Times Of Chaos Research Articles

The Four Deaths of Acorn Whistler: Telling Stories in Colonial America by Joshua Piker (review)

Reviewed by: The Four Deaths of Acorn Whistler: Telling Stories in Colonial America by Joshua Piker Geoff Hamilton The Four Deaths of Acorn Whistler: Telling Stories in Colonial America. By Joshua Piker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2013. Four Deaths is a meticulously researched, compellingly argued, grippingly narrated account of the mid–eighteenth century mass murder of a group of Cherokee men and the subsequent execution of the crime’s ostensible mastermind, a modestly influential (and most likely innocent) Creek chieftain named Acorn Whistler. The “four deaths” of the title are the rival accounts—from imperial, national, local, and colonial perspectives—which condemned Whistler. In assessing the stakes involved in the rhetorical maneuvering over one man’s culpability, Joshua Piker ultimately provides a brilliant sketch of colonial America’s complex and explosive political dynamics, the “macroscale realities” of “international war and intranational rivalries, imperial reform and national consolidation, cross-cultural disagreements and transatlantic arguments, colonial intrigues and metropolitan politics” (10). The motives and machinations of the key storytellers are rendered vividly in Four Deaths, from the nervous diplomacy of Governor James Glen, who needed to prove his efficacy as a colonial administrator in bringing someone to justice for a horrific crime committed not simply in the middle of British South Carolina, but in earshot of the gubernatorial mansion; to the crafty politicking of Thomas Bosomworth and his mixed-race wife Mary, ambitious provincials in desperate financial straits who sought to secure lucrative land claims by establishing their value as cultural mediators between Native American and colonial worlds; to the subtle balancing of allegiances carried out by Malatchi, the Creek leader at war with the Cherokees who saw his own authority threatened by struggles between and within different local powers. The extraordinary contingency of political agency in the region emerges vividly here, along with the desperation (and mendacity) of those who felt that “in times of flux and chaos, telling the right story was more important than getting the story right” (11). Piker’s commentary on the available documentary evidence is unfailingly incisive, and his speculations, where that evidence is thin or absent, always informed and revealing. Among the most fascinating themes he develops is the striking incongruity between European and Native models of authority—the former’s centralizing logic and concern for top-down order clashing with the latter’s inveterate polycentrism and dispersed networks of influence—and the difficulties this presented for cooperation on the investigation and prosecution of a sensational crime. As Piker notes in a memorable analysis of the Creeks’ conceptual divergence from Euro-Americans, “Malatchi’s people had […] ‘no words to express despotic power, arbitrary kings, [End Page 180] oppressed or obedient subjects’ [. …] If Malatchi was to emerge as the emperor of a united Creek nation, he would do so despite the Muskogee language, not because of it” (101). The selection of Acorn Whistler as the scapegoat for a politically incendiary mass murder was prompted, Piker concludes, by “the intersection of his past and the needs of various storytellers” (26), and Four Deaths persuasively illustrates, at last, “the fluidity and uncertainty of the early modern world” and “the ordinariness of crisis in colonial America” (255). Geoff Hamilton York University, Canada Copyright © 2014 Mid-America American Studies Association

CHAOS, STRATEGY, AND ACTION: HOW NOT TO FIDDLE WHILE ROME BURNS

The US financial meltdown has changed companies' situations not just fundamentally but pervasively. Institutions and channels of supply and communication have disappeared or become unreliable; we are literally managing in chaos, and traditional notions of strategy, planning, and implementation must be (temporarily, it is to be hoped) discarded. This presentation draws on classic management theory, newer ideas, and experiences from technology companies to outline principles for managing for survival in times of chaos. It introduces new management cycles as alternatives to Fayol's classic management cycle, and a corresponding taxonomy of organizational situations, including stable, chaos, edge of chaos, and disaster. It aims for a clear synthesis suitable for management education and training.

Consistency, continuity and stability – organizational virtues or not?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose that some level of disorder in daily life can be of benefit. The article aims to draw from recent ideas suggesting that chaos in a business setting has the potential to yield rich gains, and consider how these might be applied to a therapeutic community (TC) setting.Design/methodology/approachThe authors combine sociological approaches with trends in commercial contexts to reflect on the potential implications for TC environments.FindingsThe instinctive quest for stability, control and continuity is suggested to run counter to the need for change at an organisational level. Chaos can be considered as both disorder and hidden order, each creating opportunities for positive change through a chaordic process. It is suggested that TCs are well‐suited to embrace the relational dynamic required, if they are willing to engage in this chaos organisationally.Practical implicationsThe article has a very serious and far‐reaching range of implications for TC life, in suggesting that at an organisational level TC processes should be designed to accommodate the chaordic process. Rather than the TC simply being a container in which therapeutic change happens, it is proposed that the TC itself can undergo a dynamic of discontinuous change that brings additional benefit to its members.Originality/valueThis article is intentionally interdisciplinary, embracing thinking from the social sciences, especially sociology, as well as recent examples from business and organisational theory. In bringing some of these ideas into TC life the authors are also drawing on their own research and findings from founding and running a TC, observing on numerous occasions the positive outcomes following times of chaos, disorder and upheaval in the lives of clients and the TC.

