thoughtfulLook at the problems we face in the social spectrum -- the wobbling public education, the collapsing health care, the tension over class warfare and racism and other prejudices -- those are all systemic problems. They aren't subject to singular solutions. Solving them requires us to identify and address the root causes, then apply multiple responses to fix the different parts of the problem. Furthermore, different people or places may benefit from different solutions for a particular aspect, based on differences in how the problem affects them. We need something as robust and flexible as an ecosystem to respond appropriately to challenges.
Many people still think on an individualized, competitive level: my person, my company, my nation ... my needs against yours. This worked, more or less well depending on context, as long as people's ability to affect things was at approximately the same level as their awareness of affiliation. Now, however, our ability to affect things far outstrips our collective awareness of affiliation. Humanity has the ability to ravage the ecosystem and disrupt the environment on a tremendous scale, but we're not considering the systemic effects. Individual people, companies, nations are looking for how they can gain the most private advantage, without considering the public cost. And the result is disastrous for everyone. Some individuals already understand that harm to one part of a system will harm the other parts, the way a cut on your foot can fester into a fever that boils your brain in its little bone bunker. But that's not enough; we need a collective awareness, not just an individual awareness, of that complexity.
The more I think about it, the more I suspect that this is our species' current lesson. Think systemically. I recall that the Baha'i Faith teaches that humanity has evolved ever-larger social structures: individual to family to clan to tribe to city to city-state to nation, and now we're supposed to be learning "The Earth is one." Not necessarily a homogenous society, any more than the environment is homogenous; but part of a whole with an understanding that what affects one area surely impacts others as well. We can do this. The examples of how it's done are all around us. The tricky part is, it means not just thinking outside the box, but dismantling the box and thinking in whole new dimensions.
We have the potential. The question is whether we have the Will.
September 4 2008, 18:00:49 UTC 12 years ago
September 5 2008, 01:50:41 UTC 12 years ago
A classic version of this is crime. People on both ends of the political spectrum point at the other end and say "We tried it your way back in (insert date here) and it didn't end crime." And both ends are right. We've tried executing people for stealing a penny's worth of bread and we've tried being nice and working to rehabilitate criminals, and neither way ended crime.
Because some people commit crime from despair. Others commit it as a business, based on risk-benefit analysis. Anything you do to rehabilitate instead of punish will encourage some criminals and discourage others, and vice versi. And then there's a third class who are going to commit crimes anyway, no matter what you do.
So here, as in many social problems, there really is no solution. Yet working for a justice system that is as enlightened and effective as possible can still improve the lives of society as a whole, and is still worth doing, even if no perfect solution can ever be found.
Thoughts
September 5 2008, 02:22:35 UTC 12 years ago
September 5 2008, 01:57:08 UTC 12 years ago
Which could actually be true. But it's irrelevant. If the truck's hurtling down the mountain out of control, the first thing you do is take your foot off the gas pedal. It doesn't matter whether the truck is going too fast because you were stupid and drove too fast, or because the brakes failed and you can't prevent it; your first action, when you see the problem, is to at least stop trying to make it worse.
The same with global warming. In fact, I would suggest that on the off chance the naysayers are right and we ARE going into uncontrolled global warming due to powers outside our control, we have an even more desperate need to throttle back on whatever causes ARE under our control. Because it's going to be that much more vital, and difficult, to stop the warming.
I Agree
September 5 2008, 02:23:38 UTC 12 years ago