civil inattention thus makes possible, and “fits” with, the clearance function given to looks into others’ eyes. The rule similarly makes possible the giving of a special function to “prolonged” holding of a stranger’s glance, as when unacquainted persons who had arranged to meet each other manage to discover one another in this way. (It is said by homosexuals that if another catches and holds the glance, one needs know nothing more about him to know that he is one of them.) And that is who I met my first girlfriend. She was attractive and I was looking at her and we both held the glance, and so I had to find out who she was and ask her out. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Self-remembering and its effect upon memory allows one to become faced with an entirely new problem which science and philosophy has not, so far, come across. The problem consists in directing attention on oneself without weakening or obliterating the attention directed on something else. Moreover this “something else” could as well be within one as outside one. The very first attempts shows one its possibility. At the same time, one will see two things clearly. In the first place, one will see that self-remembering resulting from this method has nothing in common with “self-feeling,” or “self-analysis.” It was a new and very interesting state with a strangely familiar flavour. And secondly I realized that moments of self-remembering do occur in life, although rarely. Only the deliberate production of these moments created the sensation of novelty. Actually I had been familiar with them from early childhood. They came either in new and unexpected surroundings, in a new place, among new people while traveling, for instance, when suddenly one looks about one and says: How strange! I and in this place; or in very emotional moments, in moments of danger, in moments when it is necessary to keep one’s head, when one hears one’s own voice and sees and observes oneself from outside. I saw quite clearly that my first recollections of life, in my own case very clearly ones, were moments of self-remembering. This last realization revealed much else to me. That is, I saw that I really only remember those moments of the past in which I remembered myself. Of the others I know only that they took place. I am not able wholly to revive them, to experience them again. However, the moment when I had remembered myself wee alive and were in no way different from the present. I was still afraid to comes to conclusions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

However, I already saw that stood upon the threshold of a very great discovery. I had always been astonished at the weakness and the insufficiency of our memory. So many things disappear. For some reason or other the chief absurdity of life for me consisted in this. Why experience so much in order to forget it afterwards? Besides there was something degraded in this. A man feels something which seems to him very big, he thinks he will never forget it; one or two years pass by—and nothing remains of it. It now became clear to me why this was so and why it could not be otherwise. If our memory really keeps alive only moments of self-remembering, it is clear why our memory is so poor. Sometimes self-remembering was not successful; at other times it was accompanied by curious observations. I was once walking along the Liteiny towards the Nevsky, and it spite of all my efforts I was unable to keep my attention on self-remembering. The noise, movement, everything distracted me. Every minute I lost the thread of attention, found it again, and then lost it again. At last I felt a kind of ridiculous irritation with myself and I turned into the street on the left having firmly decided to keep my attention on the fact that I would remember myself at least for some time, at any rate until I reached the following street. I reached the Nadejdinskaya a without losing the thread of attention except, perhaps, for short moments. Then I again turned towards the Nevsky realizing that, in quiet streets, it was easier for me not to lose the line of thought and wishing therefore to test myself in more noisy street. I reached the Nadejdinskaya without losing the thread of attention except, perhaps, for short moments. Then I again turned toward the Nevsky realizing that, in quiet streets, it was easier for me not to lose the line thought and wishing therefore to test myself in more noisy streets. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

