Then came the churches, then came the schools, then came
the lawyers, then came the rules...
-Mark Knopfler, "Telegraph Road
We participate in social systems-family life, friendships, work life,
religious fife. We either get a sense of meaning from this participation
or we don't. The nature of the system, our role in it, and our view of
that role determine whether or not it means anything to us. Since our
purpose here is to find meaning in our lives, we need to understand the
nature of human social institutions.
George Land is a general systems practitioner. He wrote Grow or
Die and, with Beth Jarman, Breakpoint and Beyond. I
worked with him on a 3M program called "Living Innovation". He
applied general systems theory to social institutions. He showed that
institutions go through at least two major phases-formative and normative.
Most die at the end of their normative phase. However, a third phase,
rebirth, is possible. He called this the integrative phase. What's
important to us is the nature of these phases because of the impact they
have on people. In the very beginning, a social institution is completely
intangible. It originates as a purpose, a concept, an idea, a philosophy,
a solution to a problem in someone's mind. People then move to manifest
it-give it a form that will undertake the processes that accomplish its
purpose. That gives it a material state. We call the material state
"reality", even though it's only the material portion of
reality, because our physical senses-sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell-
can detect it. The system moves from the intangible to the tangible, from
the spiritual to the material, from concern with function (the why)
to concern with form and process (the how)....
View
entire chapter
