Citizens’ Initiative: A Department of Peace Website

An interview with John Zielinski

by Barbara Vogl

John Zielinski has a BS in Chemistry, a BS in Physics and an MS in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana. He studied with Heinz Von Foerster at the Biological Computer Laboratory and was influenced by Gordon Pask, Humberto Maturano and Herbert Brun . In this interview we explore the potential for a World Wide Web Department of Peace in shaping the future of humankind.

Please visit : http://www.departmentofpeace.net

Barbara: What prompted you to establish a Department of Peace as an interactive website?

John: I was inspired by the vision of Dennis Kucinich and his Department of Peace Legislation introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives. It illustrates the tremendous potential we have right now__the mandate to solve the problems in the world not for academic reasons but for our very survival itself. I felt compelled because of my background and need to contribute. I see an incredible potential for the application of Cybernetics and clear thinking and logic and sensibility to get ourselves, as individuals, as communities and as nations, out of the situations we are in and get into a world that works for everyone.

Barbara: Would you describe the legislation and how it is serving as a model for your website?

John: Our website <http://www.departmentofpeace.net> is to be functionally designed on the model of the Department of Peace HR 1673, a bill introduced into Congress by Rep. Dennis Kucinich and 48 co-sponsors in April 2003. We have a copy of the complete legislation on our website. The bill is presently stalled in committee and we feel we can pre-empt the bureaucratic lethargy of our government by establishing it on the net to see what people can do with it.

B: There is a saying that when the people move, the government will follow.

J: Exactly! As we become aware of how pervasive media is and as we see the power of websites like MoveOn.org starting out with a couple of good ideas on a website and spreading to hundreds of thousands of people instantly saying, “here’s how I feel,” and contributing money and seeing actual things happening which is affecting millions and millions of people….its affecting our thinking and our awareness all over the world, internationally and especially in this country.

B: Do you think it contributes to our ability to think more wholistically?

J: I think the cybernetic inclusiveness, the circularity of the concept of ‘Peace’ that I see in the DOP legislation is based on wholistic goal-oriented action that we have built into the World Wide Web Department of Peace website. It functions as an “autonomous and self-organizing” Department of Peace designed to help facilitate and organize the peace efforts of individuals and organizations nationally and internationally. Our goal is to facilitate the paradigm shift from reactive war to responsive peace. This reflects a global movement emerging from within humanity itself. We are now making a transition from war to peace; Peace operating as a multifaceted solution to the complex issues of our time. The Deptartment of Peace website is where wisdom and technology and people meet to create a world culture of Peace.

B: That’s a big dream.

J: But, in today’s world the ideal is practical. It establishes nonviolence as an organizing principle of American society, providing the U.S. President with an array of peace-building policy options for domestic and international use. Just as the passage of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery took years to pass; just as the nineteenth amendment providing women’s suffrage took years to pass; just as the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960’s took years to pass, this legislation provides substance and meaning to the political yearnings of our generation. It systematically applies the power of peace to the eradication of root causes of violence.

Domestically, the Department of Peace would be responsible for developing policies which address issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, mistreatment of the elderly, gang and drug related violence, poverty and other issues of social violence. Internationally, the Department would gather research, analyze foreign policy and make recommendations to the President on how to address the root causes of war and intervene before violence begins, while also improving national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict.

B: We are beginning to see that we can’t afford violence to our environment...nor to each other either when you consider that in our nation we spend more on our penal system than on our educational system. It’s crazy!

J: Yes. I like what Martin Luther King said; “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.... Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

B: With the www Department of Peace, are you suggesting that we can move democracy to a new level__ from just pretty much having it mean the right to vote for our representatives to actually having people involved in the quality of decisions that are made? How would the a DOP in cyberspace affect how we do government?

J: Basically, using a cybernetic model, we can see we have a closed system; earth and ecosystem, which is divided into nations. Entities of the model are humans in relationships influenced by cultures, communities, belief systems, etc. Each individual has a goal, interacting with others, with corporate and governmental entities, all in relationship with the environment. The overall systemic goal is survival. Within the model we have a variety of methods of attaining goals. For example with goals of health and wellness we have varying models such as “power over,” using up natural resources, and then we have a sustainable model such as living in harmony with the environment and each other. The Dept. of Peace is designed to reach the goals of a system that understands long term survivability. Our world is a very complex system.

The way governments function does not allow for the variety or flexibility required to respond to the complexity of war and peace. By using a cybernetic model on the web we have the requisite variety to match the requisite variety in the real world. The internet provides the flexibility where, in principle, everyone can participate allowing decisions to then manifest in cities and states and the nation. The members of the world wide web DOP foster a culture of peace, a culture which is, by definition, based on integrity, mutual love, and respect for life. The goal is to coordinate peace at every level of society, a way to address domestic violence, local and state violence as well as international violence.

The website has no boundaries and follows the model in the Congressional legislation and includes a Peace Academy equivalent to West Point and other institutions which support the Department. of Defense. The bill will “create and establish a Peace Academy, which shall— (A) be modeled after the military service academies; (B) provide a 4-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.”

