Re: Are \"they\" really the enemy? (Systems commentary)

[Jim.Dixon:@pylon.com (quoting John)]

So what do we do?  It seems we've pretty much agreed that 
governments are 
beasts beyond anyone's control, but so is _society_.  So is the 
entire 
human population.  Where do we start?  If, or based on the 
words of many 
on this list, we tear down the government, will we understand 
the 
resultant human-made system any better?
.....................................................

("human-made" system:  is government some other kind? Is 
society made up of an entire population of beasts?)

System-makers typically expect automatic processes to determine 
the character of the whole, and the operations themselves 
become the purpose for which the system exists.  The humans who 
act within the system are reduced to accessories, becoming 
secondary in importance to the organizational requirements of 
maintaining & perpetuating the outcome  -  which by then 
becomes moot, as everyone's concentration is focused upon the 
details of the procedures.

When a system is designed to organize human behavior (as in 
"governing" it) it has the inherent mistake of being based on 
the presumption of complete knowledge of human nature (yet who 
agrees on what that comprises).  Anyone who is circumscribed by 
the system created is held within its confines, is judged by 
its borders and by its limits upon their decisions.  If someone 
wants to try out an idea or method which does not fall within 
the allowances set up within it, they must first go outside of 
the system to have the freedom to act according to the new 
idea.  They must take up the responsibility which would 
otherwise have been distributed and shared with others.  They 
also take outside of the system the effects which might have 
affected those within it.

No one is going to be agreeable to participating in a venture 
in which they do not have some confidence about the reward; in 
a ready-made system if someone has become dependent upon the 
security it provides, they are going to be even less willing to 
give up the comfort of pre-determined decisions and predictable 
outcomes.  Then there will be seen less of reason and more of 
unimaginative automaticity.

In a non-political system or manner of existence (not designed 
to rule over human nature per se), individuals have to rely 
upon their own abilities, upon the development of their own 
judgement, rather than upon the "governance" of their behavior 
by strangers.  This doesn't mean that there could be no systems 
in existence at all; there are still business enterprises which 
call upon the coordination of efforts towards a specific goal.  
But this does not obligate that they take on the quality of a 
"perpetual picnic".  The more that individuals look at systems 
as relative to the accomplishment of particular, specific 
goals, the less they will look to them as the means to 
accomplish the re-shaping of mankind (i.e. the morality of the 
neighbors).  Such systems actually could accomplish a 
"re-shaping" of some individuals, but as an accessory 
contingent event, simply from the fact of those involved having 
discovered a means of achieving some personal command over 
"Nature".

Trying to understand the system (whose system?) is really 
putting the cart before the horse (first you need a problem, to 
which the system is the solution).  Trying to understand all of 
human nature is a Major Enterprise.  It's much more managable 
to set up small systems based upon the control of those who 
have cause to set one up, who are interested & willing to 
participate, than trying to set up an all-encompassing system 
which includes even unrully, ungrateful beasts with an attitude.