I. Seeds

Gardenbrain vs. Machinebrain. We posit that this country has for too long been stuck in a mode of seeing and thinking called Machinebrain. We argue that the time has come for a new mode of public imagination that we call Gardenbrain. Please offer positions regarding these metaphors.

Machinebrain sees the world and democracy as a series of mechanisms—clocks and gears, perpetual motion machines, balances and counterbalances. Machinebrain requires you to conceive of the economy as perfectly efficient and automatically self-correcting. Machinebrain presupposes stability and predictability, and only grudgingly admits the need for correction. Even the word commonly used for such correction—“regulation”—is mechanical in origin and regrettable in connotation.

Gardenbrain sees the world and democracy as an entwined set of ecosystems—sinks and sources of trust and social capital, webs of economic growth, networks of behavioral contagion. Gardenbrain forces you to conceive of the economy as man-made and effective only if well constructed and well cared-for. Gardenbrain presupposes instability and unpredictability, and thus expects a continuous need for seeding, feeding, and weeding ever-changing systems. To be a gardener is not to let nature take its course; it is to tend. It is to accept responsibility for nurturing the good growth and killing the bad. Tending and regulating thus signify the same work, but tending frames the work as presumptively necessary and beneficial rather than as something to be suffered.

Machinebrain treats people as cogs: votes to be collected by political machines; consumers to be manipulated by marketing machines; employees to be plugged into industrial machines. It is a static mindset of control and fixity, and is the basis of most of our inherited institutions, from schools to corporations to prisons.

Gardenbrain sees people as interdependent creators of a dynamic world: our emotions affect each other; our personal choices cascade into public patterns, which can be shaped but rarely controlled. It is a dynamic mindset of influence and evolution, of direction without control, and is the basis of our future.

Machinebrain allows you to rationalize atomized selfishness and a neglect of larger problems. It accepts social ills like poverty, environmental degradation, and ignorance as the inevitable outcome of an efficient marketplace. It is fatalistic and reductionist, treating change as an unnecessary and risky deviation from the norm.

Gardenbrain recognizes such social ills and the shape of our society as the byproduct of man-made arrangements. It is evolutionary and holistic, treating change as the norm, essential and full of opportunity. It leads you to acknowledge that human societies thrive only through active gardening. Gardenbrain changes everything.

Liu, Eric; Hanauer, Nick (2011-12-06). The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government (Kindle Locations 162-167). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition. 
RELATED ARTICLESExplain
Gardens of Democracy
I. Seeds
Do we see the collusions of power and wealth - or 'plutocracy'?
Machinebrain doesn't provide for adaptation
Civilizations eventually get caught in patterns that brought success
Need to Integrate Dilemmas
Outmoded ideologies don't promote Gardenbrain
Politics between old Machinebrain ideologies
Those who define the metaphors define the terms of politics
Great Citizenship - Society Becomes How You Behave
Harvest - We Reap What We Sow
Self-Government - Big What, Small How
True Capitalism - We're All Better Off When We're All Better Off
True Self-Interest Is Mutual Interest
What is democracy?
LinkedIn Discussions
Graph of this discussion
Enter the title of your article


Enter a short (max 500 characters) summation of your article
Enter the main body of your article
Lock
+Comments (0)
+Citations (0)
+About
Enter comment

Select article text to quote
welcome text

First name   Last name 

Email

Skip