The www Peace Academy with it’s on-line learning capability allows global citizens to introduce alternatives and become a part of the dialogue and decisions of global governance.

B: That sounds like a big order. How do you plan to do this?

J: It really requires creating learning communities__ a world-wide learning society Peace Curriculum. Among provisions of the bill in Congress are the provision to: (4) maintain a site on the Internet for the purposes of soliciting and receiving ideas for the development of peace from the wealth of political, social and cultural diversity; (5) proactively engage the critical thinking capabilities of grade school, high school, and college students and teachers through the Internet and other media and issue periodic reports concerning submissions; and (7) provide grants for peace studies departments in colleges and universities throughout the United States.
that Cyberspace allows for people to interact meaningfully without offices or other considerations in the physical world. It is instanteous relating and interaction, keeping information current and at the same time allowing for reflection__an antidote to sound-bite news releases used to control and dominate.

The website allows for the development of a Cybernetic model of the system so we can see if we can predict solutions to help reach the goals we have in mind. For example, the contact database allows for communication among all sides in a conflict situation.

The science of Cybernetics studies these complex systems and often offers solutions both doable and sufficient to address the magnitude of the problem. One of the first activities of Cybernetics is to build a cybernetic model of the problem and since Cybernetics is concerned with control and communication, let’s look at the concept of central control, such as in the central nervous system.

B:: I’ve heard of the world wide web as a global brain. But that is a metaphor.

J: Maybe, but first let’s look at the primitive concept of ‘center’ and the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of a ‘center.’ The what of a center implies there is a location for the center in which to be defined, and that there are entities which are observed which define the ‘center.’ The ‘center’ implies a closed system, so a ‘center’ can be defined in relation to this finite set of entities. If it were not a finite set we could not define a center. These entities can be seen as ‘members’ which implies that these members have common properties which define the members. One of the properties is that the members have a common goal___ Peace.

B: That makes sense__ and if we look at the ‘how’ of ‘center’ we have the concept of ‘centering’ or ‘relating’ or ‘connecting.’ There could be many centers connecting into a wider, living whole.

J: Yes, and in biological systems, cybernetics looks at the central nervous system which functions to ‘connect’ our sensory systems and transfer information which results in biological and computational processes on all kinds of levels and complexities. A key concept of Cybernetics is self-organization, which prevents the system from going to chaos. Self-organization implies that the system has one or more goals.

B: How does the cybernetic model help ordinary people?

J: Well, ordinary people who link together and become communities, organizations, businesses, and nationalities are biological individuals who have health and wellness concerns, cognitive concerns, and express feelings and conciousness. Communities, organizations, businesses and governments also behave as individuals and have discernable health/wellness concerns, are cognitive and express feelings and consciousness on a group level.

B: It seems to me we all know that. So what?

J: We may all know that, but the trick is to live that way without the competition that leads to war. That’s where a Science of Second Order Cybernetics comes in. First Order Cybernetics is the science of ‘observed’ systems whereas Second Order Cybernetics is the science of ‘observing’ systems. We no longer observe a model of the system “objectively” trying to solve our problems by moving pieces of a jig-saw puzzle around thinking that will bring about change.

In Second Order Cybernetics we become the observing system itself, capable of creating sustainable models because we are taking responsibility for ourselves__ for our ability to change our way of seeing and being and, therefore, we become responsible for our ability to design innovative solutions. That individuals/communities/organizations/businesses/governments are ‘observing’ or ‘conscious’ participants of the whole makes this WWW.DepartmentofPeace.net a Second Order Cybernetic system__the living process.

B: So that’s what is really meant by a paradigm shift?

J: Yes, and the survival of the individual, community, organization, business and nation means a long term survival, not only for these entities, but also for the environment, earth and it’s ecosystem. That answers your previous question as to whether the world wide web Department of Peace will contribute to our ability to think wholistically.

B: Thank you, John. I feel even more strongly that the evolutionary leap that we must take in our time is to be able to think and live wholistically. That means that, for the first time, human individuals take responsibility for the evolution of life.

The website, http://www.departmentofpeace.net has been dedicated to the memory of Heinz Von Foerster, known as the father of Second Order Cybernetics.

Contact: John Zielinski can be reached at <jrzielinski@hotmail.com>

Excerpts from the Preamble for HR 1673 establishing a Department of Peace

During the course of the 20th century, more than 100,000,000 people perished in wars, and now, at the dawn of the 21st century, violence seems to be an overarching theme in the world, encompassing personal, group, national, and international conflict, extending to the production of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction which have been developed for use on land, air, sea, and in space.

Such conflict is often taken as a reflection of the human condition without questioning whether the structures of thought, word, and deed which the people of the United States have inherited are any longer sufficient for the maintenance, growth, and survival of the United States and the world.

It is the sacred duty of the people of the United States to receive the living truths of our founding documents and to think anew to develop institutions that permit the unfolding of the highest moral principles in this Nation and around the world .