</a>Systemic role of interlinked pathways

Spontaneous Initiation of Armageddon -- a heartfelt response to systemic negligence (Part #2)

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Systems theory has provided many insights of practical significance into the operation of complex systems, whether in the natural or social environments. There is now a well developed understanding of the necessarily complex interdependencies of the elements of such systems -- especially well illustrated in the case of biological, production and electronic information systems.

Practical applications have however been bought at a very high price -- namely a narrow focus on the isolation of (closed) sub-systems that can be readily documented and understood in this way, to the exclusion of any understanding of more comprehensive systems with a broader range of complementary functions vital to sustainability. Typically (and wherever possible) social and environmental factors are excluded from the design of technical systems, and psychological factors are excluded from any understanding of psycho-social systems. In practice applications are designed and "cut" to fit relatively simplistic models reflecting understanding of isolated systems -- usually of the most tangible nature. The resulting challenge is most evident in the often disastrously delayed appreciation of the necessity for additional feedback control loops, notably those relating to environmental processes.

Whilst systems theory has provided remarkably detailed insights into the articulation of some systems, even at their most comprehensive (as with the set of metabolic pathways), the quality of insight available into the most comprehensive systems tends to be either low or constrained by intellectual models lacking grounded relationship to the richness of the real world. This has proven especially problematic in relationship to issues of governance.

Valuable pointers to understandings of such richness are notably to be found in traditional symbol systems with a top-down perspective. These include Celtic knots, the enneagram, the I Ching, rosaries, and other mnemonic holding patterns that have to be decoded in special ways to be rendered meaningful. Some of these were designed to be used in relation to governance. Sacred geometry (as described, for example, by Keith Critchlow. Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach, 1999), even basket work and carpet designs, may also be considered in this light.

The core argument in what follows -- expressed through symbols, such as the mandalas explored by depth psychologists (Jung, Hillman, etc) -- is that the range of functions commonly recognized in systems of governance is essentially only a subset of those represented in a mandala highlighting the necessary balance between the requisie variety of functions. Depth psychologists explore this phenomenon in terms of repressed functions in individuals -- without extending their understanding to groups and other systems (except in terms of the "collective unconscious"). In their terms, the imbalance in integrated psychic function may be expressed through "conflicted" mandalas. Implicit in these is an unexpressed "shadow" or "dark" side whose forced expression is characteristic of problematic psychological behaviour.

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