C. Raeff Pick a Person, Any Person

May 30, 2022 How to think about any person as a system made up of multiple, interrelated, and dynamic parts...

Hello It’s Complex Readers,

I hope you had a good week and that you are not too overwhelmed by complexity. Maybe you are starting to deal with complexity by seeing systems everywhere and thinking about them in terms of multiple, connected (especially interrelated), and dynamic parts. For this week and next week, we will get into some concrete examples of systems. This week’s newsletter is about people as systems and next week’s newsletter will include three more examples of systems and systems thinking: the pandemic, the earth and climate change, and systemic racism.

If you missed last week’s newsletter on systems theory or want a quick refresher, here it is:

Also, please share It’s Complex and encourage people to subscribe. If you click on the Share button, there are links to share to Twitter and Facebook. Not too many steps! Thank you!

---

Pick a Person, Any Person

The world is a complex place because the world is a system. From the grand-scale global world to anyone’s particular corner of the world, the world is a system made up of innumerable sub-systems, sub-sub-systems, sub-sub-sub-systems...

To reiterate from last week, a system is a wider whole that is made up of multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality, connectedness, and dynamics. From a systems perspective,

• Multidimensionality refers to how phenomena are made up of multiple parts.

• Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which phenomena are connected or linked. No part is an island. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness—mutual and reciprocal connections between and among parts and wholes.

• Dynamics refers to how system processes are ongoing and can be played out in stable ways, as well as in varied, changing, and sometimes unpredictable ways.

Concrete examples of systems abound. Systems are literally everywhere.

Do you know some complex people? Have you ever described someone as complex? People are certainly complex and human complexity can be understood in terms of multidimensionality, connectedness, and dynamics.

Do you consider yourself to be “a whole person?” Do you want to be treated as a whole person? What is a whole person? I would say that a whole person is a system. Everyone is a system. Everyone is a whole systemic person, made up of multiple, interrelated, and dynamic parts. There are holistic approaches to medicine, which involve treating patients as whole people who consist of multiple, interrelated, and dynamic dimensions, rather than treating them as separate body parts that can be treated separately by separate doctors. There are wrap-around social services in social work that emphasize treating complex people who live complex lives in complex circumstances. And those complexities can be understood in terms of multidimensionality, interrelatedness, and dynamics. In education, we hear about the whole student who is not a purely academic being, but a multidimensional and developing person. When children go to school, they do not leave their home lives behind, and when they go home, they do not leave their school lives behind.

Multidimensionality

The world is populated by multiple people, each of whom is multidimensional. Think about the people you know, think about yourself. How would you describe them? How would you describe yourself? You are probably thinking about multiple dimensions, from physical appearance, to personality characteristics, to beliefs and values, to interests and job experience, to education and future plans, to relationships and social roles, to cultural circumstances. And that is just a very short list of the multiple dimensions that comprise a person.

Think about why people do what they do. When I think about what people do, I end up with a long, yet non-exhaustive list of what people do during the course of just a single day. The list gets longer as I think about what people do over weeks, months, years, and lifetimes. When I think about why we do what we do, another long, yet non-exhaustive list emerges. I start thinking about multiple individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. I start making more lists. And to my consternation, when I repeatedly ponder these complex issues, my lists are not exactly the same each time. Lists are a good starting point for pondering the multiple dimensions of complex phenomena. But they can easily get out of hand because it is often impossible to come up with exhaustive lists of the multiple parts of the complex phenomenon you are dealing with at any given time. The point is to recognize the multidimensionality and to start somewhere. In this case, what people do and why they do what they do are multidimensional aspects of people-as-systems (and there will be more to say about what and why people do what they do in future newsletters).

Connectedness

A person’s multiple dimensions are also connected. For example, in different cultures, social roles are understood in culturally-particular ways, making for connections between social roles and culture. The same goes for how social relationships are understood, as well as for how people interact with each other. Connectedness also includes interrelations among a person’s multiple dimensions. A person may take a job in relation to their beliefs and values, and at the same time a person’s job experience may affect what they believe and value. Educational opportunities are culturally organized and people with varying educational experiences contribute to the cultures in which they live. A person’s future plans may include their relationships (connections!) to other people and other people are simultaneously contributing to how the person’s future plans are played out.

From a systems perspective, a person’s multiple dimensions include the multiple contexts in which they act. As pointed out in the introductory newsletter on complexity, people live at the intersection of varied contexts (On Complexity) Thus, we can think about how a person’s experience in one context can influence what they do in another, and vice versa. For example, a worker is not only a worker. Workers have lives outside of work. Even when they are at work, they may be thinking about and dealing with other issues, such as family conflicts, arranging childcare, worrying about and having to make calls on behalf of elderly parents, their own healthcare, a friend who is visiting from out of town, transportation, and the list could go on.

Dynamics

People are also dynamic because human action is ongoing and is played out in varied and changing ways as it goes on. One reason why my list of what people do changes is that people and what they do changes as they live their lives. If you are reading this, you are no longer arguing over crayons in a kindergarten class. Instead, maybe you are arguing over how to proceed on a project with colleagues at work. If you are a college student, maybe you are arguing with your roommates about who should clean what and how often.

People may act in some of the same ways in the varied contexts of their lives, but across contexts, they may act differently. Do you know or remember some quiet students who barely said boo in class, but then were the life of the party on Thursday night? Or, some students who talk non-stop in class have to be dragged to parties where they barely say boo to anyone. Or, maybe you have a colleague at work who does not even say hello to people in the hallway, but you saw them speak passionately about the need for gun safety at a protest.

