Systems Thinking? Yes, but holistically conceived

The four volume-set on Systems Thinking that will be published by
Sage in February 2003, being presented "as a resource for future
generations of students and systems practitioners", has been
announced arguing that "(t)hey will be especially valuable for
libraries that do not have extensive collections of systems journals"
because "this collection is really too expensive [�450 (UK Pounds)]
for individuals to purchase". In addition it is claimed and claiming
that these books "ensure that a wide range of systems ideas are made
accessible to both new readers and those wanting to broaden their
knowledge of the systems field.available"

Reading the titles of the 76 papers chosen for being published, it
might be once again corroborated that the evolvement of systems have
been philosophically validated while cybernetics have been basically
justified as a set of means for improving the functionality of
certain systems. Besides it can be maintained that in both cases the
betterment has made necessary to continuously develop their specific
possibilities in diverse areas where critical circumstances, adaptive
requirements, self-referential control, usefulness of communication,Š
emerged or became essential aspects of systemic actions supported by
cybernetic interrelations presumably while bearing in mind that
learning to deal with complex situations cause necessarily a peculiar
proliferation of methodological approaches for tackling specific
situations and problems that were considered top priorities.

Besides it seems confirmed the conceptual validity of systems and
cybernetic in a large variety of areas of human concern: from Gaia to
Schizophrenia, Family Therapy including the Modelling, Simulation,
Management and Betterment of Socio-technical Systems and the domain
of Systems Engineering

Therefore it could not be ignored that each one of the texts selected
was originally written as a contribution for describing experiences
attained and also for explaining, justifying and or implementing
actions where the concepts of systems and cybernetics were or could
be employed for dealing with the technologically oriented and
methodologically minded evolvement of the human society that has
emerged in the frame of the western civilization. Today only this
civilizing concern is what prevails, though under the influence of
many diverse religious and ideological interpretations of what the
human reality might be.

Anyhow these 76 texts constitute a sample of the kinds of ideas that
during the last five decades were conceived in diverse circumstances
by researchers who have intended, according to their personal
possibilities and engagements to deal more consistently - supported
by systems and cybernetic concepts - with some of the increasing
number of larger difficulties that have generated the dynamics of the
Western civilization.

In general, it can be argued that most systems thinkers and
cyberneticians, necessarily conditioned each one by his or her
perceptual possibilities and under the influence of his or her biased
interpretations of the reality, unavoidably perceived peculiarly by
every individual - though without being able to avoid completely the
pressure of his or her own prejudices - almost always, has aimed in
practice at making sustainable the functionality of some aspects of
the civilized homosphere.

It means that the conceptual value of systems thinking, comprised in
several cases the insertion of cybernetic interactions, which have
been mainly produced along the second half of the 20th century (after
their explicit emergence and diffusion), have been determined by
individuals learning to accept and to criticize some of the features
of this civilized homosphere, while disregarding and ignoring other
characteristics.

But the functioning of every constituted society, at the dawn of one
conventional 3rd millennium, is confronted today to an increasing
poverty, misery, unemployment, hunger, starvation, pollution of
water, soil and air, exhaustive explotation of natural resources,
criminality, economic, social and ethnical discrimination, extended
xenophobia, violent supression of conflicts,Š Meanwhile systems are
created for increasing monetary profits and financial revenues, for
legal and illegal (globalised and globalising) trade and even for
fighting against and killing all the other humans who refuse to
accept and recognize that the progress of the whole civilization is
under way because rich people become soon wealthier in order to
evolve as philanthropists.

"Components of contemporary change... At the top is the spectacular
advance of human misery. I estimate that more humans are enduring
agony today than ever before.. I speak of starvation and epidemic;
war and terrorism; deprivation, exploitation, and physical torture...
Second is the collapse of the civilization, which we have known in
our lifetime. ...no one talks about the exploitation of either nature
or indigenous people any more. They talk instead about 'sustainable
development' --but there is not such thing. Not only can development
not be sustained; even the existing fabric cannot be sustained any
longer. ...we are governed by an oligarchy --by the few; it is an
oligarchy of power greed, and terror. ...we are blind to this.
...none of the phenomena mentioned would be observed in its current
and virulent form, if there were no powerful modern armaments... But
no serious political platform anywhere has proposed to make the
manufacture of armaments illegal. ...this manufacture is essential to
the conduct of the existing world economy. Without jumping to
conspiracy theories, or citing the illegal activities which now
constitute the world's biggest industry, we can at the least say that
humankind now manages its own affairs with breathtaking incompetence"
[Beer, 1993, p. 15].

[Beer, 1993] Stafford Beer. World in Torment: A time whose idea must
come. Presidential Address to the Congress of the WOSC, New Delhi,
1993) in Kybernetes Vol 22, No 6, 1993

Evidently something or even many things have not worked properly
inside the Systems Movement during only 48 years, since the Society
for General Systems Research emerged in 1954. In this period of time
the World has changed radically due to the successful implementation
of many kinds of technological, methodological and organizational
innovations. It has evidently changed a great deal - less for better
and a lot more for worse - but allowing for a gross simplification,
improvements attained for example in the domain of human and animals
rights, are rarely due to systems thinking and cybernetic ideas,
while the deterioration of human circumstances is efficiently
organized by means of societal systems constituted for the sake of
civilization.

However tragic the perspective generated by the civilizing dynamics
that has been imposed to humankind, it is claimed that there is still
possible to build a way forward - one that may lead humans to
overwhelm the crisis aggravated along the last century by the
prevalent decision making - if and only if humans learn to comprehend
and transform differently their surrounding reality.

Such a way forward may arise from the debate about the possibilities
that may offer the Systems Thinking, through Top � Down approach, as
it was proposed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy: This approach has been
very often put aside due to the assumption that analytic procedures
are more reliable than holistic endeavors without being recognized

However tragic the perspective generated by the civilizing dynamics
that has been imposed to humankind since around only eight millennia
ago, it is claimed in the year 2002 that there are nowadays enough
minds on Earth willing to examine and develop the planetary
possibilities needed for building gradually and consistently a way
forward that may lead humans to overwhelm the actual crisis, which
has been aggravated along the last century by the prevalent decision
making. Such a kind of possibilities may arise explicitly if and only
if humans learn to comprehend and transform differently their
surrounding reality.

Such a way forward may emerge from the debate about the possibilities
that may offer the Systems Thinking, through Top � Down approach, as
it was proposed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy: This approach has been
very often put aside due to the assumption that analytic procedures
cannot be substituted by holistic endeavors, which are in fact
indispensable for searching effectively how to make sustainable the
presence of humans in time and in space in the only planet available
for us.

http://www.bertalanffy.org

:: Who was Bertalanffy
> His personal life,
> What he did achieve,
> General System Theory ,
> General System Weltanschauung

:: BAC 2001
> Organizing BAC 2001
> Organizing the Conversazione
> Conference

:: What do you think about him
> Why to honor him?

:: System Movement
> Origins,
>Society for General Systems Research
> Systems and Cybernetics Societies,
> International Federation for Systems Research
> The challenge for the systems movement

:: Forum 2002
> New Image of Man and Woman
> A Sustainable Society
> Business Globally Concerned
> Peace Research
> Wholism: The Way Forward
> Gen Syst Theory+Gen Syst Weltanschauung
> Perspectivism

:: Reading Hall

:: Whom to thank

:: Whom to ask

-- 
elohimjl