Learning to Solve the Right Problems: The Case of Nuclear Power in America

Author(s): Jonathan B. King

Source: Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Feb., 1993), pp. 105-116
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25072379
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Learning to Solve the Right Problems:
The Case of Nuclear Power in America Jonathan B. King
ABSTRACT. Three general types of problems entail dif
ferent strategies. Continuing to seek solutions to "tame
problems" when we face "messes," let alone "wicked prob
lems," is potentially catastrophic hence fundamentally irre
sponsible. In our turbulent times, it is therefore becoming a
strategic necessity to learn how to solve the right problems.
Successful problem solving requires
finding the right solution to the
right problem. We fail more often
because we solve the wrong prob
lem than because we get the wrong
solution to the right problem.
Russell Ackoff (1974).
But then, you may agree that it
becomes morally objectionable for
the planner to treat a wicked
problem as though it were a tame
one, or to tame a wicked problem
prematurely, or to refuse to recog
nize the inherent wickedness of
social problems. Rittel and Webber
(1973).
Just how safe are nuclear power plants? While the
construction of new plants is on hold in America
and while Sweden plans to phase hers out over the
next decade or so, France and Japan continue to
build them.
The recent Chernobyl disaster has clarified little.
Most realize that sooner or later the secrecy endemic
to a closed society comes back to haunt it and that
Jonathan King is Associate Professor of Management at the College
of Business at Oregon State University. His primary research
interests are in the areas of moral philosophy and modern
technology. His most important publications are Confronting
Chaos' and Common Knowledge of the Second Kind', Journal
of Business Ethics (1989).
Journal of Business Ethics 12: 105-116, 1993.
O 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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operating graphite core reactors with no contain
ment structures is playing with fire. However, we
don't have graphite core reactors in America; we
have neither the (former) USSR's "administrative
command" structure nor its KGB; our press is open,
perhaps to a fault. Yet, both proponents and oppo
nents of nuclear power can and have claimed to find
support for their positions in what happened at
Chernobyl.
One reason for continuing controversies are the
inherent uncertainties in assessing the safety of
complex systems such as nuclear power plants. For
example, while the Rasmussen report, nearly a foot
thick, reassures us that the chances of a catastrophic
accident are vanishingly small, the Union of Con
cerned Scientists and the Clamshell Alliance vehe
mently disagree. A second reason is that safety issues
are unavoidably embedded in controversies over
future energy needs. While some view the Green
house Effect as a mandate for nuclear power, others
propose that we pursue conservation with a venge
ance. A third reason is that the issues of both safety
and future energy needs are, in turn, embedded in
still larger controversies over what constitutes the
good life, over the kind of world we want for our
children and why. For example, while some view the
Clamshell Alliance as a bunch of Luddites, others see
the pro-nuclear folks as naively Utopian.
Given these wildly different views, who is right?
Perhaps nobody is right in the sense that we may be
trying to solve the wrong problems. Instead of being
a "tame problem," nuclear power is decidedly a
"mess" if not also a "wicked problem."1
There are compelling reasons for learning to solve
the right problems. First, strategies for solving tame
problems differ qualitatively from strategies appro
priate for messes. Messes are puzzles; rather than
"solving" them, we sort out their complexities. In
 106
Jonathan King

turn, solving and sorting both differ qualitatively
from strategies for dissolving the barriers to consensus through specialization ? the division of labor,
implicit in wicked problems.2
A second and more compelling reason is not so
much that solving the wrong problems fails to solve
the right problems. Rather, the greater danger is that
by solving the wrong problems, we unwittingly
undermine what it takes for us to solve the right
problems. The danger is not so much that we fail to
build our bridges across the right rivers. Rather, the
greater danger is that we destroy the materials we
need to build our bridges across the right rivers.
A third reason for learning to solve the right
problems is that controversies over nuclear power in
America may be paradigmatic of things to come.
Other more powerful technologies are being rapidly
developed which give every indication of generating
messes if not wicked problems.
Unfortunately, we face a number of obstacles to
solving the right problems. Developing our capacity
to frame problems as messes ? learning how to sort
through complexity and uncertainty ? constitutes a
major challenge in our turbulent times. In turn, de
veloping our capacity to frame problems as wicked
problems ? learning how to deal with those sorts of
problems for which there are no "solutions" ? con
stitutes an even greater challenge in our increasingly
pluralistic times.
The alternatives to solving the right problems are
potentially catastrophic. Continuing to try to "tame"
a world increasingly filled with messes, let alone
wicked problems, makes it a dangerously unstable
place.
Tame problems and messes
For every complex problem there is
a simple solution. And it is wrong
(H. L. Mencken).
Discovering a vaccine for smallpox, analyzing the
chemical components of air pollution, and lowering
the prime interest rate are tame problems. Tame
problems can be solved in relative isolation from
other problems.
We solve tame problems through analytical
methods ? breaking things down into parts, fixing
components, assessing the probability of known
sequences of failures leading to a nuclear meltdown.
