Systems Thinking

Dear Dialogue, Dialecticians,
and Colleagues Across the Curriculum.

(Courses W/O Borders series)

Think about what it’s LIKE to think in terms of
systems (literally: standing-together: systemic)
as opposed to thinking in terms of parts.

To think in terms of verb-ing as opposed to nouns.

To think in terms of relationships (relays, ratios, rationally)
as opposed to singularities, individualities.

In terms of “the team,” “the band,”
(family, community) as opposed to
the individual member, player

(Me: I used to play banjo in an old time band and
slapped a resonator on the pot of my Vega; frailing
the hell out of it to drown-out fiddle & guitar—bastards.

I was flipping-off red-neck truck drivers in those days,
not so much thinking in terms of systems, relationships,
ratios, rationalities. Even now, the habit to think in
terms of me is an addiction. Powerless to prevent.

Opposed. Verbs as opposed to Nouns.
Teams as opposed to players. This Class
as opposed to individual students squeezed
into our windowless cavern, elbow to elbow.,
cave-dwellers, so to speak.

It’s an opposition. IT, I said.

The difference between thinking in terms of relationships
(ratios) and thinking in terms of parts (things, items) is
an opposition. And hostile. Radically incommensurate:
I can’t think about relationships in terms-of-parts without
contaminating my sense of relationship: reducing, partial-
I-izing the whole. And vice-versa. Can’t think of parts in
relationship-terms without doing damage to partiality.

Just describing here.

Ask not what your country can do for you,
Rather ask what you can do for your country.

Ouch, ooo, aaaaahhh, damnit:

I feel the opposition. Between wholes and parts,
relationship and individuals. Between the class
and me, the community and me, let alone and
not to mention country.

“Without contraries is no progress” says Wm Blake:
IT hurts.
(IT, I said.)