Recently in Diary Category

As a young student journalist in 1994, I was given the opportunity to interview the Australian artist Vali Myers. We talked about her life in New York, and at a wildlife sanctuary in Il Porto, Italy. "The Sicilian dons treated me better than the New York City art dealers who tried to rip my work off as cheap postcards," she explained. A true witch, Myers encountered the authentic Sicilian Mafiosi. In contrast, most of us live with a third-hand cultural stereotype: Mario Puzo's Godfather novel and Francis Ford Coppola's film trilogy, which has shaped our understanding of loyalty, honour, and inter-group conflict.

The word 'loyalty' is traced to the Old English word treoth or Troth, which means 'truth' or 'pledged faithfulness'. I first encountered Troth in the Gurdjieff Work and then in writings of American runologist Dr. Stephen Edred Flowers, who has observed that this is the Northern, Germanic equivalent of Puzo and Coppola's ideal. Loyalty thus has a far deeper and richer context than popular stereotypes may portray, and has deep Indo-European roots.

Flowers makes several points about Troth in the context of a Traditionalist discussion. What follows is a personal interpretation, so go to the original sources. Flowers contends that the quality of Troth that guides personal conduct is often missing in contemporary civilisation, in that many activities can involve subtler forms of lying. In part, the Traditionalist critique observes that 'outer seeming' can become estranged from 'inner being'.

Troth also suggests a type of knowledge, sense-making and perspective: the ability to discern truth from falsehood, out-of-context quoting and disinformation. Finally, Troth is observable --- in people's conduct, how their networks evolve over time, in their work or artifacts of their inner states, and in why people make decisions, not just the surface-level effects or what other people infer.

From a note to strategic foresight senior lecturer Dr. Joseph Voros:

I have Tom Barnett's first book The Pentagon's New Map. He has spoken with Don Beck and the Integral Politics people. I haven't yet read his second book or later work, which may have changed.

Conceptually, Pentagon's New Map appeared after a mid-'90s debate between neo-Kantian cosmopolitanism and the classicist school of strategic history and tragic realism. The former resonates in programs at Columbia, Cornell or RMIT, through people like Mary Kaldor, Alexander Wendt and Saskia Sassen. The latter prevails more in the military colleges and realist-oriented political science departments, as exemplified in the work of Colin S. Gray, Michael Handel, John Mearsheimer, Ralph Peters, Stephen M. Walt, and Robert Kaplan's reportage. So, Pentagon's New Map appeared at the end of the Clinton Administration and the start of George W. Bush's presidential first term.

Barnett rapidly found an audience amongst US foreign policy people that were either outside the process or looking for new ideas. To me, the strength of his first book lies in an awareness of dynamics, compared with other popular books at the time which had one or two-factor explanatory models. From a 'history of ideas' perspective, whether he was aware of it or not, Barnett synthesized ideas from Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics (1979) on the neo-realist importance of structural variables, from Immanuel Wallerstein's centre-periphery model, and from Carter era strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose Grand Chessboard of envisioned Eurasian geopolitical integration recently inspired Muse's prog-rock album The Resistance. Thus, part of the appeal of Pentagon's New Map may have been that it was a 'half-step' along from the thinking of the time, and that there was an earlier theoretical base.

Whilst co-writing an academic paper on Twitter and Iran, last year, I revisited Barnett's first book as part of the background research. I was surprised to find that, in the case of Iran at least, whilst the conceptual frameworks and language were different, Barnett's solutions were similar to the prevailing 'neoconservative' school of thought. For example, he felt that Iraq regime change would alter the Middle East, and that US strategic information operations to support Iranian protesters would also facilitate regime change, a worldview traceable to Samuel P. Huntington's Political Order in Changing Societies (1968) and also made in Robert Kagan and William Kristol's edited volume Present Dangers (2000), which outlined the 'neoconservative' approach to salient foreign policy issues. Again, this may help to explain why his first book found an appreciative audience: Barnett's solutions resonated with other advisers, and with the popular works of Tom Friedman and Benjamin Barber. As discussed, the same issues apply to any theorist or analytical framework, and reflect artifacts of a thinking process rather than the person.

