Retro Report

A new and slightly strange current & non-current affairs initiative. From a quick scan, it looks like a great idea. It seems like its approach mixes cold case investigation, coverage of neglected aftermaths, and some exploration of the wider sociological and historical context of news production.

"How often does a great story dominate the headlines, only to be dropped from the news cycle? How often do journalists tell us of a looming danger or important discovery – only to move quickly to the next new thing? What really happened? How did these events change us? And what are the lingering consequences that may affect our society to this day?

These are the questions we are answering at Retro Report, an innovative documentary news organization launched in 2013 as a timely online counterweight to today’s 24/7 news cycle. Combining documentary techniques with shoe-leather reporting, we peel back the layers of some of the most perplexing news stories of our past with the goal of encouraging the public to think more critically about current events and the media."

Epistemologically robust production and consumption of news seems a bit under-imagined to me. Maybe Retro Report might offer some inspiration.

From Schiller's letters on aesthetics

"The great point is, therefore, to reconcile these two considerations, to prevent physical society from ceasing for a moment in time, while the moral society is being formed in the idea; in other words, to prevent its existence from being placed in jeopardy for the sake of the moral dignity of man. When the mechanic has to mend a watch he lets the wheels run out; but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired while they act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during its revolutions. Accordingly props must be sought for to support society and keep it going while it is made independent of the natural condition from which it is sought to emancipate it.

"This prop is not found in the natural character of man, who, being selfish and violent, directs his energies rather to the destruction than to the preservation of society. Nor is it found in his moral character, which has to be formed, which can never be worked upon or calculated on by the lawgiver, because it is free and never appears. It would seem, therefore, that another measure must be adopted. It would seem that the material character of the arbitrary must be separated from moral freedom; that it is incumbent to make the former harmonize with the laws and the latter dependent on impressions; it would be expedient to remove the former still farther from matter and to bring the latter somewhat more near to it; in short, to produce a third character related to both the others—the material and the moral—paving the way to a transition from the sway of mere force to that of law, without preventing the proper development of the moral character, but serving rather as a pledge in the sensuous sphere of a morality in the unseen.

[...] Art, like science, is emancipated from all that is positive, and all that is humanly conventional; both are completely independent of the arbitrary will of man. The political legislator may place their empire under an interdict, but he cannot reign there. He can proscribe the friend of truth, but truth subsists; he can degrade the artist, but he cannot change art. No doubt, nothing is more common than to see science and art bend before the spirit of the age, and creative taste receive its law from critical taste. When the character becomes stiff and hardens itself, we see science severely keeping her limits, and art subject to the harsh restraint of rules; when the character is relaxed and softened, science endeavors to please and art to rejoice. For whole ages philosophers as well as artists show themselves occupied in letting down truth and beauty to the depths of vulgar humanity. They themselves are swallowed up in it; but, thanks to their essential vigor and indestructible life, the true and the beautiful make a victorious fight, and issue triumphant from the abyss."

From Bousquet & Curtis on complexity & IR

"The biggest error in our view would be to see in models accurate representations of specific real-world social systems and reliable tools to predict their behaviour, except in the most constrained and bounded cases, and certainly not in the case of anything as large and complex as international or national politics.

"There are several reasons for this position, some of which pertain to complex systems, others being of a more general nature. Sensitivity to initial conditions, non-linearity and feedback preclude any reliable prediction of a given social system beyond the shortest timescales, in the same way that the weather still eludes trustworthy forecasts beyond a few weeks. The study of social systems is further complicated by the reflexivity of actors capable of absorbing and adjusting to the very knowledge produced about them. Furthermore, any model requires the drawing of system boundaries that complexity has shown to be highly porous, along with necessarily arbitrary choices in the scale of analysis. Finally, models of real-world social systems frequently rely on implicit, unexamined or unacknowledged epistemological and ontological assumptions."

Bousquet, Antoine and Curtis, Simon(2011) 'Beyond models and metaphors: complexity theory, systems thinking and international relations', Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 24: 1, 43 — 62

But: surely sensitivity to initial conditions, non-linearity and feedback do not preclude any reliable prediction of any given system beyond the shortest timescales? Is that correct? (Cf. examples of physical systems that are linear & deterministic).

Is "the social" being understood as necessarily complex in the mathematical sense? If so, is it true?

Some systems are nonlinear and yet predictable (e.g. multistability).

Are there non-complex systems in the world? Or only in mathematics? Does sensitivity to initial conditions mean that an apparently non-complex system may "transform" at any moment into a complex one? (Cf. "boundaries" q.v.).

How does the idea that complex systems are inherently unpredictable relate to the idea that no predictable system is 100% predictable?

Why further complicated by the reflexivity of actors? Isn't this better understood as an aspect of the complexity of the social?