PART SIX: Leading the Revolution
CHAPTER XXIII

TIME LAG AND KALOKINESIS

The drive towards a new world order must be scaled to time. Timing is man's great invention, but it is also part of his mind and resistant to control. In consequence, many of his historical efforts to reform his work have suffered disaster. Programs for a millenium have been promised him for tomorrow; he has believed and he has been frustrated. Great lies, and not of communism and nazism alone, have fed his sick image of time.

Chiliasts are to theologians people who expect the immediate establishment of the Kingdom of God over the world. Secular chiliasts are people who compress all of history into the moment that they are living, and strive to determine today, now, all things forever. All deliberate revolutions are chiliastic in a fundamental sense. They seek to speed up social change to the maximum rate, to escape social gravity, and to arrive rapidly at a new level of existence.

The obstacles to Speeded Change

History tells a contrasting story. It measures revolutions in centuries and ends their record short of finality. The science of human behaviour agrees with history. Resistances to change are so pronounced and normal in all groups that what the brain within a few seconds can conceive of happening actually takes a long time to happen, if it ever does.1 Take one famous example from among thousands in history. In 1774, before the French Revolution erupted into violence, the brilliant and competent Turgot was appointed to the most powerful Ministry of France. In 1776, he issued six radical edicts for badly needed reforms. Within a few weeks, he was dismissed.2

Everyday examples are equally numerous. Consider the typical timetables of change mentioned in a few pages by Donald Michael, an expert, whose remarks are all the more poignant because he would prefer abrupt and radical social change3. Himself a psychologist, he quotes Rensis Likert, whose

field experiments conducted by the Institute for Social Research in several companies indicate that at least three or four years are likely to be necessary to develop and test the application of the newer theory [of participative management] in a particular company. In companies with more than two or three hundred employees, an additional five years or more may be required to shift the organization to a full scale application of the newer theory. In large corporations, even more time will be necessary.

Michael quotes an expert on technological change, Charles R.De Carlo on "the leaders of business, labor, and government" whose approach "is to seek our adjustments, to intensify or weaken various operative forces, and to make present institutional formats work with minimum change."

Next testifies a political scientist, Andrew Hacker, who says of corporate leaders "they are busy men, on their way up during most of their formative years, and the exigencies of the climb compel them to think of themselves rather than for themselves."

Then speaks a psychiatrist, Leonard J. Duhl, of how "this problem of inertia, of the unwillingness to give up familiar and functional patterns of behavior in favour of new ones will be encountered at all levels of an organization."

Michael, after adding new evidence to what all sober scientists of group dynamics must know, concludes that the politists are too few, the badly needed conception of long range planning falls prey to short run interests, and in the end "it looks like we lose the better world we want either way: by not carrying through on long range plans or by preventing effective popular participation in altering their substance and direction."

Claudio Veliz in introducing a number of recent studies of Obstacles to change in Latin America4 adds a whole continent to this conclusion :

In spite of its reputation for frequent and violent political upheaval, perhaps the principal contemporary problem of Latin America is excessive stability. There exists in the region a resilient traditional structure of institutions hierarchical arrangements, and attitudes which conditions every aspect of political behaviour and which has survived centuries of colonial government, movements for independence, foreign wars and invasions, domestic revolutions, and a confusingly large number of lesser palace revolts. More recently it has not only successfully resisted the impact of technological innovation and industrialization, but appears to have been strengthened by it.. It would seem fairly certain that if this traditional institutional structure is not fundamentally transformed, Latin America will not be able to develop at a satisfactory rate.

What must we make of this practically unanimous opinion of scientists of change, that quick change is most unlikely and if it occurs, will be non-rational and deeply disturbing to society? Shall we agree and proceed to delude our chiliasts who want a new world today?

We do not wish to go down in history as perpetrators of a hoax, even if the hoaxed were thereupon to set the world in commotion and disturb both physically and emotionally the millions who live profitably off the systemic injustices of many spheres of life. A monstrous delusion5 can only set off the next, and the next, in the chain of world delusions that have carried history through the ages. To fashion a world's consensus is possible. It is a myth, not a hoax, and it can be done in these years.

The worst hoax is racialism; then comes chauvinism; then dogmatic religion; then charismatic messianism; then majoritarianism; then egalitarianism; then militarism, then scientism; then many weaker and less evil hoaxes, among which is the category to which we refer especially here - the willful exaggeration of promises of benefits to a population with neither intention nor ability to provide them.

Forces to Abet Change

Examine now the objective conditions requiring and fostering change. Are they so evident and forceful that even very recent observers will have to admit new rates of change are possible? That is, if everything is about to collapse of its own accord, then revolution is not only possible, but it is inevitable, and the Tutors need to guide it. However, the present megalorder seems unready to collapse. Therefore, the Revolution cannot be a mere guardian of the catastrophe.

Still the present order of the world is partly defunct, partly collapsing, partly a scene of many contradictory events and reactions. Though massive armies can be made to march in support of its regimes and its hugeness, tallness, and noisiness are terrible, the world order and all toparchies within it that matter in the context of revolution are viewed as precariously vulnerable by most observers of competence.

`A bone rot has set into the Soviet system deeply. The old ideological foundations of the regime are gone, and the men in power seek new pilings and pillars. They know that their former stability is lacking, and they are nervous. The complex conglomeration of modern life contradicts Marxism-Leninism as the oldtimers knew it. So many in this unstilled Russia ask: "Kuda i kak idyom?" - "Whither and by which route are we bound?" The time has come for the dissidents through samizdat and other means to answer this question.'6

Writes an experienced Vietnamese internationalist,

One can observe in the masses [of Southeast Asia] a hostile demeanor, blind and deep, towards power in general, a demeanor approaching anarchism, characterized by a mentality of grudging submission and instinctive opposition to every system of government. One notices, moreover, in public opinion, a discrediting - almost a degradation - of careers and politicians.7

Even so, can social science, like natural science, do in a few years what used to take a century? Thousands of impressive technical changes have occurred in the present generation. But there appears to have been no stepping up of the speed of controlled social change. Can the Kalotic Revolution, using the principles of scientific organization and behavioral management, win its major victories in a generation?

At the beginning of World War I there was no tank but, at the end, there was little cavalry. At the beginning of World War II there were no rockets and by the end there were extremely destructive rockets. In 1789 there was no French Revolution and five years later there was no end in sight to the French Revolution and most institutions had been changed in France and had begun to change in Europe.

A depressing phenomenon of history is the many evil movements that have succeeded rapidly. The white racists of the American southern states were overthrown by force in 1865, bi-racial states formed on a revolutionary basis in 1867, and a racist counterrevolution triumphed once more in 1877.8 Nazism was a weak German minor party in 1930, master of Europe by 1942. The National Party of South Africa took power only in 1948 after decades of inter-racial evolution and changed over the whole state and nation by 1965.9

In 1940 there was no medical penicillin or DDT; in 1947 they were in heavy use throughout the world. In 1940 there were few airlines and airports in the world. By 1960 there were hundreds of them. In 1942, only a few thousands of Americans had ever taught or worked in economic development. Within 25 years, twenty times the number, at least 2,000,000, had undergone the experience. The computer is 25 years old, too, and thousands of them are in operation now everywhere, each one involving a new little social system.

It is possible that social and behavioral scientists are close to the point of take-off in their ability to undertake a great many projects simultaneously throughout the world in collaboration with natural scientists.10 Their infrastructure, that is, semantics, vocabularly, tests, experiments, and case studies, is emplaced. It is difficult to conceive of any type of governmental, administrative, educational, political, economic, and sociological problem anywhere, which would be foreign to the experience of science. The tens of thousands of books, articles and reports, under whose weight the librarians and students groan, are the back-up for any planned penetration at any point of the world order.

Perhaps the clue to how to bring radical change is to observe small changes, of the type that people are so ready to accept, and substitute for them radical changes, But most social scientists believe that there is a natural continuum of change-difficulty; where matters of small scope, domain and intensity are affected, change is easier; where large matters are affected, change is more difficult.

The belief that small changes are more readily accepted than large ones is as often incorrect as correct. For instance, going to war is a terrific change for a country, yet the whole country may plunge into it wholeheartedly. The definition of a "trivial" change varies erratically. A great change, objectively viewed, may seem a small one, subjectively viewed, and vice versa. Furthermore, when changes run across a wide front at one time, a great many will get through, leaving only some caught in the barbed wire of resistances.

It is possible too that the Kalotists are to be more zealous than other revolutionaries, and all other obstacles will vanish in the face of their stormy enthusiasm. This is unlikely if one recalls the monomania of the Nazis, the dedication of the Fabians, the unrestrained and completely obsessed, frightened and vengeful rebels of most revolutionary episodes.

Look back at the Revolutions of history; they are almost always the work of groups and men quite unequipped for the tasks of ruling, planning, and managing. Unlike the Levellers, the Bolshevists, the Young Turks, the Fascists, the Peronistas, the Castroites, and the Maoists, the people whom we are tagging for the frontal movement are already equipped for the reconstruction of society. There need be no generation of delay while a completely new population is trained.