Some years ago, I was making plans to visit a friend for a few days, and he said that he had to warn me that he was not at his best. He was going through some rough times and he was just not functioning optimally. Probably no one is always at their best. We have off days, and sometimes even great athletes do not bring their A games. I like to watch tennis and tennis commentators often say that a match has its ups and downs as players’ functioning varies during the course of the match. Similarly, a person’s functioning can vary during the course of a day, even from hour to hour. But we do not always have off days or off hours, and we can bounce back from them, sometimes better than ever.

As a dynamic system, a person can act in both stable and changing ways, as well as in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Sometimes people surprise us or do what we consider to be out of character for them. But then, some new ways of functioning can become stable and predictable for that person. Human dynamics also includes development, which can be understood systemically in terms of multiple and interrelated kinds of changes (more on development in future newsletters).

Every Person is an Embodied System

Every person is also embodied and the human body can be understood as a system that consists of varied or multiple parts from arms and legs, to fingers and toes, to eyes and ears, to hair and blood, to chemicals and proteins, to genes and the brain. And each of those parts consists of its own multiple parts. Bodily functioning also requires varied processes, from genetic to digestive to cardiovascular to pulmonary to endocrine to neurological processes.

Bodily parts and processes are utterly inseparable and interrelated. As the song goes, the toe bone is connected to the foot bone, which is connected to the heel bone, which is connected to the ankle bone…  And eventually, we get from the toe bone to the head bone. A heart is nothing by itself, nor is a kidney, a lung, or a liver. They are distinct body parts that function in relation to each other within the whole body of a particular person. The brain is also made up of connections among its parts, including the neural networks that are formed throughout development. Varied body parts and processes comprise wider wholes that are labeled with the word system, such as the cardiovascular system or the digestive system. The term system is apt because we are dealing with multiple, interrelated, and dynamic parts and processes. In addition, these systems are connected to each other as sub-systems of the whole body system. When someone is healthy, these sub-systems are functioning in relation to each other in ways that comprise the wider whole of a physically healthy body.

But people are not always healthy because the body can function in varied ways. In other words, body parts and processes are dynamic. They certainly change, and some bodily dynamics are predictable, while some are not. Babies and children grow. Puberty happens. As we age, knees get worn out, hearing loss occurs. People get sick. Ongoing bodily processes can be variable over short periods of time, even from moment to moment. Weight can fluctuate by five or six pounds during the course of a day. https://www.healthline.com/health/weight-fluctuation#:~:text=Daily%20weight%20fluctuation%20is%20normal,for%20the%20most%20accurate%20results. Is your heart rate higher at the doctor’s office than at home, even during a routine checkup?

Every Person is also a Sub-System of Wider Systems

From a systems perspective, every person can also be understood as a sub-systemic part of wider systems, such as families, friend groups, work places, schools, sports teams, community organizations, or religious congregations. And those systems are sub-systemic parts of further wider systems, such as neighborhoods, towns, cities, countries, and…..planet earth. As people go about their systemic lives within multiple sub-systems, there are multiple connections. Those connections include interrelations among people who are in direct contact, both within and across sub-systems. Although there are cases of people who are estranged from their families or who live as recluses, the point here is that being a person-as-system means being connected to other people-as-systems in some way. Even a recluse lives somewhere in the world, and can affect and be affected by others within wider systems. Moreover, dynamics are ever-present. Thus, a recluse today may not be a recluse tomorrow. While some connections to other sub-systems may be stable for some stretches of time, anyone’s systemic connections to other sub-systems can and do change as they live their lives. Once someone finishes school, they are no longer part of that school sub-system on a daily basis. But they may become involved in their child’s school years later, and what they do as a sub-systemic part of that school sub-system will be different from when they were a student. Maybe you have had some friends for years and years and years, and maybe you have made some new friends in the last few years. Your part as a sub-system of friendship groups has remained stable in some ways, but shifted in others.

In addition, every person-as-system is connected to wider societal sub-systems in varied and dynamic ways. Some of these sub-systems are even referred to as systems, such as the healthcare system, the criminal justice system, or the education system. As workers and as consumers, people-as-systems are connected to a local economy and to the global economy. People-as-systems are also connected to political processes and policies, which are complex sub-systemic parts of the world.

As we keep going further out to wider systems, contact and connections among people are increasingly indirect. And no one will ever come into direct contact with more than a tiny fraction of the world’s 8 billion people. Nevertheless, both direct and indirect systemic connections comprise the globalized world. Massive and speedy economic, informational, political, and military connections are at the heart of globalization.

Within this globalized context, what someone does anywhere in the world can affect others who are far far away. And that was certainly a major lesson of the pandemic! Within this globalized context, everyone is ultimately connected to everyone else in some way. Not only are some connections far-reaching, but thanks to the internet, they are also fast. A video can go viral around the world in seconds and a virus can spread around the world in days. We must therefore mind the connections, including direct and indirect interrelations among people around the world. Doing so includes seeing oneself and others as human sub-systems within wider human systems who are connected directly and indirectly to others. Ultimately, constructing oneself and others as human sub-systems within wider human systems could be a basis for identifying oneself  in relation to a wider common good that encompasses the large-scale world.

Some Questions to Think and Comment About

What do you think? What interested you, what struck you, what surprised you?

How are you a system?

How are you a sub-system within wider systems? How are you connected to wider societal sub-systems?

How are you affected indirectly by people you will never meet and how are they affected by you?

What questions do you have about any of this?