Of laws, not men?

I’m slowly picking my way through The Systems View of Life. This morning I finished reading the section on the Gaia hypothesis and am about to begin the chapter on Darwin and evolution. I think I became primed for this years ago when I was involved in the green building sector and the need to apply systems thinking and teamwork to residential design and construction. As I look about the state of the world today, I wonder what it would take to make the application of teamwork and systems thinking more compelling and widespread.

A handful of radical right Republicans threatens to bring about a government shutdown if they don’t get their way. A single Republican senator is grinding the US military establishment to a halt as world affairs become more tense. In no definition of democracy I recall does the protection of minority rights imply an ability to impose minority viewpoints on the will of the majority, but here we are. Its not that we don’t know how to do better. We seem to lack the political will and the determination to use the knowledge and techniques we have to do a better job of governing.

Your Voice Your Vote USE IT

Photo by J. Harrington

Somewhere along the line we seem to have lost track of the concept that “You can please (or fool) some of the people some of the time but... can’t whatever all of the people all of the time.” Is it possible that we’ve been overly tolerant of poor losers for too long? I remember when I was much younger, in high school in fact, that a frequent “debate” among the guys I hung around with was over whether it was better to beat the crap out of someone so they never wanted to mess with you again, or to do the gentlemanly thing and help your opponent to their feet and offer to shake hands once you had won. The unresolved issue was, and seems to remain, what to do if your opponent responds to an extended hand by kicking you in the shins. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days.

For the moment, I’m continuing to ponder such questions and reading tomes such as Systems View to try to develop a more effective perspective. On a bad day I wonder if a government of laws, that rarely seem to be effectively applied on a timely basis, is truly preferable to the alternatives. On a better day, I’m comforted by the realization that nature always bats last, but then I remember that we’re part of nature.

The Contract Says: We'd Like the Conversation to be Bilingual

By Ada Limón

When you come, bring your brown-

ness so we can be sure to please

 

the funders. Will you check this

box; we’re applying for a grant.

 

Do you have any poems that speak

to troubled teens? Bilingual is best.

 

Would you like to come to dinner

with the patrons and sip Patrón?

 

Will you tell us the stories that make

us uncomfortable, but not complicit?

 

Don’t read the one where you

are just like us. Born to a green house,

 

garden, don’t tell us how you picked

tomatoes and ate them in the dirt

 

watching vultures pick apart another

bird’s bones in the road. Tell us the one

 

about your father stealing hubcaps

after a colleague said that’s what his

 

kind did. Tell us how he came

to the meeting wearing a poncho

 

and tried to sell the man his hubcaps

back. Don’t mention your father

 

was a teacher, spoke English, loved

making beer, loved baseball, tell us

 

again about the poncho, the hubcaps,

how he stole them, how he did the thing

 

he was trying to prove he didn’t do.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.