We organize ourselves to solve tame problems
departmentalization, teaching a course in nuclear
engineering over here and a course in group dy
namics over there and yet another course in inter
national terrorism somewhere else. Culturally, tame
problems enjoy consensus: everybody pretty well
agrees why something needs to be done and the right
way to go about doing it.
There are countless examples of tame problems,
the type of problems that Warren Weaver termed
problems of "organized simplicity."3 Solving them
has been the great forte of science for several
hundred years. Due in large part to such successes,
they remain the ideal for many social scientists as
well as managers and administrators.
However, things have become messier. We are
increasingly faced with problems of "organized com
plexity," clusters of interrelated or interdependent
problems, or systems of problems. "English does not
contain a suitable word for 'system of problems.'
Therefore, I have had to coin one. I choose to call
such a system a mess" (Ackoff, 1974, p. 21).
Problems which cannot be solved in relative isola
tion from one another form messes. We sort out
messes through "systems" methods, through focusing
on "processes" and through "interdisciplinary" ap
proaches. Rather than simply breaking things down
into parts and fixing components, we examine pat
terns of interactions among parts. We look for pat
terns such as vicious and virtuous circles, self-fulfill
ing and self-defeating prophecies, and deviation
amplifying feedback loops. We organize ourselves to
sort out messes through such things as cross-func
tional groups, redundant training, and so-called
"learning organizations" (Senge, 1990). Culturally,
messes entail the widespread consensus that "if you
become obsessed with interdependence and causal
loops, then lots of issues take on a new look" (Weick,
1979, p. 86). Messes demand a commitment to
understanding how things going on here-and-now
interact with other things going on there-and-later.
Many examples illustrate the concept of messes.
AIDS is messier than smallpox; dealing with water
pollution is more puzzling than building sewage
systems; automobile congestion isn't solved by sim
ply building more freeways; macro-economic poli
cies are a whole lot messier in a global economy.
A primary danger in mistaking a mess for a tame

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 Nuclealr Power in America 107
problem is that it becomes even more difficult to
deal with the mess.4 The simplest of examples illus
trates this key point. Asking which of your teenage
kids started the argument mistakes a mess for a tame
problem. Trying to tame the problem by blaming
one of them usually makes things worse.
Are nuclear power plants different from teen
agers' arguments in the sense that blaming "operator
error" for a mishap mistakes a mess for a tame
problem? Why, for example, did The President's
Commission to Investigate the Accident at Three
Mile Island primarily blame the operators, and why
did the builders of the plant's equipment blame only
the operators (Perrow, 1984, p. 7)?
Of course, it is often politically expedient to
blame operators rather than the "system," for man
agers and administrators are primarily responsible
for the system. However, consider the implications
of the following argument made in one of Britain's
most prestigious journals merely two years ago:
A point has been reached in the development of tech
nology where the greatest dangers stem not so much
from the breakdown of a major component or from
isolated operator errors, as from the insidious accumu
lation of delayed-action human failures occurring pri
marily within the organizational and managerial sectors
. . . [which] emerge from a complex and as yet little
understood interaction between the technical and social
aspects of the system (Reason, 1990, p. 476).
Perhaps blaming operator error is not merely
politically expedient. Perhaps it is because managers
and administrators also do not know how to think in
terms of messes; they have not learned how to sort
through complex socio-technical systems. Over two
decades ago, Karl Weick noted that "[m]ost man
agers get into trouble because they forget to think in
circles. Managerial problems persist because man
agers continue to believe that there are such things
as unilateral causation, independent and dependent
variables, origins, and terminations. Examples are
everywhere" (Weick, 1979, p. 86). Over twenty years
later, Peter Senge drives home the same point in his
acclaimed book, The Fifth Discipline (1990).
A widespread failure to think in terms of "circles"
is all the more sobering when you add things like
nuclear power plants to the equation. It is still more
sobering when you consider that the gap between
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our understandings of complex systems and those we
are creating may be growing.
But the most disturbing implication is a continu
ing reluctance on the part of social scientists, man
agers, administrators, and educators to ask the kinds
of questions germane to messes. Indeed, it sometimes
seems many don't know that they don't know. There
are a number of reasons why news travels too slowly.
The ways we talk about things matter. For
example, talking about nuclear power plants as if
they are "power plants" is a fundamentally mis
leading analogy, a point repeatedly emphasized by
Medvedev in The Truth About Chernobyl (1991). More
generally, messes offend our sense of linear logic, the
linear syntax of our language, and our continuing belief
in prediction (an issue to which we shall return).5
We also remain grossly ignorant of the dynamics
of too many messes; we are only now developing
some of the tools we need. In particular, we are still
predominantly organized to solve tame problems:
our business organizations and our institutions of
higher education remain largely strangers to inter
disciplinary or cross-functional groups and integra
tive or synthetic studies.
Politically, messes require top and middle man
agers to relinquish traditional authority and forms
of control, something most are loath to do. More
disturbing, in turbulent times people often feel
insecure and threatened, turning to those who offer
reassuring but simplistic answers.
These obstacles themselves constitute a mess. At
least we appear to be moving towards a consensus
that the ways we talk, our very methods of inquiry,
and the ways we organize ourselves predetermine
most of what we are able to know.
Nuclear power is a mess
New methods of risk assessment
and risk management are needed if
we are to achieve any significant
improvements in the safety of
complex, well-defended, socio
technical systems (J. Reason, 1990).
Compelling arguments and evidence suggest that the
methods of probability risk assessments (PRAs) and
risk management limit our thinking, for we start
assuming that we face tame problems. Thus, the
 108 Jonathan King

reason we need new methods of risk assessment is to
enable us to see things we otherwise would over
look.6
Consider the facts
The primary argument that we are solving the
wrong problems is offered by Charles Perrow (1984)
in Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
with corroborating insights from other general
system theorists. Perrow's and others' arguments can
easily be summarized (Table I).
Perrow essentially argues that conventional meth
ods of risk assessment and management presuppose
Type I and Type II problems from the outset. The
methods used by a number of "authoritative" risk
assessments on the safety of nuclear power plants
assign probabilities to known sequences of failures
leading to one of several known disasters.7 This
approach presumably answers the question, "How
safe are they?" Applying the same approach to
alternative energy sources then allows us to calculate
optimum risk-benefit options based on alternative
discount rates.
The major shortcoming of this approach is that it
does not address unknown sequences of failures ? it
does not "measure" unanticipated interactions among
components which may interactively escalate into a
systems collapse. To take such surprises into account,
we need measures of our ignorance.
By reconceptualizing systems such as nuclear
power plants as Type III messes, Perrow derives two
measures of a system's capacity to surprise us. These
measures of the degree of our ignorance are "inter
active complexity" and "coupling."
"Interactive complexity" is a measure of the
degree to which we cannot foresee all the ways things
can go wrong. This may be because there are simply
too many interactions to keep track of. More likely,
it is because our various theories are simply not up
to the task of modeling socio-technical interactions.
"Coupling" is a measure of the degree to which
we cannot stop an impending disaster once it starts.
This may be because we don't have enough time,
because it is physically impossible, or because we
don't know how.
The greater the degree of interactive complexity,
the less our capacity to prevent surprises. The greater
the degree of coupling, the less our capacity to cure
surprises. The greater the degree of interactive com
plexity and coupling, the greater the likelihood that
a system is an accident waiting to happen.
In such systems, "operator errors" merely serve as
triggers. Trying to find, let alone blame, the par
ticular straw that broke the camel's back is therefore
an exercise in futility ? a "fundamental attribution
error."
Worse, assuming that we are dealing with tame
problems leads to fixing components. Yet adding
active safety features may, in fact, increase the
system's overall complexity, increase its degree of
tight coupling, or both. Similarly, reducing the role
of operators to passively monitoring a system may
backfire by effectively de-skilling them and, in the
longer run, by boring them to death.8
Strategies for dealing with Type III messes are
therefore quite different from those appropriate for
tame problems. Strategies logically follow from the
ways problems are conceptualized. Thus, increasing
our capacity to prevent unanticipated interactions
among components entails simplifying systems
(KISS); increasing our capacity to cure them entails
de-coupling major components (e.g., build in longer
times-to-respond).
Neither do conventional approaches and the
standard literature address Type IV problems. These
are problems where unknown or unimagined out
comes emerge as a result, say, of operating nuclear
power plants. For example, who would have imag

TABLE I

Type I: Known outcomes + fixed sequences = deterministic

Type II: Known outcomes + known probabilities ? stochastic
Type III: Known outcomes + unknown probabilities = uncertainty
Type IV: Unknown outcomes + moot issue ? emergence

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 Nuclealr Power in America 109
ined in the heyday era of nuclear power that less
than two decades later Saddam Hussein would buy a
reactor from France with the all-too-probable aim
of blackmailing ? if not taking out ? Tel Aviv with
a nuclear weapon?
Strategies appropriate for Type IV messes essen
tially insure us against real surprises, namely, the
emergence of unanticipated outcomes. Thus, increas
ing our resilience when confronted with undesirable
outcomes entails fall-back positions. We need to
build in diversity, reversibility, or both, in systems
that indicate the potential for "emergent" or un
known outcomes.
In sum, Type III and Type IV strategies are essen
tially insurance policies. However, it is difficult to
convince people to pay for such insurance if we
continue to mistake messes for tame problems.
So, to what degree do some, many, or most of our
nuclear power plants qualify as complex, tightly
coupled systems? Since the way we frame problems
in the first place determines what we can know
about them, what do we find when we look at
degrees of interactive complexity and coupling?
In fact, there is quite a history of unanticipated
near misses. For example, in the early sixties a Nobel
Laureate physicist claimed a core meltdown was
impossible at the Fermi sodium cooled breeder
reactor, and another expert claimed that, even were
the impossible to happen, automatic safety devices
would shut the reactor down. But then read the
subsequent "hair-raising decisions" and "terrifying
thoughts" as "We Almost Lost Detroit," when parts
of the core did melt and the automatic safety devices
did not shut down the reactor. So what? Read a
classified report by the Atomic Energy Committee
before the near-catastrophe estimating that a severe
accident coupled with unfavorable wind conditions
would result in around 70,000 quick deaths plus
another couple hundred thousand intensely radiated
with serious-to-deadly effects (Perrow, 1984, pp.
50-52).
Perrow points out with graphic examples that in
the years subsequent to the Fermi plant's near
disaster, the "incidents" documented in the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's (NRC) regularly published
Nuclear Safety provide "endless, numbing fascination
as they describe all the things that can go wrong in
these awesome plants" (Perrow, p. 46). In The Truth
About Chernobyl, Gregori Medvedev makes a similar
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claim which he explicitly argues is not confined to
the USSR's graphite core reactors sans containment
shelters: "Unfortunately no instructions and regula
tions can encompass the enormous variety of con
ceivable combinations of regimes and mishaps that
may occur" (Medvedev, 1991, p. 258).
Corroborating evidence is offered by Harding
(1990). Of the two dozen-odd studies on specific
American reactors in the last decade (there are at
least seven major reactors and containment designs,
not to mention specific site differences ? e.g.,
located in an earthquake-prone area), there is no
evidence that Chernobyl was a "unique" occurrence.
Even granting the potential significance of such
unusual configurations, the NRC only began to
order "Individual Plant Evaluations" in 1989.
Moreover, such "external" factors as fires and
earthquakes obviously complicate probabilistic esti
mates still more. For example, earthquake-induced
problems such as power outages and electric relay
chatter are viewed by some as potentially more
significant than structural flaws in nuclear power
plants. So are terrorist attacks, but how do we even
begin to attempt to guess the probability of a
terrorist (whomever that might include) attack
(whatever form and timing this might take) on
large-sitting targets (which one)?
Clearly one of the untidy issues in dealing with
messes is where you draw the boundaries of a
particular system. Pointing out that everything is
ultimately related to everything else isn't very help
ful. What we need are methods for sorting things out,
for boundaries are rarely self-evident. As Rittel and
Webber pointed out nearly twenty years ago,
[The systems-approach of the "second generation"]
should be based on a model of planning as an argumenta
tive process in the course of which an image of the
problem and of the solution emerges gradually among
the participants, as a product of incessant judgment,
subjected to critical argument (Rittel and Weber, 1973,
p. 162).
Thus, the major obstacle may be less a matter of
actually drawing boundaries and more a matter of
investing the time and effort in boundary drawing
processes. In the words of a leading authority on
total quality management: "The challenge, actually,
is to not jump to conclusions too soon" (Berry, 1991,
p. 67).'
 110
While drawing boundaries is a crucial strategy for
sorting out messes, allowing an "image" of the
problem to "gradually emerge" is a very different
process from testing hypotheses in science, from
management by objectives in business, or from the
adversarial process of courts of law. Instead, bound
ary drawing in science corresponds to the still
mysterious process of coming up with good hypoth
eses in the first place; in business firms, it corre
sponds to the continuous improvement of processes;
and in government regulatory policy, it entails a
strategic shift away from our overreliance on an
"advisory legal system that makes what regulations
we do have much more difficult to implement"
(Thurow, 1980, p. 122).
In sum, by redrawing the boundaries of nuclear
power plants to include complex socio-technical
systems, we can more effectively reconceptualize the
problem in terms of messes. Once we have sorted
out this dimension of the nuclear power controversy,
remedies are pretty evident.
One remedy which has gained even the reluctant
endorsement of the Union of Concerned Scientists is
designing what are termed "inherently safe reactors."
Not surprisingly, these are systems designed to be
both radically simpler and more resilient. A second
complementary strategy is to study and apply the
characteristics of what Reason terms "high-reliability
organizations" or what Senge terms "learning organ
izations." This entails developing indicators of "latent
failures" built into complex socio-technical systems
or isolating various organizational "learning dys
functions," respectively.
However, this still leaves us with scores upon
scores of currently operating nuclear reactors, not to
mention related problems of nuclear waste disposal
and the proliferation of weapons-grade materials.
Therefore, the boundaries of the nuclear power mess
necessarily expand to include assessments of future
energy needs, especially as plant after plant starts
coming up for extension of its operating life.
Consider the (<what ifsyy
A sensible argument proposed is that we need to
extend the operating lives of our currently operating
nuclear power plants because they are essential to
help meet our future energy demands (not to men
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Jonathan King
tion those of the developing countries). Not only do
we need a growing supply of cheap energy, but given
the various risks associated with each major source
of energy, a balanced policy makes sense. So, our
energy "portfolio" should spread risk by including
some coal, some natural gas, some oil, some hydro
electric, some windmills, some solar, and some
nuclear power. Plus a dash of conservation.
Other people, however, can and do arrive at very
different solutions based on equally plausible sce
narios of the future. What if U.S. policy pursues
conservation with a vengeance? What if our auto
mobiles average 75 miles per gallon by the year
2000? What if those variable-load devices we read
about somewhere were retrofitted to our millions of
electric motors resulting in major energy savings?
What if we had light bulbs which were cheap, which
lasted for years, and which consumed less energy?
What if superconductors come on strong?
What if the energy needs of our so-called "third
wave" information economy are radically less than
those of our "second wave" industrial economy?
What if future birthrates fall significantly in our and
various other countries? What if the Greenhouse
Effect increasingly looks to be benign?
Then there are the "what ifs" we cannot even ask
because we don't have a clue as to what they might
be. These are Type IV problems noted in Table I. For
example, there is no reason not to suppose that some
fundamental surprises may emerge over the next
decade. Perhaps rapidly advancing technologies such
as macro-molecular "engines of creation" (Drexler,
1986) and genetically engineered organisms will shift
current demand and supply projections of future
energy needs off the map. Who knows?
The basic problem is that we cannot predict
future energy needs because we cannot predict the
future. We cannot even predict possible futures. At
best, we can only predict aspects of the future. There
are several reasons for this messy state of affairs.
As Donald Michael points out, "All we have are
endless fragments of theory that 'account' for bits
and pieces of individual, organizational, and eco
nomic behaviour. But we have no overarching or
truly interconnecting theories, especially none that
accounts for human behaviour in turbulent times"
(Michael, 1985, p. 95).
Second, our world is indeed becoming more
turbulent. Not only are things happening much
 Nuclealr Power in America 111
faster these days, but more wild cards are showing
up ? emerging ? in the deck. For these reasons
alone, there may be no way to know the answer to
many questions any faster than what is going on.
Third, there are no grounds to suspect things
could be better in principle. There are no sound
reasons to claim that the social sciences are going to
"mature" or "evolve" to the point that they achieve
the predictive power of those sciences which deal
with things that don't need to talk to each other.
More generally, "chaos theory" poses fundamental
challenges to longstanding and dominant concep
tualizations of predictability.
Owning up to these realities is going to be hard
for a lot of people to swallow. For example:
The expert's claim to status and reward is fatally under
mined when we recognize that he possesses no sound
stock of law-like generalizations and when we realize
how weak the predictive power available to him is ... I
do not of course mean that the activities of purported
experts do not have effects and that we do not suffer
from those effects and suffer gravely (Maclntyre, 1981,
p. 107).
While we cannot predict the future, what we
choose to do now certainly affects the future. Giving
up illusions of what is variously termed "machine
age thinking," "a mechanistic epistemology," or the
"Newtonian worldview" does not mean everything
turns to mush. Our choices have consequences even
if we cannot pretend to know what they may turn
out to be.
So, what are appropriate strategies given this
added dimension of messiness? In The New Realities
(1989), Peter Drucker draws on the analogy of main
taining the climate versus predicting the weather:
The new mathematics of complexity raises an even more
disturbing question: Can there be an economic policy at
all? Or is the attempt to control the "weather" of the
economy, such as recessions and other cyclical fluctua
tions, foredoomed to failure?
Economics rose to its eminence in this century precisely
because it promised to be able to control the "weather"
... are we going to shift from government as the eco
nomic activist of the last sixty years to emphasis on gov
ernment responsibility to maintain the right "climate"?
(Drucker, 1989, pp. 167-168).
Put another way, one of W. Edwards Deming's
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fundamental tenets is to shift from strategies which
focus on results, outcomes, or objectives, to strategies
which focus on continuously improving processes.
This strategic shift requires a mindset change of
almost heroic proportions for many managers, ad
ministrators, and other "experts."
Nevertheless, the notion of maintaining the right
climate increasingly makes strategic sense to an
increasing number of people. Key climate terms are
becoming familiar; diversity, flexibility, adaptability,
and rapid response times. So, also, such notions as
learning how to learn, thinking about how we think,
and the learning organization.
So far, so good. At least we know the scope and
methods that we need to employ in order to sort
through messes. We now know that effectively
sorting through messes entails some fundamental
changes in what we think and how we think, in what
we teach and how we teach, and ultimately in the
ways that we organize ourselves.
Messes and wicked problems
Our point is that diverse values are
held by different groups of individ
uals ? that what satisfies one may
be abhorrent to another, that what
comprises problem-solution for
one is problem-generation for an
other. Under such circumstances,
and in the absence of an overriding
social theory or an overriding social
ethic, there is no determining
which group is right and which
should have its ends served (Rittel
and Webber, 1973).
What if we choose to continue to build an economic
? and political ? infrastructure predicated on the
belief that we will need more energy? What if we
instead pursue conservation with the vengeance
some claim it deserves? Which provides us with
more flexibility, greater adaptability? These clearly
are policy decisions that will surely determine sig
nificant aspects of our futures.
The criteria for us jointly to evaluate such choices,
however, become more complicated and demand
more social decision-making than individual adapt
ability or flexibility. Maintaining a favorable climate
 112
is fine until you get specific, for your version of a
sunny climate may strike me as a stormy one. For
example, nuclear power plants entail very different
configurations of power than do solar heated and
lighted buildings; a landscape dotted with concentra
tions of power is not everybody's idea of a sunny
climate.
In short, strategies for dealing with messes are fine
as long as most of us share an overriding social
theory.or overriding social ethic. If we don't, we face
wicked problems.
Wicked problems are what E. F. Schumacher
termed "divergent" as opposed to "convergent" prob
lems. A convergent problem promises a solution.
The more it is studied, the more various answers
sooner or later converge.
Tame problems are convergent by definition.
Messes are convergent it we agree on what overlaps,
on appropriate strategies, and on the kind of "cli
mate" we wish to maintain. A divergent problem
does not promise a solution. The more it is studied,
the more people of integrity and intellect inevitably
come to different solutions.
As with messes, there are very real dangers in
"solving the wrong problem." Mistaking or misre
presenting wicked problems for messes, let alone
tame problems, almost inevitably leads one to con
clude that those with different answers lack integ
rity, intellect, or both. The great danger is that such
conclusions undermine trust, and trust is a fundamental
strategy for collectively coping with wicked problems.
If wicked problems are becoming more common
in our modern era, and there is compelling evidence
they are, we face a strategic choice. We can continue
to misrepresent them as messes or tame problems,
hoping they will not degenerate into cultural wars,
class warfare, or revolution. This seems increasingly
risky in our increasingly pluralistic society if for no
other reason than this strategy may itself be further
exacerbating the dark side of pluralism.
On the other hand, we can acknowledge wicked
problems for what they are and try to stabilize them
as "conditions." This is not going to be easy because
wicked problems offend our sense of logic and
common beliefs even more than messes. In our
modern times, it is pretty hard to accept that such
and-such a problem has no solution. This seems
tantamount to giving up, leaving the field to one's
adversaries.
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Jonathan King
Irving Kristol offers an instructive example of a
wicked problem and a thoroughly modern reason
why we ignore wicked problems for what they are:
One of the wisest things ever said about the study of
human affairs was uttered by an Israeli statesman . . .
who, being sharply examined about Israeli foreign policy
. . . and the future of East Jerusalem (the Old City), an
area sacred to all three Western religions, said "East
Jerusalem? That's no problem at all. . . In politics, if you
don't have a solution, you don't have a problem. What
you have is a condition, in the medical sense of the term."
With those words, he was affirming a traditional political
way of looking at human affairs, rather than the more
modern "social-scientific" way, with its "problem-solu
tion" dichotomy. This traditional way has its own fund
of wisdom to draw upon, based on generations of
experience and finding formulation in something called
"common sense" (1978, p. 15).
"Common sense" means common ground. Estab
lishing common ground is arguably becoming a
strategic necessity in our turbulent times and not
merely in issues of nuclear power.10
Nuclear power is a wicked problem
It is a loss of orientation that most
directly gives rise to ideological
activity, an inability, for lack of
usable models, to comprehend the
universe of civic rights and respon
sibilities in which one finds oneself
located (Clifford Geertz, 1973).
Wicked problems are synonymous with what Geertz
(1973) terms "a loss of orientation" or what Rittel
and Webber (1973) term the absence of an "over
riding social theory or an overriding social ethic."
Thus, wicked problems are evidenced by the ideo
logical controversies that result when the boundaries
of messes are expanded to include socio-political and
moral-spiritual issues.
Some will argue that those who expand the
boundaries of nuclear power to include, say, "deep
ecology" are themselves the problem. This notion is
naive. So-called empirical studies and the social
sciences are necessarily shot through with implicit
and explicit value assumptions and ideological con
siderations. Moreover, our values and ideological
 Nuclealr Power in America 113
considerations are "objectified" or "institutionalized"
as our prevailing ways of talking, as power struc
tures, as tools, and as patterns of interactions. Thus,
those who support the status quo are no more or less
"ideological" than those who oppose it; Scientific
American articles assessing the riskiness of nuclear
power plants are as shot through with value assump
tions and ideological considerations as articles ap
pearing in Mother Jones or The Whole Earth Review.
"Wickedness" occurs when people confer immuta
bility on value assumptions and ideological considerations.
Thus, the strategic issue is whether we choose to
allow wicked problems to degenerate into tyranny or
chaos, whether we choose to stabilize them as "con
ditions," or, more radically, whether we choose to try
to dissolve them together.
Consider the following, constructed debate. This
set of familiar and often passionately stated positions
not only illustrates the absence of an overriding
social theory and social ethic, but also the inescap
able and ideological dimensions of the nuclear
power problem.
Me: Let's take the portfolio approach to our energy
policy. It is economically less risky than phasing out our
nuclear plants.
You: No, the conservation approach is actually less economically
risky.
Me: No, the conservation approach is actually more risky.
It will require significant government intervention in the
economy and this is politically and economically risky
because it leads to concentrations of state power.
You: Relying on the market system is economically risky for it is
notoriously short-sighted and ignores all manner of externalities.
Worse, it leads to concentrations of private power.
Let's dig deeper. Like it or not, the nuclear power
controversy inevitably involves basic assumptions
concerning the role of modern technology in our
lives.
Me: Modern technology, properly managed, will relieve
us from the miseries which have plagued us from time
immemorial and will help us solve the messes in which
we find ourselves today. Nuclear power is one of those
technologies. So, too, genetic engineering, nano-technol
ogy, the neurochemistry of the brain, and advanced
generation computers. The doomsayers have been proven
wrong again and again. Moreover, we can't roll back the
clock even if we wished to. The glass is only half-full!
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You: Modern technology is out-of-control! Using technology to
"cure" problems caused by technology is a fool's promise. Your
promising technologies are Pandora's boxes. In our haste to decode
the human genome, what are we going to do if and when we
discover how to arrest the body's aging process? What are we going
to do if and when we succeed in building artificial intelligences
that surpass us mere human beings in nearly anything we can do?
We are like a bunch of little kids who are playing with toys whose
power they can barely imagine. In fact, many doomsayers were
right when enough people took them seriously that things didn't
turn out as they prophesied. And the we-can't-roll-back-the
clock-bit is a red herring; it merely sanctifies the status quo. The
hourglass is half-empty and time is running out!
Let's dig even deeper, expanding the scope of the
debate to include our relationships with Nature. For
like it or not, some believe ? more accurately, they
illustrate ? that there is necessarily a "spiritual"
aspect to ecological issues. Nuclear power is inextri
cably involved in ecological issues.
Me: The kind of environmentalism that likes to consider
itself spiritual is nothing more than sentimental. Thus,
the basic principle is the same whether we are dealing
with atmospheric ozone, the spotted owl, or pollutants
from coal- and oil-fired generators: "protect the environ
ment ? because it is man's environment. And when man
has to choose between his well-being and that of nature,
nature will have to accommodate."
You: Matters are not so simple. You see, we have chosen to see
nature in economic terms ? the land as thing. However, "if we do
not retrieve and nurture, I think, some more gracious relationship
with the land, we will find our sanctuaries, in the end, have
become nothing more than commodities. They will not be the
inviolate and healing places we yearn for, but landscapes related
to no one."n
Those holding these polarized views have been
characterized as "cornucopians" and "catastrophists."12
However, it is a mistake to dismiss them as extrem
ists. Lots of us become extremists when the par
ticulars of inescapable policy decisions become clear,
especially if our individual thinking opposes the
prevailing social norm. Moreover, extremists of
every stripe have ample opportunities to intervene in
political and especially legal processes.
Julian Simon and Ivan Illich are good representa
tives of such polarized views, for both are persons of
integrity and intellect.13 So, what would happen if
we were to lock them in a room together until they
had hammered out a strategy for dealing with
 114
nuclear power? This is more than an interesting
exercise.
The bottom line
The point is to live in ways that
makes what is problematic disap
pear (Wittgenstein).
Simon and Illich would soon concede that the other
was a person of intellect and, soon after that, of
integrity. This essentially means that both would
realize they were confronted by a mess if not,
perhaps, an inherently wicked problem. The fact
that they are both locked in the same room together
might also change the game plan. After all, neither
Julian nor Ivan has the option of riding off into the
sunset.
Sooner or later they would start exploring alter
natives and compromises. Perhaps they would even
come up with something radically different as they
explored divergent and convergent aspects of their
views. At this point, they would be engaging in what
David B?hm calls "dialogue" or what Edward de
Bono terms "mapmaking." Rather than arguing their
respective positions, rather than trying to persuade
the other, they would start rethinking, together,
some of their basic assumptions. This might be a bit
dicey for a while because each would probably feel a
bit vulnerable. Were they to persist, however, they
would gradually come to recognize the significance
ofthat ancient injunction, "Know Thyself."
As they continued to talk together, Julian and
Ivan would doubtless range across economic, politi
cal, social, and cultural considerations. They would
talk about the shorter and the longer run. Perhaps
they would even talk about their children, that is,
about their most profound hopes and fears. Perhaps
this would break new ground. It has before.
Sometime during this process ? perhaps quite
soon, it would most likely occur to them that
because they share a common room, they also share
common ground. This essentially means both would
realize that their differences are less significant and
profound than what they share in common, and that
this common sense represents the beginnings of
wisdom.
At this point, we could unlock the door and ask
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Jonathan King
them two simple but crucial questions. "Do you trust
each other?" to which they would undoubtedly
reply, "Yes." We would then ask, "Are you ready to
leave?"
Would it be any surprise it they answered, "No"?
This fanciful scenario bears little semblance to the
controversies over nuclear power in America today
or lots of other controversies. That is unfortunate,
for this scenario illustrates some strategic principles
for keeping our world from becoming an increas
ingly unstable place.
Real listening ? dialogue ? is essential to map
ping the boundaries and learning to recognize
patterns of interactions which are the crux of sorting
out messes. Real listening is also essential in estab
lishing trust and trust is the sine qua non of effec
tively working together. More significant, mistrust is
the dark heart of wicked problems.
The strategic principles for establishing trust
include compassion, for compassion is grounded in
the realization that what we share in common is far
more significant and profound than our differences.
Compassion is the crux of the Golden Rule; as Rabbi
Hillel pointed out long ago, "This is the whole law,
all else is mere commentary."
The strategic principles for establishing trust also
include "Know thyself." Terms expressing the sig
nificance of this quest include integrity, moral
excellence, leading from the inside out, the hero's
journey. By contrast, those who live from the
"outside-in" are not worthy of our trust.14
In sum, these strategic principles are essential to
sorting out messes together. More significant, in our
increasingly complex and interdependent times,
these principles guide us to live in ways that help us
dissolve what is problematic.
If the above scenario and its principles sound a bit
old-fashioned, they are. If they appear simplistic, it is
only because they are profoundly simple. If they
seem idealistic, they are not. They are as realistic as
we can get.
Notes
1 The terms "tame" and "wicked" are Rittel and Webber's
(1973); "mess" is Ackoff's (1974).
2 See Lakoff and Johnson (1980) on the significance of
metaphor in general and on the differences between mili
 Nuclealr Power in America 115
tary, puzzle, and chemical metaphors in particular. I am
implying that the military metaphor is appropriate for
"solving" tame problems (see Weick (1979) on the signifi
cance of the military metaphor in business). I am using the
puzzle metaphor ("sorting out" the relationships between
various components of a system) and the chemical metaphor
("dissolving" the tensions of wicked problems) as ways of ex
panding and restructuring our understandings of problems.
3 Relevant excerpts from Warren Weaver's essay in the
1958 Annual Report of the Rocke feller Foundation are cited in
Jacobs (1961, pp. 429-433).
4 On this specific point, see Senge (1990) for a brief elabora
tion of nine of around a dozen "systems archetypes" iden
tified by researchers to date.
5 In particular, see Gregory Bateson (1979, pp. 58?61) and
Peter Senge (1990, pp. 73?79) on limitations of our "linear"
logic and syntax.
6 Chaos theory is an especially dramatic case of looking at
the "same" things in new ways (see King, 1989).
7 For example, see Lewis' "event-tree" and "fault-tree"
approach in assessing 'The Safety of Fission Reactors', Scien
tific American (March 1980) 242: 53-65.
8 For example, see Kenyon B. De Greene's succinct analysis
(1990) of the state of the art in human factors engineering in
which he stresses the strategic importance of actively involv
ing the operators in the design of equipment in the first
place rather than the typical, American approach of effec
tively deskilling them. Also see Taguchi and Clausing's
(1990) similar emphasis on designing in reliability.
9 See Edward de Bono (1985) and David B?hm (cited at
length in Senge, 1990, pp. 238?249) on the widespread
Western (especially American) tendency to jump to conclu
sions. Both essentially argue that "mapmaking" or "dialogue"
is essential to sorting out messes, but that jumping to
conclusions ? "argumentation" or "discussion" ? remains
the dominant approach to problems.
10 For example, see James Hunter's Culture Wars (1991),
Robert Bellah et aVs The Good Society (1991), and more
generally, Alvin Toffler's Powershift (1990).
11 The two quotes are from a Time essay by Charles
Krauthammer (1991) and from a brief commentary by Barry
Lopez in Life (circa 1987).
12 See Douglas and Wildavsky's (1982) argument that not
only are risks largely in the eye of the beholder, but that
beholders can be grouped into three classes depending on
the types of organizations they inhabit ? market, hierar
chical, or communitarian. "Cornucopians" correspond to the
free market folks, while "catastrophists" correspond to com
munitarians. The significance of this argument is suggested
by Douglas' subsequent and acclaimed book, How Institutions
Think (1986). Succinctly, not only is most of our knowledge
"out there" instead of being in our heads, but most of it is
organized or institutionalized in non-arbitrary ways. Ferret
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ing out patterns or classificatory typologies helps us under
stand how institutions think. Cornucopians and catastro
phists inhabit different institutions.
13 For example, see Simon (1981) and Illich (1974).
14 For example, see Stephen Covey (1989). Covey is em
phatic that getting one's own inner compass aligned to true
North is fast becoming the sine qua non for business survival
in the global economy. The late Joseph Campbell (1987) was
equally explicit as to what is at issue:
"The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer
worlds meet . . . The outer world changes with historical
time; the inner world ? Anthropos ? is constant to the
human race.
What a wonderful power the machine gives you. But, is it
going to dominate you? This statement of what the need and
want is must come from you! Not from the machine and not
from the government that is teaching your or even the
clergy. It has to come from one's own inside and the minute
you let that drop and take what the dictation of the time is
instead of the dictation of your own eternity, you have
capitulated to the Devil and you're in Hell."
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