Books - The Square and The Tower by Niall Ferguson

Two organizing ideas about how society is organized can be described as hierarchies and networks. Both have existed throughout human history. Understanding social organization is important because the structures and dynamics of the ways of organizing social life at a marcosystemic level influence behavior at the microsystemic level.Most of the macrosystemic organizing structures and dynamics are unconscious and as such, people don't understand why they think what they think, why they feel what they feel, and why they do what they do. The individual and the micro systems the individual is partipating in are influenced by higher level forces and dynamics. Knowing what they are is the source of social power.Niall Ferguson does a good job tracing the operation of hierarchies and networks over the human history. Significant changes in human society were advanced with the printing press, transportation systems, and especially the internet in the last 25 years.Ferguson points out that the democratization of society which the internet promises has been replaced by the manipulation of huge oligapolies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. As we have seen in our last election in the U.S. in 2016, and with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the manipulation of these communication mediums for the purpose of propogandizing populations is undermining the ability of citizens to rationally decide policy options for their governance.The use of these communication systems to advance spec...
Source: Markham's Behavioral Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: blogs