Day: November 10, 2010
Soft Power: Good news for the ‘war on poverty’?
People often refer to a ‘war on poverty’. I thought it would be interesting to see what expert historian and diplomat Joseph Nye would have to say about this perspective. I used this TED Talk as a reference.
One of the big ideas Nye has been writing about is a concept of ‘soft power’. This is relevant to the purpose of the 10 City Bridge Run- “to raise awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to influence extreme poverty.”
Nye argues that the stage is crowded- the State is no longer at the centre of the action. Non-government actors now have great influence. Often, this argument is used referring to terrorism and asymmetrical warfare, or maybe more appropriately the power of the media. Why shouldn’t it also refer to citizen-led movements, that is the collective action of individuals collectively acting for the same purpose?
Power, Nye argues, is the ability to influence others in order to get what you want. ‘Soft Power‘ is an expression he has coined to describe getting other people to want what you want so that there is no need for coercion or payment.
Nye argues that we need a new narrative. It is now a situation of whose story wins is what matters. Working together and in cooperation is the key to exercising soft power.
Power need not describe a zero-sum game, but can lead to a positive gain for everyone. We have to move to an ‘assurance game’ over the ‘Prisoners’ Dilemma’. This is what a citizen-led movement should strive to achieve. In fact, for a peaceful outcome it is the only real sustainable alternative. It is a question of a Power Shift- we must work with other non-government actors and those who exercise hard power. It is a journey we can’t take on our own.
Why more aid is not the starting point to solve poverty.
Alan Kay is a genius. Here in this video he is speaking on “Why does computer-based teaching fail?”
Does this have anything to do with poverty? Not directly, but the idea is relevant. In fact, I would argue that through this argument we can see why aid is not the starting point to solve extreme poverty.
This is not the same as to argue for or against aid. It is a question of design. “We should design in order to think”, so says Tim Brown from IDEO. This is a similar argument that Kay presents here.
We should start with the idea, and then use aid as necessary to address the problem leveraging the idea. Ideas should be the start point. Not aid.
In the process of gathering 24,000 of ‘human bridge’ photographs during the 10 City Bridge Run, might it be possible to stumble across a few good ideas that could better leverage aid? Let’s hope so.
Complexity and Simplicity: Avoiding the ‘Too Simple’
The problem with ‘poverty porn’ is not that it is actually ‘porn’. If that were the case it would be the most appalling failure of care meaning that aid agencies would be distributing inappropriate pictures of the vulnerable in order to pull heart-strings to make money.
So what is the problem with ‘poverty porn’? I think Alan Kay, with his brilliant scientific mind, presents this idea clearly in this TED Talk A Powerful Idea About Teaching Ideas. He is not talking about poverty, he is talking about how we might better educate young minds.
When we reduce the complex to an over-simplified explanation it is just as unhelpful as making it unnecessarily over-complex. Much of the discourse of reduction of extreme poverty has been reduced to sound bites that make a good pitch for fund raising events. Einstein said:
Things should be a simple as possible, but not simpler.
Thinking like a child is an important skill that Kay presents as benefitting understanding. Creating a pictorial petition through the 10 City Bridge Run of 24,000 images using the human bridges people themselves capture on photograph is an attempt to present our ability to intervene into poverty into a pragmatic and meaningful form. Please join us on this journey.
Children are the future we send to the future… Children need mentors.
Small Change? “Why the revolution will not be tweeted”
Malcolm Gladwell’s recent The New Yorker article Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted argues we have lost a true sense of activism through a hyper-networked digital world. Thanks to my friend Kim who recommended this article.
Gladwell doesn’t really provide an alternative. That is not his point. Instead he is arguing against the assumption that a world with greater participation through social media such as Facebook will not bring the same radical flavour in activism in the ‘rights-based’ movements of past decades.
Is Gladwell onto something?… and why does this matter? Does this have anything to do with the reduction of extreme poverty?
Gladwell argues that hierarchy and organisation, not just an extensive network enabling participation, is needed to effective activism to bring about change. He favours the term “…with military precision” as though the military has somehow magically already secured all of the right answers. Having spent close to two decades in the Australian Army myself, I am hesitant to just accept that statement but I do understand the point he is making.
Have advocacy organisations lost the art and ability to be true activists? Has this inadvertently become a PR and brand war instead? Gladwell might say that it misses the mark because none of it is ‘new’, for all of the glossy brochures distributed and talks we attend, all the websites we click onto and the campaigns that engage our attention.
He uses an example illustrated earlier by Clay Shirky about the recovery of a mobile phone lost in a taxi in New York (read the article). Gladwell highlights the lameness of modern day faux-activism:
What happens next is more of the same. A networked, weak-tie world is good at things like helping Wall Streeters get phones back from teen-age girls.
How do we know we are really making a difference? A good question to ask.
Building Bridges 