Barry Clemson

Barry Allen Clemson (born 1941) is an American cybernetician. His work experience includes custom manufacturing, community development (in the US and India), software development, university research and teaching, starting a construction company, consulting, and writing a novel. His academic career was in educational administration (University of Maryland and University of Maine) and engineering management (Old Dominion University)

During his first academic post, at the University of Maryland, Clemson was elected President of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC).^[1] At that time there was a split within the American cybernetics community, with some who had been members of the ASC having joined a new group called the American Cybernetics Association (ACA). Working with Larry Heilprin and Klaus Krippendorff, the three of them were able to merge the two groups and arrange for an election in which Stuart Umpleby was elected as president. Umpleby was able to rejuvenate the ASC and put it onto a trajectory which continues to this day.

Key experiences

Alaska wilderness

In 1948, shortly before his seventh birthday, Clemson’s family, with siblings aged six, four and six months, moved from the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area to a wilderness homestead two miles north of Anchor Point, Alaska. Anchor Point consisted of a couple of families and a tiny trading post. The nearest road was 20 miles away in Homer and Homer could be reached only by boat or plane. They spent the first summer in a tent and the following two years in a log cabin with a dirt floor. Water came from a spring a hundred yards away (during the summer) and from melted snow in winter. Food was largely hunted (mostly moose) or from the garden. After guiding the dog sled home from school, chores included splitting wood. Wilderness Alaska nurtured a love of nature and required both self-sufficiency and lots of responsibility at a very early age.

Mississippi Freedom Summer

Clemson spent almost a year (June 1964 to April 1965) in Mississippi working on voter registration with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This project was transformative for most of the volunteers who participated,^[2][3] and it definitely was for Clemson.^[4] Colleagues like Fannie Lou Hamer vividly and dramatically lived out the fundamental truth that freedom is a state of mind that has nothing to do with one’s external circumstances. One always has choices, one can always decide what he or she will or will not do.

During Clemson's work on voter registration his car was shot, a motorcycle cop tried to run over him, he was attacked by two men, another man threatened to kill him with a rifle, and he three times managed to (briefly) integrate Alabama jails. Several times he expected to die but was never even injured. These experiences are recounted in his "Mississippi Freedom Summer: An autobiographical fragment"

Ecumenical Institute^[5]

From 1969 to 1972 Clemson was a Fellow of the Ecumenical Institute, now called the Institute of Cultural Affairs, at their base in Chicago. The Ecumenical Institute had two main thrusts: community development and renewal of local congregations. The Institute was truly ecumenical, with members from many different Christian denominations and also Jews and Hindus. The Institute understood that fundamental change in societal institutions required a deep spiritual component. The Fellows of the Ecumenical Institute lived as a religious order, under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Management Cybernetics

By the time Clemson finished a bachelor's degree in science (1965), he was convinced that large organizations were crucial in the struggle for a more just society. A masters in political science and a PhD in organization theory followed.^[6] During the masters program, Clemson read a paper by the management cybernetician, Stafford Beer, and was fascinated. Cybernetics presented laws and principles that applied to all complex systems, including human, biological, and physical systems. This paper started a journey into complex systems that continues today and is the reason he considers himself a management cybernetician.

Strategic Nonviolence

Clemson spent ten years running a small construction company after several other, more “intellectual” careers. This ten years of “wandering in the desert” culminated with the realization that all of his varied experiences had equipped him to write a specific kind of novel, a novel that would vividly make the case for the practicality of strategic nonviolence, especially as articulated by Dr. Gene Sharp. The first novel, Denmark Rising, tells the story of how Denmark used strategic nonviolence to resist the Nazi occupation during World War II. The novel garnered rave reviews as a vivid, compelling story that convincingly shows the Danes holding their own against Hitler.

