Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.12.2009, Side 6

On November 14th, a total of 1.231
Icelanders gathered in the cavernous
Laugardalshöll stadium, munched on
snúðar and chatted over round tables,
each one marked off by a white bal-
loon. What felt like an immense fam-
ily reunion was actually the first ever
National Assembly, and instead of
sharing grandma’s recipes, attendees
were burdened with a Herculean task:
defining what type of society the whole
of Iceland longs for.
Orchestrated by a group of organis-
ers collectively known as the Anthill,
the one day event was founded on the
concept of ‘the wisdom of the masses.’
“No single ant has the same amount of
wisdom as the entire anthill. This phi-
losophy created the framework for the
assembly,” says Guðjón Már Guðjóns-
son, a business entrepreneur and one
of the event’s organisers. “Statistically,
this is the voice of the country. This is
Iceland.”
STARTING A DEBATE
The organisers of the National As-
sembly claim to have no motive; their
stated goal is to start a debate. “We do
this because we love our society,” says
Haukur Ingi Jónasson, an organiser
and lecturer at the University of Ice-
land’s Department of Mechanical and
Industrial Engineering. The Anthill’s
dream is make the National Assembly
a cornerstone of the Parliament, or "to
start every year with a National Assem-
bly," as Guðjón put it.
Of the roughly 1.200 individuals
who took part in this year’s assembly
(the target number was 1.500), most
were chosen at random from the na-
tional registry, although roughly 300
were specially invited as representa-
tives of municipal communities, the
parliament, private enterprises and
various political organisations. How-
ever, as soon as they entered the sta-
dium, organiser Maríanna Friðjóns-
dóttir says, "they were all nothing but
Icelanders." Participants were divided
into nine person discussion teams,
each headed by a hand-picked group
leader whose role it was to maintain
order and promote dialogue.
During the first part of the meet-
ing, participants identified values and
visions for the future of Iceland; during
the second, members discussed the
central pillars of Icelandic society, or
‘themes.’ Their goal was to find a way
to apply the values defined in the first
half of the day to the themes discussed
in the second. During the numerous
breaks between talks, attendees milled
about leisurely, shuttled back and forth
from the buffet table and did their best
to avoid the substantial number of
press people flown in to report on the
event.
WHAT WE WANT
Conference results were posted online
mere hours after the assembly closed
thanks to a crack-team of data pro-
cessors. The nine themes discussed
during the conference—education,
economy, equal rights, family, environ-
ment, public administration, welfare,
sustainability and ‘other’—yielded
roughly one hundred recommenda-
tions for the nation’s future.
Apart from a few notable requests
("Nature and resources to be owned by
the Icelandic nation!"), the vast major-
ity of suggestions skirted sensitive top-
ics, opting for statements like "improve
business ethics," "support for minori-
ties," and "transparency." The four key
values recognised by the conference—
integrity, equal rights, respect and jus-
tice—were equally diplomatic. Asked
whether the discussion ever touched
upon how to institute these changes,
a young participant replied: "No, we
mostly focused on what we want."
While the long-term effects of the
conference remain to be seen—results
are not scheduled for presentation
before Parliament—the immediate
payoffs were evident for anyone pres-
ent during the assembly: teenagers,
single mothers and elderly gentlemen
huddled around tables discussing top-
ics like education reform with grave se-
riousness; participants-turned-friends
gathered for group photos; strangers
discussed their nation’s future over pa-
per cups of meat soup. Smiles reigned
as far as the eye could see. Despite the
serious task at hand attendees were en-
joying themselves and feeling empow-
ered. “From the media you’d think that
people are reluctant, don’t want to par-
ticipate, are negative and very angry.
But you can’t feel that today—everyone
is positive and eager to take control,"
group leader Bjarney Harðardóttir
commented over the crowd.
When asked whether any heated
debates or major disagreements
erupted, participants responded in the
negative, pointing instead to the po-
lite discussions sprinkled around the
room. According to organiser Guðjón
Guðjónsson, the only glitch of the
whole conference came in the form of a
paper jam in printer number four. An
impressive feat of organisation, but not
exactly what you’d expect to hear from
1.231 people struggling to define a na-
tion in crisis.
Article | The National Assembly Opinion | Þórdís Helgadóttir & Eiríkur Kristjánsson
6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2009
A Window into Iceland ś Soul
The National Assembly asks Iceland to lie down on the couch and share its feelings.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard...
Welcome to Iceland
Here’s how to find
www.ja.is
WHAT?
WHO? WHERE?
People Businesses Maps Direction
Quick guide to the information
you need while enjoying your stay
The recent National
Assembly is a gift to
the nation claim the
organisers, who call
themselves "The Ant-
hill". The name refers to their guiding analogy:
the theory that crowds—like ant colonies—pos-
sess wisdom, or "collective intelligence," that is
inaccessible to individuals, unless it is extracted
using the methodology of market research.
The spokes-ants consistently reiterate this anal-
ogy, yet provide precious little concrete infor-
mation. Nowhere do they explain the scientific
basis of their guiding assumptions. They don’t
present a list of their foreign consultants (who,
it seems, range from business consultants to
pseudo-science (TM) mongers to theologians)
or their credentials. And they don’t demonstrate
how exactly their ideology fits the current situ-
ation in Iceland. For a state-sponsored event
meant to shape the country’s future in the long
term, this lack of information is worrying.