This raises various issues for foresight students and practitioners who may want to work in a 'worldviews'-type area like foreign affairs or trade. The trans-disciplinary focus of foresight and futures work can mean that practitioners gravitate to 'meta'-frameworks which may lack rigorous theory-building, theory-testing and evaluation. To minimize this, it helps to have some background in the history of ideas and culture, and political philosophy, particularly as Peter Katzenstein, Alaistair Iain Johnston and Patrick Porter demonstrate in the 'strategic culture' literature. Foreign policy frameworks that differentiate between diplomacy, informational, military, economic and other levers are useful, such as Terry Deibel's Foreign Affairs Strategy (2007). Finally, the varied work of these scholars illustrates this rigour and cycle of theory-building, theory-testing and evaluation: Stephen G. Brooks on global security and trans-national corporations, Jon Sumida on Clausewitz and other classical military theorists, Stephen Biddle's multi-method analysis of military power projection, and Dexter Filkins' multi-perspectival conflict reportage.

Tonight at a party in Melbourne's Nicholas Building, collaborator Ben Eltham reflects to an academic on the problems he has had with past journalist graduates. "Some of them were useless," he quipped. "I can make you a journalist in 30 minutes. Here's a chair. Here's a phone. Here's a story lead. Call someone. Now."

The academic replied: "Perhaps you hired the wrong graduates?"

Despite a purported industry crisis, journalism is seen by some universities as a 'hot' area for potential students who are interested in Web 2.0, citizen journalism, and other topics. It provides a meta-framework to bring a range of academic backgrounds and skills into a cohesive department. If there's a demonstrable market and student demand, it's also easier to get courses through Academic Board approval and course quality assurance processes.

Eltham's quip points to another reality: journalism is a craft or practice that requires a combination of sense-making, situational awareness and action. At some point, you have to go out and Do journalism, like a writer staring at a blank page, or a stockmarket trader placing a trade. For Eltham and myself, this approach perhaps comes from our mutual experiences in the student press and writing/editing for online publications. In 1994 student elections I suggested that student media and journalism departments follow the model at many US universities, where journalism graduates do an internship with the paper.

In contrast, at some of the new university journalism courses are attuned more to a Web 2.0 paradigm. To me, you can learn the basics of Del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, wikis, or whichever platform you choose, also in about 30 minutes. Yes, it's a powerful amplifier or ecosystem, with its own dynamics. Yet it's not a replacement for core skills, if you have ambitions to research, write, edit and publish original material, instead of reposting or relinking to existing material, via social network sites.

Perhaps that's why Eltham and I are also fans of long-form journalism that requires these skills. And, as Barry Saunders and I found, perhaps also why the very best investigative journalists are emerging from other arenas that share this focus on craft and tacit skills --- investment banking, intelligence analysis, police detective work --- and not necessarily university journalism courses.

You can forward or re-post a message in 30 seconds. You can learn the basics of journalism in 30 minutes. A social media platform can amplify this, and build in recursive audience feedback and reflection cycles. It can take a lifetime however to master and deepen your appreciation of journalism's craft, sense-making and tacit knowledge.

Whittlesea Leader journalist Mark Smith's article 'Trapped roos shot in South Morang' (22nd March 2010) raises some concerns about DSE's decision-making process:

1. Who made the 'go' decision for a 'controlled shooting' of the kangaroos? What was the decision process, timeframe, and options considered? Why was the 'controlled shooting' acted upon, despite a "working group" to relocate the kangaroos? Was the 'controlled shooting funded by taxpayer money?

2. At any time, was the bushland site owner Westfield consulted about the kangaroos, and if so, what was their preference for resolving the situation? At any time, was Westfield a factor in the decision to use 'controlled shooting' to resolve the situation?

3. Given that "the health and safety of these kangaroos was at risk" and that the 'controlled shooting' was viewed as a "tough decision":
(a) Why was 'relocation' not acted on as an alternative to the 'controlled shooting'? and
(b) Why were there no other contingency plans acted on that would have kept the kangaroos alive?

4. What was the status of the "working group" formed to relocate the kangaroos? Why was the "working group" not consulted or informed about the 'controlled shooting' until after it had happened? Again, why was 'relocation' not pursued as an alternative?

DSE's clarification on these matters would be most appreciated, thanks for your time.

Provisional go-ahead to work on a new journal article with Ben Eltham.

CFA Institute's strategies after the global financial crisis: raise awareness of the CFA Charter through regional investment conferences such as in Bahrain, with CFA Bahrain; and new memoranda of understandings with capital market regulators.

A profile of Lehman Bros. fallen CFO Erin Callan revisits an early chapter in Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail. Sorkin recounts how Callan is promoted too quickly by Lehman's board, and then forced into a corner by market volatility. As the firm's CFO, Callan then adopts a charm offensive strategy with analysts and financial media. The strategy fails, most spectacularly when Callan has a war-of-words with David Einhorn, the hedge fund manager of Greenlight Capital who 'shorts' Lehman's stock. Guardian scribe Andrew Clark blames the 'glass ceiling' and trader floor misogyny. Perhaps true, but for me there's another, more compelling explanation: Callan opted for media-savvy public relations strategies which Einhorn as a masterful short-seller was trained to see through. For more on his investment research process, see Einhorn's book Fooling Some of the People All of the Time (Hoboken, NJ John Wiley &.Sons, 2008).