I reached the Nevsky still remembering myself, and was already beginning to experience the strange emotional state of inner peace and confidence which comes after great efforts of this kind. Just round the corner on the Nevsky was a tobacconist’s shop where they made my cigarettes. Still remembering myself I thought I would call there and order some cigarettes. Two hours later I woke up in the Tavricheskaya, that is, far away. I was going by izvostchik to the printers. The sensation of awakening was extraordinarily vivid. I can almost say that I came to. I remembered everything at once. How I had been walking along the Nadejdinskaya, how I had been remembering myself, how I had thought about cigarettes, and how at this thought I seemed all at once to fall and disappear into a deep sleep. At the same time, while immersed in this sleep, I had continued to perform consistent and expedient actions. I left the tobacconist, called at my flat in the Liteiny, telephoned to the printers. I wrote two letters. Then again I went out of the house. I walked on the left side of the Nevsky up to the Gostinoy Dvor intending to go to the Offitzerskaya. Then I had changed my mind as it was getting late. I had taken an izovstchik and was driving to the Kavalergardskaya to my printers. And on the way while driving along the Tavricheskaya I began to feel a strange uneasiness, as though I had forgotten something. –And suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten to remember myself. If your temper is aroused and you tell them a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. However, what about the other person? Will he or she share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude, make it easy for one to agree with you? If a person’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you cannot win one to your way of thinking with all the logic in the World. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people do not want to change their minds. They cannot be forced or driven to agree with you or me. However, they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and every so friendly. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

It is an old and true maxim that a diamond ring catches more women than a gallon of rudeness. So with me, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein a diamond ring that catches his heart; which, say what you will, is the great high road to his reason. Business executives have learned that it pays to be friendly to strikers. Ask them to peacefully come back to work. Friendly approaches help and can make you famous. However, the state of the World is that most people do not have family values and do not care about their reputations. Many companies think that are too big to fail. That what they have to offer is too good to resist. Therefore, threatening to tarnish their reputation may do nothing at all, until they go bankrupt. Therefore, begin in a friendly way. Reputation effect is a two-edged sword for commitment. Sometimes destroying your reputation can create the possibility for a commitment. Destroying your reputation commits you not to take actions in the future that you can predict will not be in your best interest. The question of whether to negotiate with hijackers helps illustrate the point. Before any particular hijacking has occurred, the government might decide to deter hijackings by threatening never to negotiate. However, the hijackers predict that after the commandeer the jet, the government will find it impossible to enforce a no-negotiation posture. How can a government deny itself the ability to negotiate with hijackers? To destroy the credibility of its promises. Imagine that after reaching a negotiated settlement, the government breaks its commitment and attacks the hijackers. This destroys any reputation the government has for trustworthy treatment of hijackers. It loses the ability to make a credible promise, and irreversibly denies itself the temptation to respond to a hijacker’s threat. This destruction of the credibility of a promise makes credible the threat never to negotiate. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Congress has a similar problem of maintaining consistency over time when it comes to tax amnesty programs. Such programs allow those who owe back taxes to pay up without penalty. This appears to be a costless way of raising more revenue. All those who have second thoughts about having cheated on their taxes give the government money owed. In fact, if it could be credibly established that there would never be another amnesty, then Congress could raise additional tax revenues at no cost. However, if amnesty was such a good idea once, why not try it again in a few years? Nothing prevents Congress from offering an amnesty on a regular basis. Then a problem arises. Cheating becomes more attractive, since there is the possibility of getting amnesty in the future. Congress must find a way to prevent itself from ever repeating the amnesty program. The government should offer a tax amnesty, then back out on its promise and prosecute those who turn themselves in. This would raise even more revenue than a simple amnesty. And once the government cheats on its amnesty, who would believe the government were it to try again? By destroying its credibility, the government can make a credible commitment not to offer an amnesty again. You will probably think this is an absurd idea, and with good reason. First, it will not work against strategically aware taxpayers. They will expect the government to default on its promise, so they will not participate in the amnesty at all. Secondly, and more importantly, catching tax cheaters is not the only game in town. Any benefits from double-cross tax cheaters will be more than offset by the harm to the government’s reputation in other areas. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