Do their assumptions hold up? Are crowds
wise? There is some evidence for the affirmative
in certain scenarios. Ask a diverse group of peo-
ple to estimate, say, the weight of an ox. Chances
are that the average will be much closer to the
truth than most of the individual estimates.
Threaten an anthill and it will shift to safety, with
the average Joe Six-legs none the wiser.
Now give a nation the task of articulating its
values and creating a future general policy for a
whole country. Let’s do it on Saturday, from 9 to
5. Done and done!
How does this scenario relate, even remote-
ly, to the ant and ox analogies? In each case
there is a problem to be solved. For us a national
bankruptcy and the corruption that caused it.
But was the Assembly supposed to define the
problem or come up with practical solutions?
No.
Though the organisers claim that one of
their goals was to start a discussion, the Assem-
bly itself was not set up to be a debate. Conflicts
were actively avoided and general optimism cel-
ebrated.
Basically, like ants, we should not argue
but express ourselves instinctively. Blink. Think
without thinking. Let’s generate a large jolt of
positive energy and perhaps it will deliver us a
perfect society, via the "Law of Attraction".
Neither are the individual aspects of the
Assembly’s implementation up for debate. Why,
for instance, invite a handpicked group of “influ-
ential people” as participants instead of, say, as
silent observers? Legitimate questions like this
were not open for discussion but dismissed with
clumsy excuses.
Anyway, assuming that there is such a thing
as collective intelligence in the first place, why
should this meeting reveal it any better than our
democratic elections do? At the end of the day,
the meticulously executed event boiled down to
an elaborate, 20 million ISK opinion poll.
It’s the economy a decline in the core value
system in the cultural DNA, stupid!
Attitudes towards the meeting have been over-
whelmingly positive. The government has now
formally endorsed it. Participants described
an uplifting atmosphere. Of course the nation
most depressed (per capita) about the current
Depression deserves eight hours worth of in-
spiration.
But the assembly organisers have been fair-
ly criticized for producing nothing but slogans
general enough to be useful only for political
campaigns and marketing departments (even
state church ministers immediately declared the
results a clear call for Christian institutions).
Indeed, the real product of the assembly is a
new narrative, a novel view of our navel. Iceland-
ers like their answers chiselled down to a single
word. What happened to the economy? Simple:
"Greed". What do we want instead? "Integrity".
The answer, it turns out, was hiding in plain
sight!
Value number 1: Optimism
In fact, this sort of simplicity is characteristic of
the whole endeavour. The output, available on-
line, amounts to 1) a list of abstract terms, our
"values" and 2) "future visions", sentences of 20
words or less. The meeting didn’t involve any at-
tempt to establish a consensus on the meaning
or implications of any of the terms.
Why do people like this? One suspects that
many people just don’t want to involve them-
selves in the messy analysis of what went wrong;
they don’t want to hear the complex and uncom-
fortable story, in particular when the discomfort
has less to do with our spending habits than with
our collective shortcomings as citizens of a de-
mocracy.
We want the problem to be something we
don't like. That sort of stuff is easy to leave be-
hind.
So we tell ourselves just what we want to
hear. There is something called the Essential Na-
ture of the Icelandic People. It is fundamentally
benign, and if harnessed it will save us. We were
momentarily seduced by alien forces like Greed.
We forgot our true values. But now we’ve broken
the spell and it is up to our "unique capabilities"
to save us.
These are the views and terminology preva-
lent in testimonies and promotional material of
the Assembly. What is jarring about this dis-
course is not only how nationalistic and naive it
is but that it turns out to be identical to much
of the dominant discourse before the "collapse".
Then too the Icelandic Spirit, displayed in busi-
ness practices, was evoked to explain our per-
ceived prosperity. And then too criticism was
resented and dismissed as sabotaging the good
work of industrious optimists.
Making a mountain out of an anthill?
Now, supporters may feel this is too harsh. Even
if no concrete proposals will come out of it, sure-
ly there is no direct harm in a little teambuilding
over meat-soup.
But there is harm in an event that actively
reinforces a mindset that contributed to our cur-
rent situation, while pretending to eradicate it.
In order to restore the preferred values we must
first discover why they were absent before. If
lack of integrity—corruption—is characteristic of
a society this means that more than a few people
were dishonest—by implication, more than a few
Assembly attendees. And the only possible way
to actually make integrity our society’s guiding
value is this: A lot of people must put themselves
through the painful process of acknowledging
and fixing the ways in which they lack integrity.
Could Iceland use a shift in values? Abso-
lutely. But a rally like this isn’t even a tiny step
towards such a shift. Wanting society to prize
a certain value simply has very little to do with
practicing that value. Even the most dishonest
among us want to live in a society that honours
integrity.
So instead of the team-building maybe we
would do good to practice whatever values we
really have. Perhaps the spokes-ants themselves
would like to go ahead and set a good example.
There is a bright side, however. A society
that was truly desperate would presumably have
better things to do than compiling a wish list—
just in time for Christmas—without a thought
for the cost at which their demands can be met.
They would act first and discover their unique
capabilities later.
Nominal Values
“No single ant has the
same amount of wisdom
as the entire anthill."
Check out thjodfundur2009.is for full results from the National Assembly.
LOUISE PETERSSON, MICHAEL ZELENKO
JULIA STAPLES