Tea Party: Open-Source Movement or Tyranny of Structurelessness
A month ago I posted a link to the essay on how unstructured movements quickly become more tyrannical than the organizations they are protesting. This might be well worth remembering as one reads this rather interesting essay that proclaims the Tea Party Movement the first open-source political movement. I dispute the foundational belief that the Tea Party is leaderless as it has been well-documented that a large part of the movement is bankrolled by conservative advocacy groups.
Let’s go with the premise that this is an open source movement. Open source may work well for software projects where there is a clear goal and the benefits are fully realized. That doesn’t translate into politics as it may take time and compromise to realize some benefits. Anger may be good for short bursts of activity but what is the focus of the Tea Party movement? What will sustain the movement after the anger fades?
If we continue the open source analogy, the ultimate fate of the Tea Party movement could be that it will be abandoned in favor of the newer open source political movement. Or the Tea Party movement could have some success that will attract political professionals who will come in with their high-paid advice to make the movement even more successful by offering a premium version of the movement (while keeping a free but functionally-limited version).
Casting this in neuroscientific terms: movements based on the amygdala may start faster and build faster but they don’t have the staying power of a movement built on the prefrontal cortex.
Tags: amygdala, open source, prefrontal cortex, Tea Party