August 1, 2022 | Report-Backs
The Macy Conferences, a series of meetings held between 1946-53 in the United States, have widely been considered critical to the evolution of the field that was eventually called cybernetics (Heims 1991; Pias 2016). Funded by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, organized by Frank Fremont-Smith, and moderated by Warren McCulloch, the meetings were designed to be extraordinarily transdisciplinary events. Researchers from a wide array of fields were brought together to discuss each other’s research with the explicit desire to develop a common language. As cited by Claus Pias, Heinz von Foerster — the co-editor of the Macy proceedings from 1949 onward, along with Margaret Mead — points to the meetings’ interdisciplinary character as such:
“[T]he thing that is shared is not simply a belief that the different disciplines ought to understand each other better, nor a body of shared material to which different methods of analysis are brought together, nor a single problem towards the solution of which the members are bending their differentiated and united efforts, but rather, an experiment with a set of conceptual models which seem to be useful right across the board and which themselves provide a medium of communication also — when shared” (Pias 2016).
The organizers felt the need for deep conversations across both the soft and hard sciences to be particularly acute due to the geopolitical divisiveness and terrifying technology that World War II had wrought upon the globe. Though these meetings were heavily curated and exclusively organized behind closed doors, only open to a select group of established researchers by invitation, they have been so influential as to be considered the single most significant series of events in the establishment of cybernetics as an inter-/multi-/cross-/trans-disciplinary field (Jantsch, 1972; Scott, 2021).
What form of “disciplinarity” is most appropriate in describing the nature of cybernetics as a field has been a subject of interest not only to cyberneticians but also to scholars from science and technology studies (STS). Among them, Andrew Pickering, who wrote extensively on the history of cybernetics in the British context, argued that cybernetics was “a strongly interdisciplinary field, or, better, an antidisciplinary one [as] it did not aggregate disciplinary perspectives; it rode roughshod over disciplinary boundaries—which also contributes to its glamour” (Pickering, 2010). Geof Bowker, on the other hand, largely critical of the way cybernetics was seen and promoted by cyberneticians, defined it as a “universal discipline” with an “imperialist rhetoric”, whose claim for universality was supported by “a new reading of human history,” “a new universal language” and “a new division of labour within the sciences” (Bowker, 1993).
Bowker’s reading may offer insight on the transformation that took place in the scientific landscape with the introduction of cybernetics during and after WWII. But his position can be criticized as oversimplifying a richly-variegated field as being guilty of an “imperialist rhetoric.” If the field is to be recognized in the fullness of its interests, then its epistemology and ethics, which are most vividly expressed in second-order cybernetics, must be taken into account, as they veer it away from taking any kind of imperialist stance.
Today, almost 70 years since the last Macy Conference, there is an acute and present-day need for holding conversations across disciplines to address today’s grave challenges. Conceived and kindled by Paul Pangaro and supported by the American Society for Cybernetics, #NewMacy Meetings have been organized in recent years for analogous reasons to the original meetings: to tackle the challenges of our time by transcending disciplinary boundaries. #NewMacy Meetings offer a way of looking at and acting on those challenges through the lens of cybernetics.
According to the #NewMacy Manifesto, these meetings are both a revival and a revision of the original meetings for the challenges of the 21st century. #NewMacy Meetings are a revival in that a rich diversity of theorists and practitioners are needed to cross the boundaries of traditional disciplines in order to find leverage points for change in the entanglement of “systems of systems” that make up our global society. #NewMacy Meetings are a revision in that technical systems are clearly acknowledged to be inseparable from the social systems that birthed them. They also acknowledge that #NewMacy conversations must engage the communities and activists closest to where action has impact and where change must occur.
To be able to fulfill these objectives, the #NewMacy Initiative aspires for these meetings to be not only transdisciplinary, as the original Macy Conferences were, but also transgenerational and transglobal platforms, where individuals from all generations and geographies can come together to confront the wicked challenges (Rittel and Webber, 1973) of our time that need our immediate attention and action.
Five formal #NewMacy Meetings have been organized to date, each dealing with specific issues within the framework described above. In #NewMacy Meeting #1, held in September 2020, the issue of coping with challenges of our time was approached from an opposite direction with a provocative question: “Why can’t cybernetics tame pandemics?” Participants discussed what would be required for cybernetics to offer shared understanding and coordinated action in the face of pandemic challenges beyond COVID, while recognizing the need to extend the scope to the ills of technology, racism and inequality, environment and economics.
#NewMacy Meeting #2, #3, and #4, held over a six-week period from September to November 2021, focused on one of those challenges — namely, the pervasive, negative consequences of AI systems that may influence judges putting repeat offenders in jail, cause police to arrest citizens who are misidentified as criminals, and lead people into dark places of prejudice, hate, and polarization by simply using social media. These #NewMacy events, evolving out of formal discussions and into concrete proposals from one to the next, sought to promote conversations and formulate approaches that value human agency in our interactions with technology.
#NewMacy Meeting #5, which was held in two modules on separate days in July 2022, widened the scope compared to what was discussed in the previous three meetings and introduced the new language and format of “#NewMacy Studios”, held during the first module. These are design-led and emergent participatory conversations centered on the idea of “ontogenetic resilience.” This phrase captures the realization that the multidimensional uncertainties of our world have gone beyond our human species’ ability to feel secure on a day-to-day basis. To survive emotionally we must change, as well as find ways to become comfortable in embracing change, in order to bring forth new language and processes for critiquing systems and planning for change. The second module allowed participants to reflect on themselves as an organization in the cybernetic tradition of reflexivity, to observe and reflect on our observing. This became the basis for discussion of next steps in continuing the evolution of #NewMacy through both formal meetings and ongoing, bi-weekly conversations.
#NewMacy Meetings are set to continue with #6 in October 2022 with the aim of growing the recent Studio conversations and their themes to effectuate deeper inquiry and broader participation. The #NewMacy Initiative calls for “conversations for action” across disciplines, geographies, and generations to design actionable responses to the challenges of our time. We believe that STS and cybernetics share a lot of common ground in the face of these challenges, especially with their emphasis on the rich connections between technical and social systems. We greatly value this opportunity to reach out to and possibly attract participation from this distinguished community.
For further information or to become involved, contact ppangaro@cmu.edu or visit https://asc-cybernetics.org/newmacymeetings/
The authors wish to thank Andy Pickering for his valuable comments.
Paul Pangaro is President of the American Society for Cybernetics and Visiting Scholar in the School of Architecture and School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University. His work can be found at pangaro.com
Ensar Temizel is an independent scholar with a PhD in architecture. His research explores intersections between the fields of architecture and cybernetics with a particular interest in the work and legacy of Gordon Pask.
Published: 08/01/2022