In
1958, China’s Chairman Mao Zedong raged war on sparrows. His reasoning was on
the surface logical enough: The sparrows stole the fruit of the people’s labor
by eating their seeds. Zedong commanded his 653 million citizens to bang pots,
pans, and drums until the sparrows fell out of the sky from exhaustion.
Zedong was logical, but
shortsighted. Free of predators, the locusts thrived and swarmed across the
hills and plains of China. In the end, that misguided decision contributed to
the Great Chinese Famine that killed twenty million people by starvation.
Now let’s make a seven-thousand-mile
leap from China to Washington D.C. The year is 2016. Congress is still in
gridlock. But it was not always that way. As recent as the 1970s, representatives
and senators met behind closed doors to unravel the Gordian knots of partisan
politics. But after Watergate, such
meetings were held suspect and the system was changed. Negotiations became more
public and, consequently, less productive. The
Atlantic columnist, Jonathan Rauch, was on target in his 2016 article,
“What’s Ailing American Politics?”
“Smoke-filled rooms,
whatever their disadvantages, were good for brokering complex compromises in
which nothing was settled until everything was settled.”
A third example. In the desert of
Southern Idaho there is a ranch for at-risk teenagers. Some of the teens arrive
against their will in the middle of the night. Most are belligerent and
spoiled. They are in for a grand paradigm shift. For the next month they will
wander the desert with blankets roped to their backs. The first few days are
spent in complete silence. Their first task is to march eight miles across the
desolate landscape. If they make it, they will be fed; if not, they will go
hungry.
As the month progresses, they learn
to start a fire without the convenience of a match. They circle up in the
evenings, pass a talking stick, and disclose their innermost secrets. By the
end of the month, at least eighty percent of them are transformed by a new sense
of achievement through struggle and responsibility.
And then they go home.
They are changed, but for how long?
Their families and friends have not shared their experience; it is not
something they can grasp or even respect. What they do understand is their own
way of being. So they naturally do whatever they can to remold their child,
brother, sister, or friend into the culture they know—even when the culture is
dysfunctional.
What is the common thread of these
three examples? It is this: a lack of understanding regarding the power of
systems.
All things are part of one or more
systems: an interrelated tangle of ecology, political relationships, interpersonal
dynamics—and much more. Ignoring that association is tantamount to courting
disaster.
Zedong was ignorant of or
disinterested in the systemic nature of an ecological food chain. Members of
congress were either ill-advised or politically coerced to abandon a time-proven
process for crafting winning bipartisan compromises. The leaders at the
wilderness survival ranch were correct in teaching responsibility and the
natural consequences of ill-mannered behavior, but wrong in throwing their
graduates back into the fray of an untrained and often chaotic social system.
Finding enduring solutions to
complicated problems is never easy, but it is virtually impossible without a
studied analysis of the natural or ruling system.
Now let's get up close and personal.
How is this relevant to our daily life? The late American psychiatrist, Murray
Bowen, who was a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, explored the
intricacies of family systems.
Very briefly, these are three of his
most important findings:
- Family members fall on a continuum of autonomy. Some are more emotionally and intellectually differentiated than others. That means they are more independent and, therefore, more likely to form their own moral code. Others are less differentiated and more likely to be fused to the family ideology and, consequently, far more dependent upon the family for approval and acceptance.
- Family triangles are formed within the family, often pitting two low differentiated members (two insiders) against a highly differentiated member (the outsider).
- A differentiated member is often emotionally cut off from the family through physical separation, silence, or the deflection of sensitive issues, such as politics, religion, or personal lifestyle.
The healthiest families are
characterized by high differentiation, allowing unique differences to flourish
and, consequently, removing the need to engage in triangular warfare and
emotional shunning.
The point is that no one lives in a
vacuum. We are all members of multiple systems. Understanding that is key to
recognizing how our decisions negatively or positively impact the lives of
others. It has the power to save literally millions of lives.
