What are the gifts of thinking systemically?
Ah, there are so many! Today, I invite you to consider the simplest gift that thinking systemically gives to us – the ability to count past two. 😉
When all we have is two (or a polarity, a binary), then everything becomes an either/or, which by the nature of the two-ness, has the tendency to get more extreme each time the polarity is named:
- Either it’s all my fault or it’s all your fault.
- Either we have safety and protection but no freedom and live in a security state, or we have liberty but we live constantly in danger.
- Either we protect nature and sacrifice people’s needs, or we sacrifice the earth so people everywhere can have basic needs met.
- Either we enter people’s homes and take away all their guns, or everyone has as many guns as they want with no restrictions.
When we think systemically, however, these binaries start to disappear. We notice nuances, errors, resources and common ground we hadn’t seen before. We calm down and get creative. We connect unexpectedly and start solving problems.
I was thinking about this in response to the latest tragic school shooting. So quickly, the debate become for or against gun control (with some other topics like mental health thrown in to underline a specific position), and we polarize more and more.
But if we include larger contexts, elements and issues, the binary evaporates as the illusion it is. So, let’s bring in the NRA and the profit-motive behind gun sales. And the system of campaign donations that runs much of our representative government. And the history of violence upon which this country is founded. And the caricature of gun culture that distorts masculinity and becomes a fantasy refuge for people who feel powerless. And our mental illness crisis that stigmatizes the ill, addresses individuals’ needs in isolation rather than community, and which lacks resources to support the ill and their families. And…so much more…
There is no way to hold onto a simple argument when we start to bring in the larger systemics. (And the sub-issues are themselves expressions of complex systemic realities.) But if all parties are dealing in good faith (a big “if,” I know), then forward movement actually becomes possible. It can be life-saving, for example, in struggling relationships that have gotten stuck in “It’s your fault or it’s my fault.” There is now so much more to work with, and a flow of energy that comes with releasing the illusion of the stuck di-lemma.
I often share with my clients an image from the old book Flatland, an allegory meant to help us understand dimensions. The book describes a culture that lives in a two-dimensional, flat space. In the same way we can’t really imagine a fourth dimension, they can’t imagine a third one. When the protagonist – who is, like us, a three-dimensional person – visits Flatland, it looks like he is appearing magically, because they can’t see the third dimension from which he comes. He passes his hand through their country, and it just appears – poof! – and then disappears.
Non-systemic thinking is like living in Flatland, in two dimensions, with only the north-south and east-west directions available. Systemic thinking is like finding the third dimension and finding that the two dimensions simply aren’t all there is. It gives enormous freedom and possibility. And, it is a stretch, especially if we – in a relationship or as a culture – have been stuck in either/or.
When have you in your personal life noticed the limitations of either/or, and felt the liberation that comes from finding “the third spot”? How do you help yourself to notice when you are in either/or, and to think systemically in a new way? I love to hear your stories and thoughts! Please share on my blog, so the conversation can continue…
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