Systems Thinking
Posted by Assistant Village Idiot on 26th July 2020 (All posts by Assistant Village Idiot)
Update Below
I have not forgotten that I am going to write on systems-thinking and its problems in Christian theology. I am thinking about it a lot, actually. But in the interim, I have noticed something about how people think of good things versus bad things in their respective cultures. PenGun mentioned either here or at Assistant Village Idiot about a serious medical condition he had, and how grateful he was to the Canadian Health System that everything went well. I have noticed the same thing from the Brits*, that when they recover from something it is because of the NHS. Scandinavians say such things about almost everything, actually. They perceive their system of everything to be better: policing, military, diplomacy, education, healthcare, traffic. When I went to Romania to pick up my boys for adoption, I went to the schools they had been attending to discuss how they were and what material was being covered to help integrate them to the private Christian school they would be attending in America. None of the teachers were able to discuss what they were covering this year, and none knew anything about my two children individually. They all wanted to talk about how the Romanian system was so superior to what we were doing in America.
You might think that just by law of averages alone that the Americans could have gotten something right, seeing as by objective measures…
My cousin-in-law from Belgium would speak in similar fashion, that the system of schooling she was used to from childhood was so far superior to the schools she was sending her children to now (Concord, NH, very good. Their boys went on to do well at MIT and UChicago). Relatives of my sons who moved to Norway for better jobs took their girls out of Tromso abruptly and moved back to Transylvania, with part of the reason being that they felt the school system was much better. Similarly, when I speak to people from Quebec (and thus maybe all of Canada, or maybe not) it’s the same thing. They believe that Quebecois everything is better in general. Stores, food, politeness – oh let me guarantee you that this is not so. They have old-world gestures and customs but are solidly insulting – This attitude is so strong among Swedes that even other Scandinavians notice it, and resent it. It is considered arrogant to put yourself forward as better at anything in any way, but there is this universal idea that their systems, their way of doing foreign policy, or religion, or serving food, or crossing the street is simply better. It is fascinating that all of these cultures consider Americans arrogant because individuals are boastful, or because we notice that we clearly have aspects of our culture that show considerable success – such as a longer life expectancy than any other country after receiving a cancer diagnosis, regardless of what your income level is – and say so. To most other places, you can brag about your culture in extreme fashion, but you should not give the merest hint of excelling in yourself. It’s an interesting value. Once adopted, people outside of that will seem unconscionably rude, sure. We offend them in this way, and that we do not change even after they have pointed this out repeatedly just infuriates them more.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Miscellaneous | 39 Comments »