Big chunks of Ice are not tools for complex systems thinking
Why a chart is dead in the water and just tropes of the iceberg for cultural studies
“Did you hear about the Cop who arrested an innocent Iceberg, because he thought it looked like the one that sunk the Titanic?”
“He was fired for Glacial Profiling.”
This quip with its play on words, is a relevant intro because some visuals of icebergs relating to the names of murdered Black Americans have been doing the rounds, and headlines repeatedly report the line: ‘the death of George Floyd at the hands of police is the tip of the iceberg’.
Stories about experienced racism includes ridicule through jokes and banter, but it is no laughing matter to the millions who suffer from its very real prejudice and extreme violence. Saturated with memes and serious stranger than fiction scenarios, how could we find wisdom from all the false flags and folly?
This essay addresses the implications of why an erroneous misuse of a metaphor is doing no favours for those seeking to change systems.
A humorous serendipity in all of this, is that my annoyance of the iceberg model, became a tip towards deeper research into anthropology — the study of what makes us human. So where do we begin if we want to transform our corrupted institutions?
Let’s break the ice?
We use visual language to help us grasp concepts that are beyond easy answers or individual limits. Understandably, people will by default illustrate the magnitude of wicked problems by pointing at enormous objects to explain the bigger picture.
The iceberg is frequently used as an analogy to refer to the different layers of culture from the visible and explicit to the hidden and unseen. This makes sense for the story of journalist and novelist Ernest Hemingway who wrote:
If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.
Yes, people will want to know about the whole story, and that there’s gaps that need to be filled, or discoveries to be made. It is claimed that the iceberg model ‘is a valuable tool to encourage systemic thinking and help you contextualize an issue as part of a whole system.’
Nevertheless, the question remains — but to what practical tangible ends? Especially if the subject matter is not the interpretation of artful prose but more interrelated historical narratives. It is possible that we are missing the point altogether by using an abstraction for more multiplex scenarios.
When presented with iceberg charts, they are frequently annotated into parts:
Supposedly, we have to look at the visible tip (1) The Event, as it is connected to the rest of its underlying factors, such as (2) patterns of behaviour, (3) systems structures, and (4) mental models.
To determine whether the metaphor works, I considered the actual physical properties of an iceberg:
- Icebergs do not just appear by itself.
They do not just grow from underwater segments below and emerge from the sea as an ice formation. Icebergs are large pieces of floating frozen freshwater that have broken off a glacier or an ice shelf.
When we review the arbitrary sections of these iceberg models, what is obvious is that researchers may have repurposed the hierarchical triangle template. Each type of iceberg not only has its own variety of mass, its solid qualities are not exactly suitable for references to the more fluid phenomenon of organic behaviour, specifically that of humans.
- Icebergs are not problems to be solved.
Regarding the ‘mental models’ question of ‘what values, assumptions and beliefs shape the system’ — how is the concept of a submerged bottom tip meant to equip us into configuring solutions?
Let’s imagine that we want to change the outcome of the visible event; are we meant to crack the obstacles by chipping away at the proverbial ice? Where does one re-design or alter its shape? Moreover, the notion of ‘leverage’ is incredulous. The lever is a tool for getting more work done with less physical force. It also refers to non-physical situations, regarding the power to move or influence others.
If we seek alternative outcomes, one does not reconstruct the iceberg from beneath as if it was a pyramid block. What are the conditions that an iceberg is exposed to? What affects does the water and the sky have on it?
- Icebergs tend to melt.
Of course this is what happens to ice when it is subjected to natural phenomenon like temperatures around it, releasing stored minerals into the water as it dissolves. They are in fact mobile homes for a variety of organisms, and despite its frozenness are incredible hotspots of life for phytoplankton, diatoms (algae) and other invertebrates.
One can appreciate the monolithic metaphor that there are hidden deeper issues beneath the surface of an iceberg, but like the common lettuce variety, there’s really not much sustenance to it. Instead of a more comprehensive process, is it possible that bad visuals create poor frameworks that lead us to think in the usual linear fashion?
