one small voice

stpeter's blog on jabber, technology, history, philosophy, et alia

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2003-01-28

Randian Notes

More boring political philosophy.

I just sketched out some notes on Randian government, based on my recent reading of Ayn Rand's essential essays on political philosophy. They're a bit long and not necessarily of general interest, so I've put them over at my journal.

Posted on 2003-01-28 at 21:29. File under philosophy.

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Making Payroll

Quick thoughts on the BitKeeper controversy.

Since I'm not a reader of the Linux Kernel Mailing List (heaven forfend!), I learn about controveries there only through the filter of various geek news outlets. From Joe Barr's recent column at LinuxWorld.com, I've learned that there's a long-running flame war about Linus Torvalds' use of BitKeeper, a proprietary software configuration management tool. BitKeeper is free to open-source projects (except those, like subversion and OpenCM, that seek to build competing products) ... and it has helped Linus and the core Linux team to scale up their efforts. So it seems that BitKeeper has helped the open-source community, which is a Good Thing. But RMS and his ilk at the FSF take umbrage because the code is not free in all senses. Sigh.

BTW, make sure to check out the comments from BitKeeper head Larry McVoy, located here. An eloquent statement of business principles.

Posted on 2003-01-28 at 14:20. File under technology.

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Got Dates?

RSS: now with timestamps!

Thanks to prodding from my friend Eliot Landrum, I just added timestamps to my RSS feed, using the <dc:date> element that is part of the RSS 2.0 template hosted on diveintomark.org. Perhaps one of these days I'll add the syndication elements, too.

Posted on 2003-01-28 at 13:59. File under technology.

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2003-01-22

Good to Great II

Further thoughts on organizational excellence.

The ideas from Jim Collins' book Good to Great continue to rattle around in my brain. One thing that impressed me was that page one of the book showed a picture of his research team. He is honest enough to credit his entire team, and the text is peppered with exchanges from their regular discussion meetings. Thus we get to know the individuals a bit, and we see how some of Collins' conclusions emerged through the dialectical process of discussion and debate. Here again there is a connection to the scientific (rather than ideological) approach pursued by Collins and his team.

A related item that struck me was his mention of a great company (I can't remember which one) that listed every one of its employees in its annual report. Companies and organizations can often seem faceless, but in reality there is no such thing as the organization, only the individuals that continually build and sustain it. Even a small organization like my employer can appear from the outside to be a monolithic entity, when in fact it consists of many individuals who make unique contributions. I think it behooves all organizations to highlight those individuals so that outsiders get to know the people involved (capitalism with a human face?). Within the Jabber Software Foundation I was doing that for a while by interviewing individual contributors, and I really need to renew that practice (indeed I have one interview in progress, so look for it soon).

Another powerful concept from Good to Great is what I think of as the organizational "sweet spot": the confluence of what the organization's people are passionate about, what they can pursue to greatness or even perfection, and what is uniquely profitable for the firm (or, in a non-profit setting, uniquely productive of value). I call these the "Three Ps" (passion, perfection, and profit) and they go beyond older notions of core competency to focus organizational energies on an even more concentrated point. And that point is a kind of fulcrum for the organization, which can set it apart from all other organizations in its niche.

This may sound highfalutin, but Collins grounds his insights with some gritty realism. That realism is captured in something he calls the Stockdale Paradox, named after Admiral James Stockdale, who was held as a prisoner of war for over 7 years in North Vietnam. Stockdale found through hard experience that while it is important to "keep the faith" regarding one's best possibilities, that optimism must not prevent one from recognizing the most brutal facts about one's present situation. Collins presents the Stockdale Paradox as absolutely necessary to greatness, since one must have high aspirations but never lose contact with reality, even if that reality is not pretty. (My father used to call this "having your head in the clouds but your feet in the clay" -- at least I think that's what he was getting at...) It's not easy to face the fact that one has shortcomings and to address them, and organizations usually are no better at that than individuals. Both individuals and organizations start to believe their own PR after a while and to begin thinking of themselves as uniquely valuable. A little humility and honesty goes a long way here.