Managing Patient Support and Education During Times of Extreme Health Crisis and Chaos

Hospitals are places of crisis and chaos, but no one expects the kind of turmoil we all experienced this past year with the H1N1 epidemic. Being able to reach patients quickly with updates and information becomes vital in such a situation. However, most hospitals do not have a fast and easy way to reach their patients. They can post information on hospital websites or call all of their patients, but those are inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly propositions that do not allow for targeted messages.

Facilitating Cooperation During Times Of Chaos: Spontaneous Orders And Muddling Through In Malinau District, Indonesia

Wollenberg, E., R. Iwan, G. Limberg, M. Moeliono, S. Rhee, and M. Sudana. 2007. Facilitating cooperation during times of chaos: spontaneous orders and muddling through in Malinau District, Indonesia. Ecology and Society 12(1): 3. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01943-120103

Why We Need to Govern Well

In times of chaos, change, adversity, and even plenty - good governance should hold the centre, so as to hold things together. But the concept of 'governance' is not new. It is as old as human civilisation itself. Put simply, 'governance' means: the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented). And hence good governance is equally as relevant and important to the Tax Office, as it is to you.

Plagues, Priests, and Demons: Sacred Narratives and the Rise of Christianity in the Old World and the New by Daniel T. Reff (review)

REVIEWS 292 ops straddled the line between their social class and position, represented by pragmatic authority, and their pastoral activities, represented by ascetic authority . Yet at times, the narrative becomes disjointed, especially when moving from subject to subject in the laundry list of episcopal responsibilities, and some questions which are raised, namely about the intersection of these two versions of authority, never seem to be fully explained. This may be a symptom of the expansiveness of the topic and the sheer volume which makes simple definitions impossible. This is a very small critique of a work which was both expertly perceived and well executed. In many ways, Holy Bishops is most important as it successfully overturns a number of generally accepted fallacies, namely, that the ascetic movement and episcopal administration were at odds with one another, when it is clear from the evidence that not only did holy men take up episcopal positions, but bishops were themselves expected to be, and could derive authority from, the holiness of their own lives, while they themselves were responsible for a growing number of tasks, both spiritual and administrative. While the exact position of bishops with respect to ascetic practice or pragmatic power can not be universally determined, we are left with an understanding that in late antiquity bishops were not compartmentalized in their political, ecclesiastical, or spiritual spheres, but relied on all three to navigate in a world wrought with change and transformation. Holy Bishops not only provides a detailed study of bishops and their role in their society, but also redefines how one should understand leadership and power in this world, and how it may have been perceived by those who inhabited it. EDWARD MCCORMICK SCHOOLMAN, History, UCLA Daniel T. Reff, Plagues, Priests, and Demons: Sacred Narratives and the Rise of Christianity in the Old World and the New (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005) xiii + 290 pp., 17 figs. This book offers a fresh interpretation of the rise of Christianity in both late antique Europe and colonial Mexico. While drawing on much of the same information presented in his Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Change in Northwestern New Spain, 1518–1764, which charts the demographic and cultural consequences of Spanish-introduced infectious diseases in northwest Mexico beginning in the sixteenth century, this “comparative, interdisciplinary study” examines the rise of Christianity in both the late Roman Empire and colonial Mexico. By drawing these parallels, Reff argues that epidemics, which devastated both areas, contributed to pagan and native interest in Christianity, since early Christian and Jesuit missionaries provided charity, prayer, a new worldview, and healing rituals that appealed to people in these times of chaos. Written in a clear, engaging prose style, Reff draws on sources and ideas from anthropology, literary theory, history, religious studies, and medicine. His evidence includes a large body of primary sources (early Christian and seventeenth -century Jesuit texts), ranging from hagiography to first-hand observations by the missionaries. The book is organized into four chapters and a conclusion. Reff divides each chapter into multiple sub-headings and sub-sections, which convey to readers the main point(s) presented in each chapter; at times, however, this structure REVIEWS 293 interrupts the flow of the chapter. The conclusions at the end of each chapter provide a brief and helpful recapitulation of the main themes and ideas discussed . In addition, extensive footnotes supplement his text, and display the vast amount of information Reff has synthesized. His introduction presents a detailed overview of his methodology, goals, and arguments to be implemented and discussed in later chapters. And he addresses the theories he draws on, those of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Clifford Geertz, and James Clifford. Using anthropologist Edward M. Bruner’s “constructivist” approach, Reff “sees all culture as continually invented and reinvented.”11 Another motif that is constantly evoked is Barthes’s notion of punctum,12 “unplanned narrative details that reflect an irreducible reality obscured by an author ’s understanding of what is important” (239), which Reff searches for in early Christian and Jesuit texts. In other words, disease and epidemics are puncta, as early Christian and Jesuit authors were not directly concerned with outlining the effects of these biological disasters...

