David Peat

150 From Certainty to UncertaintyActionIf we can never have total certainty, and if our abilities to predict andcontrol the world around us are inherently limited, then the metaphorof chaos theory will lead us to rethink what it means to take correctiveaction. What does it mean to make plans, execute policies, and aim atgoals in a world that always contains a measure of uncertainty andambiguity? In short, what guidance can chaos theory give us when wefeel the need to take action?Newspapers write of fighting crime, the war on drugs, the war onwant, and now the war on terrorism. Doctors speak of taking aggressivemeasures in fighting a disease. Issues are to be challenged and confronted.The rhetoric of combat, conflict, and aggression is all aroundus and seems unnecessarily violent, considering that these are issuesregarding social and medical matters. It suggests a mindset desperateto retain control over each and every situation, so that deviation froma preconceived plan, goal, or ideal is seen as involving something akinto a moral lapse that requires correction and punishment. Action ofthis nature cannot tolerate uncertainty. It uses the language of confrontation,a language in which problems are to be dominated and overcome.Such rhetoric is also used to whip up support at elections bysuggesting that a wrong or inherent evil has been pinpointed and, likean enemy, is going to be beaten to its knees. This same rhetoric placesissues and problems as lying outside us. It seeks to apportion blame toextraneous factors and is tailor-made for the creation of the “other”—ethnic, social, economic, or religious—group that can then be blamedfor all of society’s ills. Scapegoating has been going on for millennia. Itis easier and more convenient to lump people together under a flag,skin color, or religion than it is to take into account the wide range ofhuman individuality and diversity.Once again we encounter a central issue of this book. It is that ofobjectifying the world and attempting to stand outside a system as asupposed omniscient observer. It is the action of distancing oneselfand seeing the world in terms of “problems” and “solutions,” instead ofrealizing that societies, cities, nations, and economic systems are immersedin complex webs of meaning that give them their cohesion and