One of the most impressive examples of how to build a reputation belongs to the Mayflower Furniture Company. On a large billboard located along the Massachusetts Turnpike, they proudly advertise that they have gone 160 years with out a sale. (Are they still waiting for their first customer?) This unconditional commitment to everyday low prices brings in a steady stream of customers. A sale might temporarily raise profits, but it would be another 160 years before they could repeat such a cleaver advertisement. Next year, we expect the sigh will read 161 years. The reputation becomes self-perpetuating as it becomes more valuable. (Sadly, we must report that the Mayflower Furniture Company recently had its first sale, a going out of business sale.) In all these instances, the player cultivates a reputation with the direct and conscious aim of creating credibility for his future unconditional commitments, threats, and promises. However, reputation can also arise for nonstrategic reasons and yet be just as powerful in achieving credibility. The feeling of pride in not breaking one’s word is an example. The weak bonds of words can be strengthened in two ways: a fear of the consequences of breaking one’s word; or a glory, or pride, in not breaking it. Such pride is often instilled in people’s value system through education or general social conditioning. It may even have the implicit social aim of improving the credibility of our manifold daily relationships. Yet we are not told to take pride in being honourable because it will being us strategic advantage by making our threats and promises credible; we are told that honour is a good thing in itself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Someone who has a reputation for being crazy can make successful threats that would be incredible coming from a saner and cooler person. In this way, apparent irrationality can become good strategic rationality. One can even cultivate such a reputation. A seeming madman, therefore, may be a superior strategist, because his threats are more readily believed. Could Colonel Ghadafi and Ayatollah have understood this principle better than the cool, rational leaders of Western nations trying to deal with them? We do not know, but we are willing to bet that your child who is too irrational to be deterred by your threats of punishment is a better instinctive game-player than you are. When forming boundaries, consider first how internal activation can form patterns such as the patches and stripes of animal hides. Examining this very simple case will reveal a striking general principle. How do pigmen end up concentrated in one area of skin and absent nearby? What controls the size of the patches to that a Holstein cow looks so different from a Dalmatian dog? And why does neither form stripes like a zebra? There is a long history of work on how these patterns are created. An overarching insight extracted by researchers goes under the acronym LALI, for “local activation, long-range inhibition.” In the vast majority of cases of patterns on animals hides, a pigment (or other pattern substance) that has been deposited in an area makes it more likely that another, similar deposit will occur nearby, and less likely that a similar deposit will occur farther away. The details of how these two influences spread can account for the sizes and shapes of patches, but the basic principle holds across many different patterns. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

The combined effect of local activation and long-range inhibition is especially powerful. Nearby areas will have many pigment deposits and, in consequence, areas farther away will have strong pressures to be clear. Together these two pressures lead to the formation of shar boundaries for the patches. The principle is not confined to the skins of animals. After all, they are just one kind of space. Local activation together with long-range inhibition will work to establish patchy ethic neighbourhoods in residential areas of cities, or splinter groups on a political left wing, as well as spots on Dalmatians’ backs. It is plausible to suppose that members of an ethnic group may like to live near others with similar cultural backgrounds. So a local cluster of ethnically similar individuals will be attractive, leading to more individuals moving in nearby, which will enlarge the cluster. This corresponds to local activation. It is also easy to suppose that neighbouring areas may become resistant as they perceive the rapid growth of a group whose culture they do not share. If the neighbouring area makes it harder for members of the ethnic group to move in, this will act like long-range inhabitation. The result will be the kind of sharp boundaries of ethnic neighbourhoods that are so striking in cities like New York and Midtown Sacramento. The story can be told again, with the underling space being neither a skin nor a city but a political spectrum with concentrations of ideologically like-minded individuals who attract those who share their views and oppose the “heresies” of those who do not. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Again, skin provides easy examples and may be a natural place to start in practice when it comes to rebuilding tissues. People often want hair where they have bar skin, and bare skin where they have hair. Cell-herding machines could move or destroy hair-follicles cells to eliminated an unwanted hair, or grow more of the needed cells and arrange them into a working follicle where hair is desired. By adjusting the size of the follicle and the properties of some of the cells, hairs could be made coarser, or finer, or straighter, or curlier. All these changes would involve no pain, toxic chemicals, or stench. Cell-herding devices could move down into the living layers of skin, removing unwanted cells, stimulating the growth of new cells, narrowing unnaturally prominent blood vessels, insuring good circulation by guiding the growth of any needed normal blood vessels, and moving cells and fibers around so as to eliminate even deep wrinkles. At the opposite end of the spectrum, cell herding will revolutionize treatment of life-threatening conditions. For example, the most common cause of heart disease is a reduced or interrupted supply of blood to the heart muscle. In pumping oxygenated blood to the rest of the body, the heart diverts a portion for its own use through the coronary arteries. When these blood vessels become constricted, we speak of coronary-artery disease. When they are blocked, causing heart muscle tissue to die, we speak of someone “having a coronary,” another term for heart attack. Devices working in the bloodstream could nibble away at atherosclerotic deposits, widening the affected blood vessels. Cell-herding devices could restore artery walls and artery linings to health, by ensuring that the right cells and supporting structures are in the right places. This would prevent most heart attacks. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