There's more in Good to Great than what I've blogged about here, but these are some of the aspects I've found most valuable. To absorb more, read the book or check out Jim Collins' website.

Posted on 2003-01-22 at 21:17. File under society.

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Mono vs. Poly

More philosophical analogies.

I continue to explore analogies between religion and politics, between god and government. Early religions were polytheistic, most famously exemplified in the Olympian gods of the ancient Greeks. It was seen as progress when monotheistic religions gained dominance in the religious marketplace (at least according to the monotheists, who wrote the history of that change in beliefs). Similarly, "monostatism" was seen as an improvement over the kind of polycentric legal order that thrived in Europe in late medieval and early Renaissance times (when law was made and enforced by ecclesiastical, mercantile, royal, and local authorities). Has the evolution to nation-states been good or bad (on balance) for human liberty and human flourishing? Is it a stable order? Nation-states seem now to be stable and everlasting, but they are quite recent innovations in human history and nothing says that they will last any longer than social orders that preceded the time of nation states. What would a post-national order look like? Will states be supplanted by a world government that centralizes all power and authority? Will power devolve to much more local authorities as nation-states fracture and dissolve? Will a kind of polycentric order re-emerge along free-market lines as an extension of modern capitalism (with multiple courts, arbitrators, defense services, and enforcement agencies from whom individuals and organizations can buy legal services)? It's intriguing to ponder...

Posted on 2003-01-22 at 20:39. File under philosophy.

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2003-01-20

Good to Great

Making the leap.

I see that Dizzy mentioned the fact that he's read the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, so I figure I'll chime in. I devoured the book in one sitting last Wednesday night and found it fairly provocative for a business book. One thing I liked about it was that its methodology was scientific and objective -- Collins and his team weren't looking for a certain answer, they were looking at the facts and trying to determine why some companies make the leap from good to great and others don't (there's a short introduction to these ideas here). The cover of the book touts the fact that over 600,000 copies have been sold. Funny thing is, very few of those copies will be read by people who have the discipline to apply its lessons, the courage to carefully choose the right people, the integrity to resist the lures of power and position, the honesty to break free of the reality distortion field that normally engulfs corporate leaders, the patience to make slow incremental changes rather than foment an organizational revolution. So those who pursue greatness will be in select company.

Posted on 2003-01-20 at 21:21. File under society.

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JARS

My Abelard paper hits the street.

On Saturday I received two complimentary copies of the latest issue of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, containing a paper I wrote comparing Rand's theory of concepts to that of Peter Abelard. But I just learned from editor Chris Sciabarra that I'm allowed to publish only one item per issue, which means that if I need to write rejoinders to my Abelard paper or my forthcoming paper on Rand and Yevgeny Zamyatin, I may not be able to publish anything else in his journal for quite a while. Perhaps I need to look into other publishing outlets, such as Reason Paper and the Libertarian Alliance.

Posted on 2003-01-20 at 21:10. File under philosophy.

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Of Books and ICBMs

Some cool web services.

OK, I'm probably late to the party, but I just found out about two relatively new web services that are pretty cool. From Z+Blog I found out about the GeoURL blog-location service (which shows your blog and its neighbors based on latitude-longitude coordinates provided in the "ICBM" meta tag) and from DJ Adams I found out about the All Consuming book-watching service (which shows what books webloggers are reading, at least based on what they mention in their blogs). Neat stuff.

Posted on 2003-01-20 at 20:42. File under technology.

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2003-01-10

Beyond the Privatives

More radical thoughts.

A privative is word that expresses the lack of something -- two controversial examples are atheism and anarchism. It's never helpful to describe one's ideas in privative terms, because you're not stating your positive views, and there are many ways to deny another idea. An atheist could be an utter nihilist, or he could be a highly principled adherent of a humanistic philosophy. An anarchist could be a violent sociopath, or he could be a communitarian pacifist. The denial of fealty to God or the State is only the beginning, only the first step. What matters most are the subsequent steps, not that first one.

