On Risk Aversion (Updated)

In 2009, I wrote this post on risk aversion.

Here's where it sits on my mind today.

Is risk aversion a fear of auditors, bad press or is it a fear of losing hegemony - a denial of the natural transformation that is occurring now towards models of complexity and resilience? 

It seems we prefer the illusion of control, governed by models that are 
- analytical
- artificial 
- categorical 
- linear 
- hierarchical
- authoritarian
- siloed
- mechanical, and
- simplistic. 

To be able to achieve manageable simplicity, we would have to be able to identify and control the context, the boundaries, the parameters in which we operate. This is not possible, if it ever was. 

But how do we change that the easier way?

The constellations of philosophy?

Hypothesis:

The patterns of every socio-economic organization in history and the powers that maintain them are supported by a tacit ontology (myth/theory of what reality is) that underpins public discourse and the social narrative. This ontology serves to legitimate the social order in the same way as the ancient belief in the "divine right of kings" or "mandate of heaven". (Another metaphor that may work in place of the divine right of kings might be heavenly/stellar constellations. Ancient rites seem to have connected them.)

Philosophers are by trade apologists for or critics of the divine right of kings (i.e., the ontology that underpins the social narrative). It is changes in technology that occasion changes in the social narrative (and only indirectly philosophy) because technological change gives rise to the need for changes in the patterns of economic and thus social organization, which then calls forth a new narrative. Philosophers gain a following when they contribute to a sustaining narrative, or to one held onto by soon-to-be eclipsed powers (there's usually a lag...).