Plan, decision, experiment
graves and city
3:15 PM, on the bus
Molly and I have been having an interesting series of discussions about decisions and planning.
They started almost a week ago when Molly asserted that a decision is made by an individual, but a plan is made collectively. This struck us as a stylish and bold phrasing, and we took to it immediately. Since then, we have come back to it a number of times in different conversations and taken it in a number of directions, all of which have strengthened our original apprehension of its usefulness as a principal.
Right away, we saw that it does away with the bogus rhetoric of "group decision-making," which is almost always a cover for a boss (or a teacher) thrusting some bullshit on you and trying to make you take it up as your own responsibility. This is good.
Secondly, it gives group planning free reign. So often, groups get bogged down when trying to flesh out a job because of squeamishness about being domineering. The basic contribution of the plan/decision difference is that a)y'all decided to come to the planning meeting; b)anyone can decide not to be part of the plan at any point. Decisions happen, putting planning out into the open maximizes the basis on which individuals can make their decisions.
During the nineties, a huge emphasis was put on the political content of decisions. Decisions have no political content. Yes or no is not politics. Politics is what happens when different people bring together their yesses and nos. Plans are politics. Socialists claim to struggle for a planned society, and yet rarely develop a plan of struggle. This is political infantilism.
These are our thoughts to date, as best as I can remember them.
sunset on Delancy
3:37
Experiment
Experiment is another word that has been becoming more important in the last few weeks. Experimentalism, and the scientific attitude which underlies it, has always been important to me, but I have largely used it as a weapon. By this I mean that I have used it to oppose habituation or rote learning, against predestination and assured outcomes. This is still very important to me, because nothing seems more bleak than a future which is already known.
Recently, however, I have been coming to value the positive organization of the experiment. In scientific experimentation, a theory is stated, the experiment is structured to test the theory, and results are collected. It has not been completely clear to me until recently how important the continuity between the first and third stages are to the validity and usefullness of the experiment.
At first, this seems contradictory: why attempt to predict the result of behaviours the aim of which is to produce unpredictable results? However, Without some statement of the predicted result and follow-up of actual results, it is impossible to know if the results were predictable or not. An experimental life is still a life filled with desire, even if that desire often turns towards the unknown.
By careful application of this technique, I have discovered that certain behaviors which I believed to be experimental were in fact not, were in fact the product of habit, and were leaving me with predictably unsatisfifying results. Once this became clear, certain difficulties which seemed intractable have become much easier to deal with.
Aha, another connection to zeropride "all doubt vanishes when it is tested against reality"? New advances in the method.
Posted by Sam at April 10, 2003 03:15 PM
You bring to light a flaw in my formulation: a plan can clearly be made by an individual. But I stand by the idea that a decision is neccessarily singular.
Moreover, I think that your formulation displaces the very value of planning that I was trying to get at. A plan may be an idea, but planning is, in itself, an action.
What is the point of planning unless it is continuous with action? That's just idle fantasy. Sure fantasy is easy...but what's its value beyond filling time? If planning is taken seriously but remains open, it remains optimally free, and yet removes much of the tension you associate with decision.
