A system is simply a way of doing things. An furniture-building-system is as much a thing as the furniture that gets made by the system.
A system is a useful tool.
A system noun-ifies the world in order that we might carry out verb-ifying in the world.
We don’t say, “Hand me a graspable object about 20cm long that is hardened at one end that I might swing through the air in a downward arc with sufficient velocity that I might strike this protruding piece of metal sticking out of this piece of wood.”
We say, “Hand me the hammer.” It is pre-noun-ified. We rarely engage a hammer in its specificity and particularity. We usually engage a hammer in its utilitarian generalities, its hammer-ness.
In the same way, we rarely engage the specificity and particularity of our systems. We usually engage their system-ness, which is pre-noun-ified for the sake of some specific verb-ifying. So we tend to confuse the pre-noun-ified system for our verb-ifying. In other words, we usually don’t see our systems at all.
Lest our systems have their way with us, we would do well to remember this heuristic: “To a hammer everything is a nail,” and apply it to our systems. In other words, “To a system everything is part of the system and available for the purposes of the system.”
Systems are a bit abstract and hard to get a hold of, so let’s go back to hammers but keep systems in the back of our minds.
Hammer Time.
This is how a Hammer System will tend to see the world:
1. We only have things that need hammering.
2. We will only ever need hammers.
3. We should only ever have hammers.
4. Don’t questions the hammers with disruptive talk of screw drivers.
5. Everyone’s safety and security is dependent on hammers.
6. Screw driver talk is unsafe and threatens everyone’s security.
7. Screw driver talk is dangerous.
8. People who spread screw driver talk are dangerous.
9. Screw diver talk should be eliminated.
10. People who spread screw driver talk should be silenced.
11. People who spread screw driver talk should be silenced at all costs.
12. People who spread screw driver talk should be eliminated.
Notice the progression:
1. An understanding of the world limited to the Hammer System’s construal of the world.
1-2: Self serving fatalism cloaked as pragmatism that is derived from the already limited pre-noun-ified version of reality, i.e. the Hammer System’s construal of the world. It is a critical leap. It is also an imaginative leap that does two things simultaneously: First it limits itself to the-world-as-the-system-already-knows-it-to-be. Second, it makes imaginative claims about the future as though it can know the future. In other words it uses imagination to deny imagination.
2-5: Logically consistent internal to the system.
5: Conflates the system with its products, then further conflates the system’s products with “safety” and “security.” In other words the system is the only possible reality, therefore a smooth running system is a common good. Inhibiting the smooth running of the system is to inhibit a common good.
6-7: Shifts disruption of the system from an inhibiting role that is within and defined by the system to an active role external to the system. Rather than the presence of the abstract prevention of safety there is now an “other” who actively creates danger.
7-10: Logically consistent internal to they system.
10-11: Crosses the Rubicon of conflating the system with all human value. Since the humans disrupting the system have chosen to be external to the system and therefore external to human value, the elimination of hope in certain humans, and therefore the disruption their hope manufactures, is necessary for the preservation of the system as representative of all human value.
11-12: Since the humans disrupting the system have chosen to be external to the system, the outright elimination of certain humans, and therefore the disruption they manufacture, is necessary for the preservation of the system as representative of all human value. e.g. Every despot in human history.
The extreme examples are easy to spot, the nut job despots or the byzantine bureaucracies. But the above dynamic happens on much smaller, mundane and everyday levels as well. In fact we can make socially acceptable statements that get us all the way down to number 10.
Imagine a meeting, we’ve all been in one, in which status quo, a system, a way of doing things is clung to. At the same time disruptive ideas are resisted, even if the intent of the disruptive ideas are to make for a better way of doing things.
A: “The nails aren’t holding together like they should. We need to get creative and come up with solutions to this problem.”
B: “If our purpose is building furniture rather than hammering nails, mightn’t screw drivers help us in this situation?”
A: “Can we get back on track here. We don’t have time to focus on other issues.”
B: “But if we shifted from nails to screws the nail problem wouldn’t exist any more.”
A: “We’re a hammer and nail operation. It’s in our name, “Dr. Bill’s Hammer and Nail Emporium.” My dad made it a hammer and nail operation 50 years ago. He has a Phd. in hammerology. Are you saying you know more than my dad?
B: “No, but…”
A: Okay, we need to focus here people. I want 10 good ideas from everyone in one hour. If we don’t solve this problem we’re all going to be out of a job. There’s been a ripple effect through the whole hammer and nail industry, so if you think you can just jump to an other hammer and nail operation, you are sadly mistaken. We need to stop talking about screw drivers and get on this. If I catch anyone taking about screw drivers they’re fired. This it too important to have people around who are just going to be a distraction.”
Might be a tad reductionistic, but carry the template in the back of your mind for the next few days. You might be surprised at the number of conversations that follow the pattern. We like our systems. We don’t like change.
Does this ring true? Or better yet, does it seem to make sense? Any conversations you’d like to share that validate the point?
Image: “Hammer Smashing Light Bulb”
© Harold and Esther Edgerton Foundation
low resolution image from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)