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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. His academic career was in educational administration (University of Maryland and University of Maine) and engineering management (Old Dominion University)

During his first academic post, at the University of Maryland, Barry was elected President of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC). At that time there was a split within the American cybernetics community, with some who had been members of the ASC having joined a new group called the American Cybernetics Association (ACA). Working with Larry Heilprin and Klaus Krippendorf, the three of them were able to merge the two groups and arrange for an election in which Stuart Umpleby was elected as president. Umpleby was able to rejuvenate the ASC and put it onto a trajectory which continues to this day.

Key Experiences

Alaska Wilderness. In 19948, shortly before his seventh birthday, Barry’s family, with siblings aged six, four and six months, moved from the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area to a wilderness homestead two miles north of Anchor Point, Alaska. Anchor Point consisted of a couple of families and a tiny trading post. The nearest road was 20 miles away in Homer and Homer could be reached only by boat or plane. They spent the first summer in a tent and the following two years in a log cabin with a dirt floor. Water came from a spring a hundred yards away (during the summer) and from melted snow in winter. Food was largely hunted (mostly moose) or from the garden. After guiding the dog sled home from school, chores included splitting wood. Wilderness Alaska nurtured a love of nature and required both self-sufficiency and lots of responsibility at a very early age.

Mississippi Freedom Summer. Barry spent almost a year (June 1964 to April 1965) in Mississippi working on voter registration with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This project was transformative for most of the volunteers who participated, and it definitely was for Barry. Colleagues like Fannie Lou Hamer vividly and dramatically lived out the fundamental truth that freedom is a state of mind that has nothing to do with one’s external circumstances. One always has choices, one can always decide what he or she will or will not do.

Ecumenical Institute. From 1969 to 1972 Barry was a Fellow of the Ecumenical Institute at their base in Chicago. The Institute had two main thrusts: community development and renewal of local congregations. The Institute was truly ecumenical, with members from many different Christian denominations and also Jews and Hindus. The Institute understood that fundamental change in societal institutions required a deep spiritual component. The Fellows of the Ecumenical Institute lived as a religious order, under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Management Cybernetics. By the time Barry finished a bachelor’s degree in science (1965), he was convinced that large organizations were crucial in the struggle for a more just society. A masters in political science and a PhD in organization theory followed. During the masters program, Barry read a paper by the management cybernetician, Stafford Beer, and was fascinated. Cybernetics presented laws and principles that applied to all complex systems, including human, biological, and physical systems. This paper started a journey into complex systems that continues today and is the reason he considers himself a management cybernetician.

Strategic Nonviolence. Barry spent ten years running a small construction company after several other, more “intellectual” careers. This ten years of “wandering in the desert” culminated with the realization that all of his varied experiences had equipped him to write a specific kind of novel, a novel that would vividly make the case for the practicality of strategic nonviolence. The first novel, Denmark Rising, tells the story of how Denmark used strategic nonviolence to resist the Nazi occupation during World War II. The novel garnered rave reviews as a vivid, compelling story that convincingly shows the Danes holding their own against Hitler.

Healing Prayer. Barry watched his wife, Reverend Dr. Mary Clemson, heal people by praying for them. Mostly out of curiosity, Barry went through a week of training in healing prayer with Francis McNutt at the Christian Healing Ministry. At Mary’s insistence he then prayed for a woman who for many years had been unable to lift her arm above shoulder height. The woman immediately regained the full range of motion and six years later still has full range of motion. Their church now has a major emphasis on healing prayer and dramatic healings occur on a regular basis. As a scientist, Barry says he has given up trying to understand the efficacy of healing prayer except that the faith of the sick person doesn’t seem to have much to do with whether or not they are healed.

Major Publications In Barry’s opinion, he has published only two important works:
 * 1) An introduction to the managerial cybernetics of Stafford Beer. This book, “Cybernetics: a new management tool”, is one of the most easily understood introductions to the subject for those who are new to systems theory and cybernetics.
 * 2) “Denmark Rising”  is a novel that describes Denmark using strategic nonviolence in a campaign of resistance to Hitler during World War II. The novel is quite effective in convincing the reader that nonviolence could be used effectively even against Hitler.

Continuing Passions

Long-term viability of humankind. Long-term viability requires dealing with a host of difficult, inter-related crises including but not limited to over-population, ecosystem degradation and species extinction, global warming / climate change, resource shortages, gross inequality and lack of justice, and wars. If civilization is to survive we need systemic / cybernetic thinking and policies.

Effective Governance. There is little hope of achieving long-term viability of humankind without effective governance. Government by tyranny obviously doesn’t work (and never can work because it lacks requisite variety ). Unfortunately, the democratic governments currently in existence are also largely failing. For a number of years, Barry has been involved with systems scientists / cyberneticians from around the world who are grappling with the issue of how we might achieve more effective and more truly democratic forms of governance.