[ALST-L] AMERICAN CONFUSION FROM VIETNAM TO KOSOVO MARCH 2-MARCH 4, 2001

[William R. Taylor]

(Please post, and distribute to your email lists)
AMERICAN CONFUSION FROM VIETNAM TO KOSOVO
Coping with Chaos in High Places

A weekend program
Based on a forthcoming book of the same title

March 2-4, 2001 Woolman Hill, New England Quaker Center, (address at end)

"In these days of confusion in experts, we all need to become experts in
confusion."

Goals:

    I'll introduce a model of confusion dynamics, the vicious cycle in which
sources of confusion (information overload, complexity, ambiguity, etc.}
evoke ineffective coping tactics (lies, jargon, spin, oversimplification,
polarization.) These tactics worsen the original sources, and some
confounded elites then begin emitting lethal decay products.
    We'll run OPERATION MEDICI, a simulation exercise illustrating the
dynamics via a three-country political and military crisis.
    I'll apply the model to the Johnson administration's confusion during
the decision to escalate the US involvement in the Vietnam War in 1965.
    We'll examine my successes and failures in using fuzzy cognitive maps to
forecast events in real time during the US/NATO bombing campaign against
Serbia, 1999. (Those predictions are still on my site -see below.)
    Participants will test for themselves whether a knowledge of confusion
dynamics can increase empathy between opposing factions.

The presenter: I'm William R. Taylor, M.D., a retired civilian psychiatrist
with twenty years' experience in tracking confusion dynamics in the media
and in my own life. I spent two years in the Vietnam era as a Navy
psychiatrist in Philadelphia, caring for Marines, sailors and their
families.

You'll find an earlier version of confusion dynamics, and the 1999 Kosovo
forecasts, on my site: http://users.neca.com/williamtaylor

Participate!  To register and to get more information, call

USA  (413) 774-3431 or email     WoolmanH at gis.net
_________________________________

WOOLMAN HILL
New England Quaker Center
107 Keets Road
Deerfield, Massachusetts, USA



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