Equality and Democratic Societies

Why should I surrender my private liberties and rights to collective interests? This question has long been fundamental to political thought, particularly since the Enlightenment. Any just political order must in some way manage tensions between members' public obligations and their individual private liberties and interests. Political theorists have explicated various models of the ways polities understand this tension. Jurgen Habermas argues, for example, that while Lockean liberalism interprets human rights, under the rule of law, as the basic expression of moral self-determination, Aristotelian civic republicanism adopts popular sovereignty as the basic expression of communal self-realization (1996:99; 1998a:258). In liberal systems citizens fear the tyranny of the majority and emphasize the human rights of all citizens, while civic republican traditions prioritize civic self-organization such that human rights are binding only as elements of a consciously appropriated tradition (Michelman 1988:1499ff.). Actual socio-economic conditions, however, can cause a shift in focus. Times of material abundance and relative prosperity often shift political systems towards the promotion and securing of private liberties; times of material shortage or political chaos tend to tilt the balance in favor of public obligations to ensure the welfare and security of citizens. Some political thinkers, such as Max Horkheimer, Niklaus Luhmann, and Werner Becker, argue that the causes of these shifts can be explained solely in socio-economic terms. Habermas characterizes such models generally as those that tend toward the "materialization" of law (1998a: 262). Such models tend to emphasize the primacy of welfare rights for the citizenry. Other theorists, however, tend to eschew the notion that this shifting balance is explainable by material or historical factors. Instead they conceptualize the relative differences between liberty and obligation in a more abstract sense. They develop models based on rational choice considerations, reasonableness standards, principles of autonomy, or contract theories. If one were to take a sample of at least some of the better known of these contemporary theorists (e.g., John Rawls, Robert Nozick, T.M. Scanlon), one would be compelled to conclude that for the most part they bestow a highly qualified conceptual priority on private liberties over public obligations. They insist that, ceteris paribus, individual freedoms ought not be sacrificed in the interest of promoting an organized, wealthy, or homogenous society. The material well being of individuals generally is secondary to their autonomy. I shall take as basic for any political theory of democracy, however, the presumption of equality among all of its citizens. This is obviously the principle behind the "one man one vote" principle, the staple of all modern democracies. Given this presumption of equality, each citizen is numerically one, and thus unique, among the many of the same citizenry. As might be expected, the materialist and non-materialist strains of political theory evince a predictable disagreement about what counts as democratic equality. A classic materialist about equality is Marx. One might think that, as a committed socialist, he would have embraced a notion of abstract equality of all citizens. But instead, he characterized equality as the most bourgeois of concepts: "during the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty, etc., were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie, the concepts freedom, equality" (4:60-61). Political equality is nothing but an abstraction, conceiving citizens under a universal self-consciousness (3:312). Moreover, he argues that, like any other practical concept, equality is merely an idea the ruling class imposes on the lower class. Marx turns instead to the phenomenon of human labor to find a material notion of equality. There he discovers a "homogenous human labour-power" operative in all forms of production (35:48). …

The Dream of the Millennium

The Dream of the Millennium

The rhythm of relating in a paradigm of wholeness.

The importance of relating to the rhythm of another person's interactive pattern is integral to helping people move through illness and disruptive events. At times of chaos, a person's rhythm may be irregular and difficult to sense, but transformation to higher levels of organization often occurs at far-from-equilibrium states. Nurses should develop a tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty and "hang in there" with clients until a new rhythm emerges.

ORDER OUT OF CHAOS: LEADERSHIP FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Leadership is about change. Organizations, especially educational institutions, are currently experiencing revolutionary, not evolutionary, change. Change is so widespread, so fast and unsettling, that it is not incremental; it is chaotic. In times of chaos and change, an effective leader must not only be able to cope with the environment, but also be able to shape it. In this article, we (a) describe change in the current chaotic environment; (b) discuss what leadership is and is not; (c) illustrate relationships among chaos, order, leadership, and organizational success; and (d) suggest four specific skills for leadership effectiveness and organizational success. The old ways of managing and organizing are no longer effective. The environment calls for a different set of leadership skills than those that might have sufficed in less turbulent times.

Lonely Search into the Unknown: T’ien Han’s Early Plays, 1920–1930

No modern Chinese dramatist enjoyed greater popularity in the 1920's than T'ien Han. One reason for T'ien Han's popularity was his ability to identify his plays with the mood and temperament of those times of chaos, confusion and uncertainty. T'ien Han's plays not only reflected the times, but they also did much to influence them, a fact acknowledged by Yuan Muchih of the Hsin Yu Drama Society, an eminent figure in the development of modern drama in China: