Book release – fRAGmentation: The Power of e Pluribus Unum, by Dr Alex Bennet

In announcing fRAGmentation: The Power of e Pluribus Unum¹, Dr Alex Bennet, writes that:

In a time of deep personal loss of my life partner and best friend, this work emerged as a necessary endeavor to make sense of today’s fragmented world—from authoritarianism and societal divides to ecological and digital fractures. This work unpacks the root causes of global disintegration while illuminating pathways to resonance and cohesion. Here are the first three chapters. I ask you to share these freely with your network. Read it, reflect on it, share it and act on it.

Dr Bennet’s thesis in regard to the dual nature of fragmentation as both a catalyst for destruction and a precursor to change is also supported by the key concept of panarchy and change² in the social-ecological systems literature.

fRAGmentation: The Power of e Pluribus Unum has political aspects, and necessarily so given the role of politics in our fractured societies, environment, and knowledge, although seen through the limitations of an American lens³. For example, the Preface includes the statement that “Evidence of the brilliance of American democracy is the proliferation of democracies throughout the world in over 80 nations as reported by Freedom House.” However, democracy is not an American invention⁴ and the type of democracy that is “American democracy” is one of many⁵. Furthermore, any reference of the spread of American democracy throughout the world should include discussion of the gap between the assumptions and reality of this transition paradigm⁶, and also the extent to which the lack of genuine knowledge inclusiveness in American democracy has contributed to the current state of affairs.

Nevertheless, fRAGmentation: The Power of e Pluribus Unum offers a much-needed clear, coherent, and cohesion-facilitating pathway forward for an increasingly divided and confused world.

The global knowledge management (KM) community should also heed the book’s advice. Growing fragmentation can also be seen in the KM community, although many seem unaware that it is happening. In his landmark 2021 review⁷, Alexander Serenko states that “Scholars should realize that the KM discipline may successfully exist as a cluster of divergent schools of thought under an overarching KM umbrella and that the notion of intradisciplinary cohesion and consistency should be abandoned.” This can be seen in the rapidly growing diversity of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge across the KM community, with new KM organizations, thought structures, and centres of leadership emerging that are challenging and broadening past thinking.

However, there’s yet to be a collective realization in the KM community in regard to what needs to happen to successfully navigate the disorder these changes are bringing. In particular, people are still thinking in long-standing structures when as raised in Chapter 3 of fRAGmentation: The Power of e Pluribus Unum, there’s a need to identify, recognise, value, engage, and engage with all KM and related stakeholders, as also discussed in the article “Why a multiple knowledges approach is essential to the success of the UN Pact for the Future and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

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