I have been a non-believer -- i.e., an atheist -- since the age of nine. At first I didn't know what to make of my discovery that God does not exist. In my teenage years I found in Ayn Rand's philosophy a coherent world-view that seemed to account for the lack of a deity. In college and after I have continued to explore philosophies that are not theistic, including Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Taoism, Buddhism, Nietzscheanism, and other such viewpoints. Yet I'm not hung up on unbelief, as some atheists seem to be. Rather, I'm focused on personal enlightenment and ethical living. It just so happens that I pursue those in a naturalistic fashion, without recourse to a god.

In the last few months I've started to take the first step with regard to government as well. I've been reading a lot of books in political theory that question the need for a State, and I'm slowly coming to think that the State may not be necessary -- indeed, that it is positively inimical to human life. Here again, the privative is the first step. The important thing is what you do after you take that first step. For me, what comes after denying the necessity of the State is a more lawful society that is not subject to the arbitrary depradations of a monopoly on power. In his book The Structure of Liberty, Randy Barnett calls this a "polycentric order", which contains even more checks and balances than the vaunted American Constitution (a document that may have worked for a while in protecting liberty but that has utterly failed by now). So yes, I am coming close to considering myself an anarchist (as much as I consider myself an "-ist" of any kind); but as with my nominal atheism, it is not the privative that matters to me, it is the positive vision that follows the initial denial. And in the case of political theory I'm still coming to grips with what that positive vision might be.

So stay tuned for further reflections...

Posted on 2003-01-10 at 21:34. File under philosophy.

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Ataraxia

More Epicurean reflections.

After a long hiatus, I decided to re-join the Epicurean Philosophy List, an email discussion group devoted to Epicurus. It's good to be back. There is much wisdom to be found in Epicurean insights, even though they are 2300 years old. Indeed, his ideas are surprisingly modern in many ways. So far I've mentioned my interest in writing an essay on Nietzsche and Epicurus (probably for the Journal of Nietzsche Studies), which was well-received on the list. I'm still amazed that no one has really delved into this topic; I have not yet read Marcin Milkowski's paper Idyllic heroism: Nietzsche's View of Epicurus, but its focus seems to be more hermeneutical than historical. So perhaps I'll be able to break new ground here.

Posted on 2003-01-10 at 20:47. File under philosophy.

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Mudita

A new weblog, a new concept.

My friend Joshua Zader has started blogging, and the name of his weblog is Mudita Journal. The word 'mudita' is a Pali word describing a key concept from Buddhism; Joshua defines it as "a state of sympathetic joy" or "happiness at another's success in life". It is thus the precise opposite of the German term Schadenfreude ("happiness at another's misfortune"). Joshua's journal is almost a month old now, but I've just started reading it since I was awfully busy in December and then AFK (away from keyboard) for almost two weeks. So far it looks like good reading -- and I don't say that merely because he has written about one of my journal entries.

Posted on 2003-01-10 at 20:04. File under philosophy.

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2003-01-05

Curriculum Vitae

Education for life.

I just posted a journal entry about what would need to be included in a modern definition of liberal (or, better, liberating) education. I'm not sure why I posted it in my journal rather than here, other than the fact that it seemed rather self-contained (and that I hardly ever post entries in my journal anymore).

Posted on 2003-01-05 at 17:37. File under philosophy.

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2003-01-03

Powered

My weblog recipe.

By popular demand, I just wrote a brief description of the process I use to create this weblog, including links to all the relevant XML, XSLT, DTD, and shell script files. Enjoy!

Posted on 2003-01-03 at 17:53. File under technology.

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A Reader

First thoughts on yet another intriguing project.

While gallivanting around the East Coast recently, a thought came to me: why not create a Nietzsche reader, consisting of choice selections from the works of Nietzsche? I'd arrange it by topic and within each topic chronologically, so that one could get a sense of the evolution of Nietzsche's ideas. To really do it justice, I'd need to work my German into shape so I could make new translations. Sounds like fun. :)

Posted on 2003-01-03 at 17:21. File under philosophy.

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identity...