Some Systems are People
October 24, 2022 In an earlier newsletter, we considered how people are systems. Let's reverse that and think about how some systems are people.
Hello It’s Complex Readers, I hope all is well with you and that the complexities of your lives are manageable. I find it interesting to think about how some systems are people that require human action to function.
Please keep telling anyone and everyone about It’s Complex. Thank you!
A Reminder for Familar Readers and an Orientation for New Readers
Here at It’s Complex we think about and deal with the world’s many complexities—from global issues to individual experiences. The world sure is a complex place, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. We end up glossing over complexity and postpone thinking about it. But much is at stake for humanity and for individuals. Let’s stop postponing; let’s embrace complexity and deal with it. At It’s Complex, we think about and deal with complexity from a holistic systems perspective. A system is a wider whole made up multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about and deal with any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality (M), connectedness (C), and dynamics (D). I like to abbreviate them as MCD. Think MCD, be MCD!
Multidimensionality refers to how complex phenomena are made up of multiple parts.
Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which complex phenomena are connected or linked. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness, which refers to 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.
For further details (or as a refresher), check out some of the first newsletter posts.
Newsletter: Some Systems are People
After the overview of systems theory, people were one of the examples that I gave of systems and systems thinking. Every person is a system; all people are systems. It is also interesting to reverse the idea that people are systems and think about how some of the world’s systems are made up of people. When I hear the term “human systems,” I think about how some systems are people.
Human Systems
Although some systems are made up of people, they do not always seem particularly human or humane. Sometimes it seems as if systems function on their own, in faraway places that are removed from the people affected by them. A system has an automatic life of its own, making it hard to beat. Coming in contact with some systems can feel like getting sucked into a vortex that controls you. Even people who work within some systems may feel like cogs in a machine. We resign ourselves to it by saying “It’s how the system works, you can’t escape it.” It all feels so impersonal and remote. But still, human systems are made up of actual people.
People are among the multiple, interrelated, and dynamic parts that comprise some systems and without whom the systems would not function. Without people, some systems would just not exist. Human systems are created, maintained, and changed by people. Creating, maintaining, and changing systems are all activities that people do that make the functioning of any human system possible. Thus, we can amend the first sentence of this paragraph and say: People acting in particular ways are among the multiple, interrelated, and dynamic parts that comprise some systems and without whom the systems would not function. Systems are also people if and when they affect people, who then become multidimensional, connected, and dynamic parts of the systems that are affecting them. They too then act within the systems.
Think about any human system. How about any country’s healthcare system, criminal justice system, or education system? How about the World Health Organization or the global economic system? How about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? They all involve multitudes of people acting in multiple, interrelated, and dynamic ways. Take any human system you are interested in and start somewhere to think systemically about its complexities. What is one activity that one person or a few people within that system do? How is their action played out or particularized? Go on from there to other people and their activities and ways of acting. Then, start thinking about interrelations among those people and what they do. Your diagram will likely soon be full of multi-directional arrows. Also, think about the dynamics of these activities, including the history of the system and how people’s activities within it have stayed the same, as well as changed. Also, go through the same process for the people who are part of a system when they are affected by it. What are they doing and how is what they do multidimensional, connected, and dynamic?
Speaking of the IRS. My mother died in October 2020, and I filed her taxes for 2020 in April 2021. The IRS was short-staffed during the pandemic, and they were more behind in processing taxes than ever before. My mother’s accountant said that the IRS is a mess and that it would take at least three months and probably much longer to hear anything from them. He said I wouldn’t find anyone there to help me. I thought about the massive government buildings in Washington, DC, and I envisioned them emptied of the legions of people who usually work in them. I started checking the Where’s my Refund website regularly early in the Fall of 2021, and for about two months, it said that there was no information. But then one day it said that the return was being processed and that further information would be posted when available. At that time, I also called the phone number given on the website, but I did not get anywhere. There was no electronic voice or menu to select from, and I was not even put on hold. Imagine being disappointed not to be put on hold! I continued to check the site and there continued to be no change—the return was still being processed.
As a taxpayer, I am part of the revenue system, but I felt very removed from the system, especially from the people working at the IRS who were affecting me. I had to force myself to imagine someone sitting at a desk with a pile of last year’s tax returns to get to. Whose desk or computer was my mother’s return on? I imagined the person not being remotely curious about me or my mother, or any other person whose taxes they were processing. On a whim in February 2022, I decide to try calling again. This time there was a menu to select from and after about 20 minutes, an actual person came on the line. She was very pleasant and helpful, and it was not so remote anymore. She referred the return to the next step, and said I should receive the refund in two weeks. I started thinking about her as an actual person, with a life. I wondered how many people she talked to on any given day and if she thought about how she affected me during our fleeting contact. Maybe she felt removed too and thought of me as just another set of last-four-digits-of-a-social-security-number that she had to deal with for a few moments. But who knows, maybe she enjoyed the perfectly pleasant human contact that occurred and was glad that I appreciated her help. Although I am removed from the people who work at the IRS, I am not so removed from others within the revenue system, such as my mother’s accountant and my own accountant. We and what we do contribute to the system-as-people. We engage directly with each other and we mutually affect each other, making the financial system somewhat less remote and impersonal. I say “somewhat less remote and impersonal” because we are not best buddies. But still, I engage with them directly and I think of them as actual people to whom I am connected. By the way, I am still waiting for the refund, I can’t get through to a person at the IRS, and the Where’s My Refund site is back to indicating that there is no information about my mother’s tax filing.
