From information control to creative chaos

pp. 49-68

in: Feiwel Kupferberg, The break-up of communism in East Germany and Eastern Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999

Abstract

One of the least studied issues in the transition process is the problem of mental adaptation from a situation of information control to creative chaos. What makes this adaptation so difficult is the systemic interconnectedness of the previously prevailing policy. The inherited lack of an advanced informational infrastructure due to a consistent policy of information control (from lack of telephone books, accurate street maps and complete library information systems to inadequacy of telecommunication networks and lack of modern pc-equipment) is fairly easy to solve technically, as it presents a type of problem with which we are well acquainted. It can thus be coped with at quite low cost (leading to a sizeable increase of order, without accompanying chaos).