Barry Clemson

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Barry Allen Clemson (born 1941) is an American cybernetician. His work experience includes custom manufacturing, community development (in the US and India), software development, university research and teaching, starting a construction company, consulting, and writing a novel.

Early history

Born in 1941, Clemson spent his early childhood in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area. He had three siblings. In 1948, the family to a wilderness homestead near Anchor Point, Alaska. After guiding the dog sled home from school, Clemson split wood and performed other chores..

Clemson worked from June 1964 to April 1965 in Mississippi on voter registration with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). [1] While in Mississippi, Clemson's car was shot, a motorcycle policeman allegedly tried to run over him, he was attacked by two men, and another man threatened to shoot him. In 1965, Clemson finished a bachelor's degree in science ,

From 1969 to 1972 Clemson was a Fellow of the Ecumenical Institute in Chicago. He then completed a masters in political science and a PhD in organization theory.

Management Cybernetics

During his masters program, Clemson became interested in management cybernetics after reading a paper Stafford Beer. During his first academic post, at the University of Maryland, Clemson was elected President of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC). [2] At that time some ASC members joined a new group called the American Cybernetics Association (ACA).

Working with Larry Heilprin and Klaus Krippendorff, the three of them were able to merge the two groups and arrange for an election in which Stuart Umpleby was elected as president.

Clemson later worked in educational administration at the University of Maine and in engineering management at Old Dominion University.

Strategic Nonviolence

After his academic posts, Clemson spent ten years running a small construction company. During this time, he became interested in the practicality of strategic nonviolence, especially as articulated by Dr. Gene Sharp.

Clemso wrote his first novel, Denmark Rising, about how the people of Denmark used strategic nonviolence to resist the Nazi occupation during World War II.

Healing Prayer

Clemson went through a week of training in healing prayer with Francis MacNutt. At his wife's insistence, he then prayed for a woman who for many years had been unable to lift her arm above shoulder height. The woman reportedly immediately regained the full range of motion..

Publications

Recent activities

Triumph Community Church

Clemson and his wife helped run ran a “children’s church” in a large public housing project. [3] [4] [5] The children's church lasted seven years, caring for roughly fifty children during most of that time. The church moved out of the housing project a few years ago and became Triumph Community Church. Clemson served as its administrator.

Their church now has a major emphasis on healing prayer.

System Thinking World Journal

Clemson is the editor for the on-line, peer-reviewed journal for Systems Thinking World, [6] an online community of roughly 20,000 people interested in systems thinking and cybernetics.

Family

Clemson is married to Reverend Dr. Mary Clemson. Their combined family includes five children, nine grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren (as of 2014).

Favorite Quotes

Clemson insists that the following quotes tell you where his center is.

"It's not how much you do, its how much love you put into it … Do small things with great love." -- Mother Teresa [7] --

"The entire cosmos waits to see what vision we commit to." -- Matthew Fox—The Ontological Covenant, [8] from Thomas Berry, might serve as the foundation for a cybernetic ethic. The following quotes provide a sense of the Ontological Covenant:

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References

  1. Clemson, Barry. "Mississippi Freedom Summer: An autobiographical fragment".
  2. American Society for Cybernetics - Index
  3. Doucette, John-Henry (December 21, 1998). "Celebrating a year of "Children's church"". The Virginian Pilot. p. B1.
  4. "Against all odds". The Community Explorer. March 2003.
  5. Jones, Mathew (November 20, 2000). "Leading others in prayer". The Virginian Pilot. p. B1.
  6. "Systems Thinking World Journal". Archived from the original on 2015-04-13. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  7. Mother Teresa Quotes (Author of Come Be My Light)
  8. Berry, Thomas (1999). The Great Work: Our way into the future. New York: Three Rivers Press.
  9. Berry, Thomas (1999). The Great Work: Our way into the future. New York: Three Rivers Press. p. 105.
  10. Berry, Thomas (1999). The Great Work: Our way into the future. New York: Three Rivers Press. p. 147.
  11. 1 2 Berry, Thomas (1999). The Great Work: Our way into the future. New York: Three Rivers Press. p. 148.