True, the Kalotists are not fanatic or dogmatic, as most historical or contemporary revolutionaries have been through their confrontations requiring flambuoyancy and martyrdom. But, then, this world to be is not like other worlds conquered by the sword or the word. It is a world to be directly, basically, reoriented and remanaged. The Kalotic Revolution is to be a cool Revolution.

The Kalotic formulas are clear. They emerge from evidence of the nature of man and modern society that is available to all. They mesh together; they promise meaningful change in the outlook, if not the personal circumstances, of everyone. There is no other plan, no other techniques, no other consensus. The fact that there is not such is the surest indication that the Kalotic Revolution is the most efficient hope of man today.

Thus we have six different kinds of challenges that the Kalotic Revolution can respond to, if it will succeed where practically every revolution in history has failed: to change fundamentally but rationally a society (and this a world society!) within a generation.11 And, if the probability of this is not great enough to hearten some spirits, let them remember that there is nowhere else to go.12

Kalokinesis

Stressed democracy has been defined by numerous techniques of revolutionary Kalotic change that are nonconventional, often verging on violence though never violent in spirit. There must be more to revolutionary technique. More speed must be imparted to change, whether through stressed democracy or conventionally offered change institutions and devices. A body of principles of rapid Kalotic change is needed to include both revolution from the inside and revolution from the outside. This is the task of a newly developing decision-speeding process that we call kalokinesis. It tells how to impart so much energy to change-morale that a major beneficial change is rapidly achieved.

The whole structure of kalocracy is designed to promote kalokinesis. Constitutions, representation, and basic policies are designed to that end. Mast kalotic change has been too slowly accomplished; most rapid major changes have occurred in antikalotic areas, such as the Vietnam war or the arming of Egypt.

An example of kalokinesis is the construction program of the Tennessee Valley Authority by the Americans, or of the Aswan Dam by the Soviets and Egyptians. Much good was done in a relatively short time. Examples of non-kalotic programs would be the overall systems for providing housing in Paris, New York City, or Moscow. Little good has been done over a relatively long period.

The decision process or policy process consists of six phases: the preparations for the undertaking; the formula for achieving the goal; the organization of manpower; the organization of material; the adjustment of the external environment; and the feedback of intelligence and guidance on the impact of thee policy decision. All of these phases should be restudied and reshaped for maximal kalokinesis.

Participation in kalokinesis accentuates possibilities of stress, even while reducing other pre-kalotic strains. Thus, strains of disenchantment or alienation will be reduced promptly under conditions of kalotic participation, but stressed of direct opposition and fear of the unknown come also to the forefront under adverse conditions and threaten the ego. "Shallow and brittle in his adjustment to life," a businessman may founder when his anchor to the corporation is weighted.13 The Tutorial groups concerned with preparing persons for new deep movement have to elaborate therapies for these conditions.

Only project of the greatest possible scope should be undertaken. All design-options should be permitted to go back to the roots of a problem in order to redesign its process for speedy solution. For example, cities should cease to trifle with traffic control planning, and with ordinances that accept the inevitably impossible trend of traffic congestion; they should give over ninety percent of their preparatory resources to methods of transforming the problem promptly from an unsolvable one to a solvable one. Also, political scientists should give up their nonsensical preoccupations with matters like the reform of the Electoral College. Let the politicians and dilettantes worry about these. The political scientist has much bigger fish to catch.

From the beginning every plan that is accepted should exceed in rapidity the existing change processes in the area. Research resources should be heavily invested in time-saving factors for "start-up" and production. No natural law governs the time that must be given generally to any and all phases of a policy. Therefore, we cannot say: Give only one tenth or one twelfth of the time from the decision-to-commit to the planned date-of-start-up to this or that phase of the policy process.

How then can one compress policy time? By stripping its task to the bone leaving details for continuous preparation; by maximum crash-consulting to discover possible time-loopholes in one or another option; by placing the ultimate "users" in an uncomfortably close relation to the designers; and, naturally, by recruiting only fully committed personnel, by breaking manpower and material rigidities throughout societies. In the end, kalokinesis will depend upon reducing the enormous over-hang of superfluous energies found in all regimes, in redistributing resources from those who do not want to those who need, and in speeding up the policy process by administrative techniques that are today considered irregular, or ignored, or are yet undiscovered. Nowhere is a scientific behavioral restatement of possibilities so urgently needed.

Beyond this point, and we have come a long way, the constitutionalism of Kalocracy in toparchy and cosmarcy takes over the larger part of its task, with its kalokinetic, stressed equilibrium. Once the new momentum is established, mankind will notice no discomfort from its speed. Just as one rides the space-ship Earth at around a thousand miles an hour, without the discomfort he gets from riding an oxcart, he will ride the revolutionary process of Kalos, once it is begun.