Bertalanffy emphasized the role that our species can play in shaping
its own destiny, as he believed that humans may develop their abilities
to direct their own evolution on ethical values determined while
noticing the emergent realities created by an interdependent global
community and creating environments out of symbols which may become
human values after being cultivated. In his view human survival was the
paramount purpose for cultivating the uncommon sense of general systems
theory, as he believed that the need for a general systems
consciousness was a matter of life and death, not just for ourselves
but also for what historian Arnold Toynbee computed to be 77,000 future
generations that are possible on this planet before the death of our
sun. The concept of system is nowadays well rooted in most
disciplines; many different systems approaches are used extensively for
pushing ahead the evolvement of the prevailing civilizing process
through decision making that aims at managing efficiently the economic
concerns of humankind. The so called systems sciences are engaged
increasingly in supporting the evolvement of many disciplines and even
to generate, by means of interdisciplinary actions, superb scientific
achievements and magnificent technological innovations for being
inserted and managed efficiently everywhere according to economic aims
that aim at globalizing the interrelationships among all kinds of human
societies.
Meanwhile the adventure of Homo sapiens sapiens on earth does not seem to be really successful:
- Billions
of people essay to live in miserable circumstances: searching
desperately no more than surviving; accepting sometimes even
starvation; learning to emigrate whatever the means; stealing and
killing as if it were another reasonable option; ...
- An
increasing number of living species are simply classified as endangered
ones because the prevailing decision making aims at assuring to
maintain the trends of civilization.
- The terrestrial
circumstances that make possible the existence of life are increasingly
disturbed because the world suffers the effects of pollution of air,
water and soils.
"I heartily agree that the
main objection against current philosophy is its ... reliance on
so-called common sense ... Society [has] become so complex that
traditional ways and means are not sufficient anymore. Approaches of a
holistic and systems nature have to be introduced"
Could
knowledge about all kinds of systems provide humans with the power of
prediction and control that is needed for a conscious evolvement of
civilizing processes?
Nowadays it is urgently necessary to
examine how and why the original Bertalanffian ideas which generated
the 'systems movement' and made possible the emergence and evolvement
of the 'systems community' have been interpreted, because it is
increasingly worrying to notice what has produced the impact of the
'systems approach(es)' during the last four decades. A systems
practitioner has commented recently: "The world has changed a
lot, for better and for worse, but -- allowing for a gross
simplification -- the improvements are rarely "due to us", while the
deterioration (poverty, gap between rich and poor, intolerance,
violence, shortcomings in education and health care) are precisely the
areas where the systems approach should have had an impact."
It seems that something is going seriously wrong in the utilization of
this approach, as it seems evident that it is theoretically right.
However necessary to identify what is wrong in the utilization of this
approach, it is convenient to recognize that the serious problems that
are disturbing today the evolvement of the prevailing civilization --
which are reaching nowadays a crisis point -- have been generated by
human actions intelligently conceived and skilfully implemented, during
several past centuries and even millennia, while the systems thinking
could arise explicitly only around 50 years ago.
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