Living Systemically
Posted on Jun 5th, 2008
by 
Robert
Robert
My posts thus far on Gaia have been characterized by a certain more formal language, one in touch with the study of systems. HOWEVER, I have not put enough effort into describing how a systems theoretical perspective translates into living, lived experience and action.
Living systemically means refusing the idea that our individuality has being outside of relations we enter into with others. Other people, cultures, forms of life, religions, philosophies, and the other that is the environment as a whole.
Yes, the claim is that our individuality is NOT unless it is with others, alongside them or sometimes against them. The other makes the I possible.
So the questions are, how do I recognize the other, how do I best interact with the other?
Recognizing the other means, from a systems perspective concerned with living systemically, learning what distinctions the other makes. How does the other distinguish between wrong and right, good and bad, just and unjust, that which has value and that which does not?
Our identity stems from differences from others, we make different distinctions, have different boundaries and different ways of maintaining these differences. Difference might then be viewed as constitutive of identity. We are what the other is not. This holds for the other as well. Thus, in order for us to be individually, we must have an other to distinguish ourselves from. This means, that whether we agree with the other or not, whether we like the other or not, we must recognize that the other makes us who we are. Whether we define ourselves for or against the other.
In order to best interact with the other, we must respect the differences of the other, those differences which preserve the other in a RELATIONSHIP with us. The other must be able to make his own distinctions, have his own freedoms and choices and find them validated.
Pluralism fits with cosmopolitanism.
I of course realize that there is much anxiety in our relations with the other, and much at stake. The other is a source of potential threats. Yet the other has an other in kind, the other's other is I. The other experiences the same anxiety and knows the same dangers as I. This fact must be admitted.
I shall write more on these topics in the future.
Living systemically means refusing the idea that our individuality has being outside of relations we enter into with others. Other people, cultures, forms of life, religions, philosophies, and the other that is the environment as a whole.
Yes, the claim is that our individuality is NOT unless it is with others, alongside them or sometimes against them. The other makes the I possible.
So the questions are, how do I recognize the other, how do I best interact with the other?
Recognizing the other means, from a systems perspective concerned with living systemically, learning what distinctions the other makes. How does the other distinguish between wrong and right, good and bad, just and unjust, that which has value and that which does not?
Our identity stems from differences from others, we make different distinctions, have different boundaries and different ways of maintaining these differences. Difference might then be viewed as constitutive of identity. We are what the other is not. This holds for the other as well. Thus, in order for us to be individually, we must have an other to distinguish ourselves from. This means, that whether we agree with the other or not, whether we like the other or not, we must recognize that the other makes us who we are. Whether we define ourselves for or against the other.
In order to best interact with the other, we must respect the differences of the other, those differences which preserve the other in a RELATIONSHIP with us. The other must be able to make his own distinctions, have his own freedoms and choices and find them validated.
Pluralism fits with cosmopolitanism.
I of course realize that there is much anxiety in our relations with the other, and much at stake. The other is a source of potential threats. Yet the other has an other in kind, the other's other is I. The other experiences the same anxiety and knows the same dangers as I. This fact must be admitted.
I shall write more on these topics in the future.
Access: Public
QaR
July 2008 