Dear colleagues, friends and congeners,
"For the Earth we work together, she is the ground that unifies us all. By
nurturing and caring for the Earth, our common ground, on which everything
is built on, problems dissolve naturally - if we really go to the ground of
the particular situation and release the fixed powers and symbols by
becoming awake and conscious." (Margit Bohdalek)
Today, still at the dawn of the third millennium, it has become certainly
necessary to examine why the original Bertalanffian ideas - those that
pushed ahead definitely the emergence and evolvement of the 'systems
movement' - have not unequivocally improved the perspective of humankind,
not even in the not too distant future.
Have the Bertalanffy's Systems Thinking been indubitably misinterpreted?
How could be justified the proliferation of 'systems approaches', which are
used for creating and maintaining in operation societal systems that
usually aggravate the social and economic situation of billions of people.
A systems practitioner has commented recently: "The world has changed a
lot, for better and for worse, but - allowing for a gross simplification -
the improvements are rarely "due to us." Meanwhile, the deterioration of
poverty, gap between rich and poor, intolerance, violence, shortcomings in
education and health care are precisely the areas where the systems
approach should have had an impact."
Evidently something is going seriously wrong in the utilization of systems
thinking, as apparently the Top ==> Down approach is theoretically right
when it is needed to reveal the 'Gestalten' properties that characterize
the higher levels of organization. But also the Bottom ==> Up approach is
theoretically justified when it becomes necessary to start creating very
new circumstances.
What to do? First of all, it has been suggested that it is indispensable to
explicitly recognize that the serious problems that humankind faces at
present - which are reaching a crisis point - are in a large measure the
culmination of human actions intelligent conceived and skillfully
implemented along millennia.
Though systems thinking could arise explicitly only around 50 years ago,
the second step must be given by systems practitioners, learning to
identify how the world problems are causally interrelated and how their
possible solutions might be causally interdependent.
Anyhow, I dare to express my personal view at the end of 2001
According to my biased perspective
it has become urgently indispensable for all of us,
the human beings alive at the beginning of the year
2002
to recognize the serious tribulations
that nowadays faces the human species.
the dynamics of the prevailing civilization is nearly broken,
its pretended evolvement is reaching a crisis point,
the civilizing process appears now frankly unsustainable,
after being noticed again and again
that the so-called economic development
does not promote progress
as it tends to increase the social predicaments;
that many social policies cannot generate wellbeing
neither produce welfare
as they are determined by perverted monetary plans;
that numerous cultural trends, instead of encouraging
cooperation,
aim at stimulating unfair competitions,
which employ pseudo democratic
procedures
for justifying the annihilation of defeated
contestants;
that multifarious human attitudes
do not induce humanitarian prospects
as they are more and more degraded
by amusement, recreation,
fun and leisure,
and corrupted in addition by unscrupulous
intentions
which aim at making unilateral profit
of everything and every
occurrence;
causing altogether unemployment, misery and criminality,
also extinction of many living species,
and even the deterioration of essential features of Gaia;
our unique planet that still makes possible our
existence.
It has become indeed unbearable to continue announcing
the splendor of our magnificent civilization,
supported by unbelievable technologies;
while most people everywhere
have no other choice than suffering
the numerous and larger inconveniences that
it engenders,
as they are in practice unaware of
what the real causes of the crisis at
present are;
as they continue pedaling
- in accordance with the civilization's
trends -
in fact, fighting desperately to survive
as workers, employees, servants, serfs,
slaves,...
or any other kind of human resources;
at the same time, few others due to particular circumstances,
encouraged by ambition, greediness, selfishness &
rapacity
generated by unsuitable societal
interactions,
essay to develop their individual and collective
potentiality,
which usually aims at taking advantage,
unilaterally, but intelligently,
of everything in the
surroundings;
as they have chosen to believe that
the presence of human
beings on the planet,
the existence of all other
species,
the manifestation of life
on this unique planet,...
will be happenings granted forever,
whatever were the values,
attitudes, behavior & aims
of the people involved.
The 'adventure' of our species, the so called homo sapiens,
which according to some scientific speculations
started 100,000 years ago,
is now on the verge of collapse,
showing dramatically and sometimes tragically,
that the human intelligence,
the 'highest' one on the Earth,
has not been able to evolve consistently
during the last 6,000 years
the period of civilizing experiences.
The paradoxical success of civilizing processes,
which is not certainly a successful paradox,
has become the source of multifarious actions that increase
human misery,
the number of endangered species,
the environmental degradation &
the deterioration of planetary circumstances;
altogether worsened day after day due to enormous monetary profits
that are attained through all kinds of possible trade
- fabricated by the human mind in our
'modern' times -
drug trafficking, weapons trade, organs for
transplantation trade,
highly commercialized slavery, prostitution and
pornography,
timber smuggling, mechanized fishing, larger poaching,
increasing number of motorized vessels,...
and seriously aggravated by a generalized but simplified marketing
the globalizing one
which is causing
capital flight, speculation on currency and commodity markets,
rogue trade,... an also
globalization of misery, corruption and hypocrisy
Might or may we still behave optimistically?
can we still conceive how to perform consistently
from now onward, starting in the year 2002?
it may sound utopian an idealistic,
however, I dare to argue that
we should at least try to encourage ourselves
to develop a very new kind of energetic and
synergetic spirit
which must aim at improving:
the harmonious interaction of natural and social interactions,
the development of capabilities of every individual,
the recognition of utilitarian limits in every locality,
the development of humanitarian and humane attitudes
the recognition of survival rights of animals
the identification of human commitments,...
to motivate everybody to answer reasonably well the
key question:
"for what purpose am I and are we living"
supported by ethical, ethological, biological and
ecological values
bearing in mind local, regional and global
circumstances
while learning to identify theoretically and practically
how every human may and should contribute to clear up
what the role of humans on Earth ought to be"
After all, at least for the time being, warmest greetings from elohimjl
Received on Sat Dec 29 20:15:22 2001
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