A vivid nightmare.

Insight during a morning meeting: to follow the money and find the 'edge' in an industry, listen to the 'water cooler' discussions at investment conferences. The topics may turn up in academic journals about two years later.

Foxtel senior executives and I agree on something: too much Andre Rieu on the Ovation cable channel.

PhD 'draft zero' progress: several journal articles I had missed on 'strategic culture' --- one argues that it is a research program instead of a variable. Six pages in to John Hutnyk's article 'Jungle Studies: The State of Anthropology', Futures 34 (2002): 15-31; this exemplifies the fusion of critical realism, cultural studies and post-Marxist critique of universities that I saw in the mid-to-late 1990s. I wondered: Is this the kind of research design that probably led ARC assessors to rank Futures as a B-level journal for the 2010 ERA rankings? A page on how post-September 11 'conflict anthropology' has 'borrowed' ideas and insights from anthropological research.

Found in notes pile: two detailed outlines for unfinished, never-submitted journal articles.

The Norwegian band Ulver as a model for the unfolding creative process: a shift from three influential black metal and folk metal albums, to prog rock, ambient glitch, and then to film soundtracks, and jazz-influenced symphonic rock. It helps that Ulver's Kristoffer Rygg owns his label Jester Records. Occulture bonus points: Ulver's second album, rumoured to have been recorded on an 8-track in a forest after the band spent their advance money, turns up in HBO's The Sopranos.

 

Wrote two pages for PhD draft on Alastair Johnston's generational model of strategic culture analysts in security studies and international relations theory.

Michael Lewis on Bloomberg's 'For the Record' to promote his new book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010). Amazon's #1 book although the reviews are affected by end-user problems with the Kindle  version. Lewis clearly has had extensive media training.

Major points that Lewis makes:

The five main people that Lewis profiles are outsiders --- stockmarket analysts rather than bond market specialists --- who had to learn about the subprime mortgage market in order to track stocks that they were interested in, and who then decided to short the market.

Financial innovation should be regarded with some skepticism - we can see examples that led to greater inefficiencies rather than more efficient markets, so some innovation can have a downside, and this may be clear only in retrospect. Lewis believes collateralised debt obligations should be more transparent, i.e. traded on exchanges and clearinghouses, so that all parties can manage their counterparty risk.

Financial service firms are now more professional than what Lewis saw at Salomon Brothers during the late 1980s. Yet Wall Street is now far more cynical: bonuses, incentives and hypercompetition have eroded the partnership ethic that keeps these firms stable.

Reviews of The Big Short: The Big Money, Washington Post.

A 20th anniversary piece on David Lynch's Twin Peaks has a couple of interesting anecdotes on how Lynch dealt on-set with his actors.

Roger Lowenstein asks: Who needs Wall Street?

John Kay on oblique decisions.

Morning meeting: get people face-to-face on sensitive issues, avoid escalation by email, and remove roadblocks. Some interesting anecdotes on what really happens on an overseas consultancy.

Late afternoon meeting over tea and donuts with collaborator Ben Eltham in Melbourne's Nicholas Building. Discussion: EMI's troubles; how ERA will affect two articles we are working on; Australian academic and zine maven Anna Poletti; why journal workshops have bad percolator coffee; sick buildings; and the psychological impact of glass desks in offices.

Evening: PhD 'background research' viewing the first episode of Gwynne Dyer's mid-1980s series 'War': archival footage of World War I nationalist mania, the Western Front trenches, machine guns, German zeppelin raids, and World War II aerial bombings, ending in the Trinity nuclear test and Hiroshima. The nationalist mania, and generals' decision that led to the sacrifice of 60,000 English in one day to German machine guns and no-man's land, are examples of George Gurdjieff's 'terror of the situation'.

An insight whilst viewing Dyer's series: the Napoleonic innovation of national conscripts and total war, and German air-raids, broke the taboo on targeting civilians. Prior to this, 19th century Russian anarchists usually targeted police and political leaders. After this, many groups acted on the taboo, for different reasons: anti-colonialist and nationalist revolutions, radicalisation in the shadow of the Vietnam War and other conflicts, strategic tactics such as during hijack negotiations, and religiously motivated violence. This hypothesis appears to be a close fit to David Rapoport's waves thesis and to Mark Juergensmeyer's research program. Is this testable using the Correlates of War data-sets?