If we truly want to encourage systemic thinking, rather than allocating an iceberg imaginary layers, theorists should instead place the formation within its settings. If the iceberg is the issue, its context is therefore within its wider environment, which is the rest of the cryosphere.
We cannot rely on readymade simplified charts for mapping out the interconnectedness of events to systemic behaviours and idealogical foundations. It’s great that there is plenty of supplied designs in stock image libraries, but we must refrain from automatically copying and pasting templates without robust analytical frameworks.
This settles the end of the iceberg model, which should probably stay in the realm of scientific conversations on climate change, rather than as a means to depict social conflicts and unrest.
Let’s identify relevant resources for cultural analysis!
When I scrutinised another explanation for why people seem to persist in using the ‘Iceberg Model’, for some reason it has been attributed to the written works by American anthropologist Edward Hall.
In The Silent Language, Hall asserted that using the iceberg analogy “was inadequate to describe the cultural picture”. His call to action, was/is for people to be educated in recognising what is explicit and implicit, overt and covert — and distinguish different dimensions of culture; what is surface, internal, unconscious? Hall was most discerning about the application of various logic-based models:
“All theoretical models are incomplete. By definition, they are abstractions and therefore leave things out… Models have a half life — some are ephemeral, others last for centuries”
For fans of the Sherlock Holmes TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch [Watch from 2:14], what’s special about the famous detective of 221b Baker Street is his incredible powers of observation. Holmes is highly skilled in extracting maximum context from nonverbal communication and evidence based awareness. This expert talent might admittedly be unique, but it’s feasible such investigative skills can be learned with training.
What we need to salvage from the depths of academia, are not static superficial diagrams, but more generative ideas that continue to evolve. If we push to squeeze an additional lesson from the iceberg, it’s not the symbol for the bigger picture, but rather a component that is a part of something more encompassing. It’s important to have awareness of how methodologies or techniques should be implemented. Toolkits for systemic thinking must appraise the immersive realities of cultural communications.
This mindset towards paying attention to details, is reminiscent of another approach for The Interpretation of Cultures. In his essays, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz admits the influence of the sociologist Max Weber, and discusses the need for semiotics, the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
“Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun… I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.”
The cognitive effort required from activists and game-changers is towards the “thick description” — to diligently improve the vocabulary for strategic thinking, in order to categorise different types of cultural landscapes and social systems.
When Beyond Culture was published in 1976, Hall was himself evidently concerned about the troubled race relations in America. He believed that intercultural knowledge was necessary if societies sought to resolve complications that are both local and global in scope. Hence he advocated the urgency for an educational agenda towards cultural literacy.
Even with all the information technology platforms available today, to what extent are populations really conscious of their innate cultural characteristics beyond stereotypes? Each ethnic group is often confident in the assumptions that their context of belonging is ‘the only way’; its members tend to react from bewilderment to downright antagonism when faced with the same assumptions by another different collective. Arguably, a great deal of people might be oblivious to the context within which they operate. Can we expect an individual to be conscientious about others when they are probably still estranged from themselves?
The notion of ‘self-awareness’ through personal development has become more acceptable, but isn’t quite as mainstream as we are led to believe. More privileged members of societies might have embraced habits of mindfulness and meditation, but we’ve yet to witness the mass transformational makeover of national identities that aren’t anchored on economic growth and gross domestic product.
Let’s move one step forward, two steps back…
If the iceberg was the MacGuffin for this article, the unsung hero of the story is our cross-cultural researcher Edward Hall — who rubbed shoulders with noteworthy and contemporary peers, such as the philosopher Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message) and systems theorist Buckminster Fuller (Spaceship Earth).
As an anthropologist, it’s only natural that Hall’s interests would include psychological aspects of culture as identity and personality. He diagnosed even then that the human condition involves being freed ‘from the grip of unconscious culture’. He remarked:
“One wonders how many individuals who have been forced to adjust to the eight-hour, nine-to-five schedules have sacrificed their creativity, and what the social and human cost of this sacrifice has been.”