However, what is a heart attack has already destroyed muscle tissues, leaving the patient with scarred, damaged, and poorly functioning heart? Once again, cell-herding devices could accomplish repairs, working their way into the scar tissues and removing it bit by bit, replacing it with fresh muscle fiber. If need be, this new fiber can be grown by applying a series of internal molecular stimuli to selected heart muscle cells to “remind” them of the instructions for growth that they used decades earlier during embryonic development. Cell-herding capabilities should also be able to deal with the various forms of arthritis. Where this is due to attacks from the body’s own immune system, the cells producing the damaging antibodies can be identified and eliminated. Then a cell-herding system would work inside the joint where it would remove diseased tissues, calcified spurs, and so forth, then rework patterns of cells and intercellular material to form a healthy, smoothly working, and pain-free joint. Clearly, learning to repair hearts and learning to repair joints will have some basic technologies in common, but much of the research and development will have to be devoted to specific tissues and specific circumstances. A similar process—but again, specially adapted to the circumstances at hand—could be used to strengthen and reshape bone, correcting osteoporosis. In dentistry, this shot of process could be used to fill cavities, not with amalgam, but with natural dentin and enamel. Reversing the ravages of periodontal disease will be someday be straightforward, with nanomedical devices to clean pockets, join tissues, and guide regrowth. Even missing teeth could be regrown, with enough control over cell behaviour. In any system, democratic or not, there needs to be some congruence between the way a people make wealth and the way they govern themselves. If the political and economic systems are wildly dissimilar, one will eventually destroy the other. Only twice before in history have we humans invented a wholly novel way of creating wealth. Each time we invented new forms of government to do with it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

The spread of agriculture wiped out tribal groupings, hunting bands, and other social and political arrangements, replacing them with city-states, dynastic kingdoms, and feudal empires. The industrial revolution, in turn, wiped out many of these. With mass production, mass consumption, and mass media there arose in many countries a counterpart system: “mass democracy.” Mass democracy, however, met bitter resistance. The old forces of feudal agrarianism—the landed gentry, the hierarchical church, and their intellectual and cultural apologists—resisted, co-opted, and battled the rising industrialism and the mass democracy it often brought with it. Indeed, in all smokestack societies the central political struggle has not been, as many imagine, between left and right. It has been between admirers of First Wave agrarianism and “traditionalism” on the one side and the forces of Second Wave industrialism or “modernism” on the other. Such power struggles are frequently fought under other banners—nationalism, for example, or religion, or civil rights. They run through family life, gender relations, schools, the professions, the arts, as well as politics. Today that historic conflict, still raging, is being overshadowed by a new one—the struggle of a Third Wave, postmodern civilization against both modernism and traditionalism. And if it is true that a new knowledge-based economy is superseding smokestack production, then we should expect a historic struggle to remake our political institutions, bringing them into congruence with the revolutionary post-mass-production economy. All the industrial societies already face convergent crises—crises in all their most basic systems: urban systems, health systems, welfare systems, transport systems, ecological systems. Smokestack politicians continue to respond to these crises one at a time, with variations of old approaches. However, they may be insoluble given existing institutions, designed for the mass society. In addition, the rising economy hurls totally new problems and crises at us that shatter the conventional assumptions and alliances of the mass democratic era. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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