Healing Prayer

Clemson watched his wife, Reverend Dr. Mary Clemson, heal people by praying for them. Mostly out of curiosity, Clemson went through a week of training in healing prayer with Francis MacNutt. Dr. Francis MacNutt has more than 30 years experience with healing prayer, has written half a dozen influential books on the subject, conducts healing prayer training seminars all over the world, and is the head of Christian Healing Ministries. At Mary’s insistence he then prayed for a woman who for many years had been unable to lift her arm above shoulder height. The woman immediately regained the full range of motion and six years later still has full range of motion. Their church now has a major emphasis on healing prayer and dramatic healings occur on a regular basis. As a scientist, Clemson says he has given up trying to understand the efficacy of healing prayer except that the faith of the sick person doesn’t seem to have much to do with whether or not they are healed.

Major publications

In Clemson’s opinion, he has published only two important works:

1. An introduction to the managerial cybernetics of Stafford Beer. This book, “Cybernetics: a new management tool”,^[7] is one of the most easily understood introductions to the subject for those who are new to systems theory and cybernetics.
2. “Denmark Rising”^[8] is a novel that describes Denmark using strategic nonviolence in a campaign of resistance to Hitler during World War II. The novel is quite effective in convincing the reader that nonviolence could be used effectively even against Hitler.

Continuing passions

Long-term viability of humankind

Long-term viability requires dealing with a host of difficult, inter-related crises including but not limited to over-population, ecosystem degradation and species extinction, global warming / climate change, resource shortages, gross inequality and lack of justice, and wars. If civilization is to survive we need systemic / cybernetic thinking and policies.

Effective Governance

There is little hope of achieving long-term viability of humankind without effective governance. Government by tyranny obviously doesn’t work (and never can work because it lacks requisite variety^[9] ). Unfortunately, the democratic governments currently in existence are also largely failing. For a number of years, Clemson has been involved with systems scientists and cyberneticians from around the world who are grappling with the issue of how we might achieve more effective and more truly democratic forms of governance.

Recent activities

Triumph Community Church

Clemson, along with his wife and a few others, ran a “children’s church” for the youth in a large public housing project.^[10][11][12] The children’s church lasted seven years, caring for roughly fifty children during most of that time. Many of these children had no responsible adults in their lives. The church moved out of the housing project a few years ago and shifted its focus from a “children’s church” to an emphasis on healing prayer in one of the poorer neighborhoods of our city. Clemson has served as the administrator for Triumph Community Church since its inception.

System Thinking World Journal

Clemson is the editor for the on-line, peer-reviewed journal for Systems Thinking World,^[13] an online community of roughly 20,000 people interested in systems thinking and cybernetics.

Aikido

Aikido, the “way of harmony” or the “way of love” depends upon moving in harmony with the attacker. Succeeding in “moving in harmony with the attacker” will throw that person across the room with essentially no effort. It is the most cybernetic of the martial arts and Clemson has loved it since he began training almost 20 years ago.

Publishing and Teaching

As of 2014, there are several novels in various stages of development and a series of online courses on management cybernetics are being prepared.

Family

Clemson is married to Reverend Dr. Mary Clemson. Their combined family includes five children, nine grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren (as of 2014). His parents, now in their nineties, are again living in Alaska where Clemson grew up.

Favorite Quotes

Clemson insists that the following quotes tell you where his center is.

"Its not how much you do, its how much love you put into it … Do small things with great love." -- Mother Teresa^[14] --

"The entire cosmos waits to see what vision we commit to." -- Matthew Fox—The Ontological Covenant,^[15] from Thomas Berry, might serve as the foundation for a cybernetic ethic. The following quotes provide a sense of the Ontological Covenant:

• Law of viability. For a species to remain viable it must establish a niche that is beneficial both for itself and for the larger community.^[16]
• Diversity corollary: the only security for any species is the diversity of the comprehensive community of life. As soon as diversity diminishes, then security for each life form is weakened.^[17]
• Identity corollary: The various life forms are so intimately related that nothing is itself without everything else. Nothing exists in isolation.^[18]
• Reciprocity corollary: Any being can benefit only if the larger context of its existence benefits. Whoever receives must also give.” ^[18]

References