Hall’s brilliance was introducing fancy terms that are worthy of an intellectual flashback, even if they sound like science-fiction subjects. Hall instigated the study of Proxemics (non-verbal use of space) and Extension Transference (things humans create to extend themselves, i.e. tech and systems). Hall was already writing about how ordinary working citizens’ lives were subordinated by business and demands of monochronic time.
The status anxiety that is endemic in this 21st century isn’t news. It’s acknowledged as mental health issues, stress, burnout and depression — but this was already the atmosphere even before the world wide web was launched in 1989. Perhaps the tragedy here is that in some ways, this future is still stuck in the past.
Hall warned his readers about the dangers in the evolution of mankind ‘by extension’, that this process would also be ‘the principal source of alienation from self and heritage.’ In summary, people have identified themselves too much with the prosthesis they have made, and consequently have become out of touch with their natural capacities.
Charlie Chaplin dramatically delivers this as a speech in 1940 film The Great Dictator, that should be memorised:
We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives us abundance has left us in want
Our knowledge has made us cynical
Our cleverness, hard and unkind
We think too much, and feel too little
More than machinery, we need humanity
More that cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness
Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost
The saying goes ‘it’s a poor craftsman that blames their tools’ and maybe this remains true, given that people tend to point the condemning finger at an external other, some extension, whether it’s this system or that institution, or this gadget. At the same time we have forgotten how to handle situations without the technologies we created to assist us in the first place. Possessing a hammer, doesn’t mean everything has to be a nail. Indeed:
“Just as the knife cuts but does not chew, while the lens does only a portion of what the eye can do, extensions are reductionist in their capability.”
We should be accountable for our choices, and be careful when selecting our tools for problem-solving. We can dismantle the outdated iceberg, topple down defunct public statues, and defund organisations, but systemic changes must have a supply of alternatives to substitute whatever we decide to remove. The task is not just being skilled at systems thinking, it’s vital we figure out what the synthesised thinkings of old and new will be.
Let’s evolve from the apple, ape and android culture.
The homework for everybody is that we create updated situational inventories of pre-existing and emergent cultures. Things are already unravelling, so what if our questions are less about going back in time, and focus instead on a range of options for weaving the threads anew.
To go back to the beginning of how my peeve with a chart expanded into this discourse — I noticed conversations about police brutality talk about ‘a few bad apples’… For clarification, the full idiom, is that ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’ — which means just the one taints the whole bunch. It cannot be used an excuse to dismiss the few as an anomaly, because the point is that any infection and infestation ruins the rest. We’ll have to draft new visions and representations of hybrid actualities that transcend all that we inherited from the ancient days of Adam & Eve to Darwinian biological survivalism and soulless Bullshit Jobs Industries.
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” — Mahatma Gandhi
The sages throughout time, have always insisted that the secret for systemic change was not somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight. It certainly is not to be found in a remote iceberg.
To conclude, perhaps one is tired of hearing truisms, yet the answers we seek are really closer to home, under our nose, and on the ground we stand on. Culture / Cultura is from ‘growing, cultivation’. In late Middle English the context was ‘cultivation of the soil’, which then became the cultivation of the mind, faculties, or manners.
We always wanted ‘The New Changes’ delivered yesterday, but we’re only going to get new outcomes by planting those seeds with every today, carefully creating reformed spaces, and going back to source, toiling the social fields for us all to grow and thrive in.
Some recommendations for what next?
- Watch: Star Trek Voyager’s Memorial [S6 E14]
- Guide to Mapping the Terrain: The Blind Spot — Uncovering the Grammar of the Social Field by Otto Scharmer
- WTF would Jesus do?! Might be worth revisiting the wise thoughts of a rebellious influencer against the oppressive domination of The Roman Empire: The Parable of The Workers in the Vineyard, Parable of the Sower and other Parables
Hi, I’m Rina. I teach History & Context for art students at Kingston University and I’m also a strategist for hire. I like untangling situations by synthesising the strategic with the scholarly and spiritual. [Holy Hand Grenades is also a fresh newsletter, and I tweet as @eevilmidget]