In some cases, aspects of system functioning are not remote at all. It depends on what a system’s people do. Although students may be removed from the people on local boards of education and very far removed from politicians who set nation-wide education policies, they engage daily and directly with their teachers and teachers engage directly with students. As students and teachers engage directly, they are sub-systemic parts of the wider education system who mutually affect each other quite directly. Teachers and students form relationships, sometimes with quite non-remote emotional connections. People buying goods at a store in the US are far removed from people who work in factories in China. They are far removed from the people who regulate global shipping routes, as well as from the people who manage the corporations and who profit from the goods that are made. But they are multiple, connected, and dynamic parts of the global financial system in varied ways, including as they engage directly with people who work in the stores where the goods end up.
Changing Human Systems
Many human systems are flawed and need improving. Maybe you recently complained about a system, and maybe you went beyond complaining to ranting about it. We hear about systems that are flawed and need to be fixed. Some might say that there needs to be a shock to a system in order for it to change, or someone might wonder if a major event will be the shock that finally changes a system. Whether by shock or other means, changing a human system involves changing what people do. It requires changing how people act. Such changes are tricky because systemic multidimensionality, connectedness, and dynamics preclude quick or easy fixes. Insofar as systems involve multiple parts, changing one part of the system may not be enough to improve wider systemic functioning. Also, changing one part of the system does not necessarily only affect that part of the system. Insofar as system parts are connected, the change could affect what other people do and could ultimately affect the functioning of the entire system in unintended ways. But just because fixing or improving a system is challenging, do not give up before even trying. Identify some of the multiple parts of the system in terms of people and what they do, identify some of their connections as best you can, and how they are stable and variable as best you can. Then, consider possible ways to change what people do and see how it goes. Always assess and reassess. And be prepared for people to resist as those who benefit from the system’s current structuring may not want it to change. And even those who find it flawed may resist because sometimes old habits just die hard and the uncertainty of change is stressful.
All of the above goes for “systemic” too. In contemporary discourse, referring to something as systemic means that it involves how wider societal processes are structured or organized. Systemic racism is about how wider societal systems are organized or structured in racist ways. And again, we come back to people acting. It takes people acting in particular ways for the criminal justice system or the healthcare system or the ________ system (fill in the blank as you see fit) to be systemically racist. And eradicating systemic racism will take people acting in different ways.
Systems Work because of What People Do
After the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection, I kept hearing journalists, political commentators, and analysts say that “the system worked.” They did not always specify what system in particular worked. Was it the electoral system? The constitutional system? The democratic system? All of the above? Are these different labels for the same system that could be encompassed by the “American governmental system”? In an op-ed, former President Carter wrote that “promoters of the lie that the election was stolen have taken over one political party and stoked distrust in our electoral systems.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/opinion/jan-6-jimmy-carter.html Why did he use the plural form—electoral systemS. Was he referring to each state’s particular electoral system? Without getting into a protracted discussion of what systems were involved or how to label them, the point is that “the system” functioned before, on, and after January 6th because of human action—because of what actual people did. That there even is a constitutional system to speak of is the result of human action. The “founders” met, argued, and wrote the US Constitution, and subsequent generations of people acted to uphold and amend it. If the Constitution and the governmental system that it proscribes are not upheld, it means that people are not acting in accord with its guidelines for action. Fortunately before, on, and after January 6th, there were people who acted in accord with its principles and guidelines for action, from people working in local polling stations, to state secretaries of state who certified elections in their states, to then Vice President Pence who refused to go along with Trump’s schemes to overturn the election. So yes, “the system” worked, thanks to a few people.
Commentators also talked about guardrails that protected the system, which is an interesting metaphor to use. I envision highway guard rails, as well as heavy steel barricades in front of buildings. They keep people away, making them very impersonal and non-human. But the system was protected by people on January 6th. The guardrails were people who acted in ways that upheld the system. Those people were not separated from the system by a barrier. They were parts of the system-as-people and they acted in accord with constitutional principles and guidelines. Ironically, it was the Capitol’s literal physical guardrails that were breached that day.
January 6th also laid bare how tenuous the American governmental system is, and that it is not guaranteed to work without people who act to uphold its principles. Unfortunately, there are people who are acting in ways that undermine its principles, from Republicans who did (and still do not) oppose Trump’s big lie, to suppressing the vote, to supporting legislation to ban books. Within this context, President Carter ended his op-ed by writing: “Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy.” The governmental system needs people to act immediately to change how people act within it. Toward that end, the Electoral College Reform Bill is an effort to bolster the system by specifying ways of acting. It is about what people within the system can and cannot do, such as recounting votes, litigating vote counts, and objecting to electors, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/us/politics/electoral-count-act-overhaul.html
These and other systemic changes could facilitate the ongoing systemic process of forming a more perfect system. Oops no, I mean union. The preamble to the US Constitution states the goal of forming a more perfect union: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” Actually, delete the oops; I do mean system. How about forming a more perfect system? What if USA stood for United System of America?
No one is perfect and so no human system will be perfect. And people will probably always argue about how to structure and improve human systems. Nevertheless, thinking about actual people and what they are doing within a system can potentially promote empathic understanding among people who participate in a system in different ways. Identifying the humanity of a human system that seems remote, impersonal, inhumane, and even alienating, could make it less so. It would not have to be a vortex that sucks you in and that cannot be beaten. Instead, people throughout the system could cooperate to ensure that the system functions effectively and equitably for all involved. The goal would be to organize what people do in humane ways that benefit everyone. I realize that in some cases this goal is quite idealistic. But forming more perfect systems is a goal worth pursuing.