[A romp through a historic narrative of hard, soft, and combined systems theories – and then another ‘bit’ of and perspective on systems thinking in the comments. Squire to the Giants is on of the excellent blogs that arose at least partially from the cult-like excitement of John Seddon’s Vanguard lean approach and the branding of it as ‘systems thinking’, and has always sought to give a rich overview of the systems thinking universe (hence the ‘Giants’) – recommended].
This post is about something that I find very interesting – Systems Thinking as applied to organisations, and society – and about whether there are two different ‘factions’….or not. I’ve had versio…
From Aidan Ward’s excellent blog on Medium at https://medium.com/@aidan.ward.antelope
Holobionts are assemblages of different species that form ecological units. Lynn Margulis proposed that any physical association between individuals of different species for significant portions of their life history is a symbiosis. All participants in the symbiosis are bionts, and therefore the resulting assemblage was first coined a holobiont by Lynn Margulis in 1991 in the book Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation.[1] Holo is derived from the Ancient Greek word ὅλος (hólos) for “whole”. The entire assemblage of genomes in the holobiont is termed a hologenome.
In 1992, David Mindell subsequently used the word holobiont in a BioSystems article in general reference to host-microbe symbioses.[2] This was followed in 1993 by its use in another BioSystems article by R. Jorgensen.[3] The word rested dormant for about a decade. Forest Rohwer, Victor Seguritan, Farooq Azam, and Nancy Knowlton adopted the term in a figure legend to describe the complex relationships between various microbes and coral in 2002.[4] In this system, the zooxanthellaedetermine the light level required by the coral holobiont and a complicated web involving the Bacteria, Archaea and fungi recycles its nitrogen. The word holobiont has been increasingly used since then, with its next appearance in 2005.[5] It has been popularized by the hologenome concept.[6] All macrobes, animals and plants, are today deemed holobionts consisting of the host plus its entire microbial community,[7][8][9][10] and these associations can be transient or stable.[11][12][13]
Holobionts are traditionally divided into three major divisions: 1) viruses, 2) unicellular microbes and 3) the macrobial host. Collectively, the viruses make up the viromeand microbes make up the microbiome. There is no specific terminology for other multicellular organisms associated with the holobiont other than symbiont. The collective genomic DNA and RNA of a holobiont is called a hologenome.
Holobionts are considered multipartite ecological entities, whereas hologenomes are multigenomic entities that encode holobiont phenotypes. Here, the word hologenome follows a conceptual continuum from words such as chromosome and genome. The terms are therefore structural definitions relating to host-microbial assemblages and their genomes.
Superorganisms are organisms consisting of many individuals and was first applied to the eusocial insects (Wheeler 1928).[14] An ant colony is a superorganism. Holobionts are assemblages of many different species. Each ant is an individual holobiont consisting of the ant, fungi, bacteria, etc. However, ″superorganism″ has also been used as a synonym for ″holobiont″[15].
See also
daviding
11:40 am on March 5, 2018 Tags: apithology, pathology
Wellness is to disease, as apithology is to pathology, writes @willvarey@apitholo.
Apithology is a word created to describe a timeless concept in a modern context. It is not known whether the word apithology also has an ancient meaning. It has been formed as an entirely new term to describe a distinct and novel conception. The term originally emerged from the development of a field of practice that in essence is the counterpart to its opposite, being the research field of pathology. The origin of the word apithology itself derives from the etymology of its basic elements. By contrasting the etymological roots of these two counterpart terms one can understand the complementary nature of their relationship in representing two distinct horizons in one conjoined system of meaning.
Will Varey | “Apithology: An Emergent Continuum” | Aspects of Apithology, Vol. 1, No. 1 | 2014 at https://apitholo.com/
For all those who still believe the old myth that VSM is difficult to get across, this is from Nareg Karekinian training farmers in Armenia to use VSM on an agricultural development project.
daviding
2:09 pm on March 3, 2018 Tags: dark age ahead, jane jacobs, nature of economies, systems of survival
Jane Jacob’s thinking via @peterlaurence from New York to Toronto (1971), and Systems of Survival (1992) to Dark Age Ahead (2004).
Like Cities and the Wealth of Nations, it is no coincidence that Jacobs wrote Systems of Survival in the wake of the Reagan/Thatcher era. As an analysis of the “moral foundations of commerce and politics,” Systems rejected the idea that government should be run like a business. Inspired by Plato’s Republic, Jacobs sought to show that commerce and governance required two completely different moral systems and that the idea of applying the moral system appropriate to business to government was, at best, deeply misguided. At worst, it was an invitation to the systemic corruption that resulted from the inappropriate mixing of moral systems’ values and activities in inappropriate contexts. For example, while trading and elling are appropriate in the marketplace, government officials are expected not to sell votes, collude with corporate interests and serve private donors, or profit from office or the markets that they are charged with regulating. For these reasons, “officials are forbidden to take a job in a business they have regulated, or a job lobbying former guardian colleagues, until a year or two has elapsed after they have left government service.” 29
[….]
Following her study of morality and corruption, Jacobs’s sequel to Systems, The Nature of Economies (2000), was a hopeful book. Drawing, among other scientific and economic sources, on Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979/95) by James Lovelock, The Next Economy (1983) by Paul Hawken, Biomimicry (1997) by Janine Benyus, Symbiotic Planet: A New View of Evolution (1998) by Lynn Margulis, and the research that led to Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2008) by William McDonough, Jacobs sought to revive the harmonious classical relationship between ecology (oecology) and economics (oikonomia).
[….]
In retrospect, …, Jacobs accurately predicted the cultural decline represented by the Trump regime. Indeed, she could well have been speaking of 2017 when she wrote,
Legions of hired liars labor to disconnect reality from all manner of images — images of personalities, of legislation, of corporations, of places, and of activities. Spin-doctors, virtuosos of deceptive image making and damage control, have become authoritative spokespersons in political campaigns and troubled institutions, able not only to disconnect reality but to construct new reality. 35
Jacobs concluded Dark Age Ahead by observing that the United States “has often been equated with Rome by historians and social commentators seeking modern lessons from Rome’s mistakes.”36 But she was not hopeful that the nation would recover from its spiral of decline.36
Conference Paper · July 2014Meeting of the International Society for Systems Science, At George Washington University, Washington DC, USA Delia Pembrey MacNamara University of Hull
Abstract
We live in an increasingly digitally networked world, with increasing complexity and uncertainty. Digital technologies offer the opportunities for innovation, knowledge management information gathering and analysis that have the potential to provide a community or organisation’s leading edge by harnessing human capital within and without the organisation. The digitally connected organisation has been coined the ‘boundaryless’ organisation, blurring both the vertical and horizontal boundaries of the organisation, seeing supply chains and organisation silos deconstructed. As new work practises and forms of organisation emerge, business leaders have to balance organisation and stability, with innovation, growth and market uncertainty. This technological ‘boundary-less’ environment reveals that we are in an increasingly ‘bounded’ world. Business leaders have to become competent ‘boundary spanners’ as they move from ‘command and control’ to ‘connect and collaborate’, enabling and encouraging participation and leadership at all levels. Yet this requires a new set of leadership skills, a ‘new’ way of thinking that has yet to be found that can deal with complexity in a sophisticated way, focussing on just a few key elements. My MBA research (2011) revealed that the adoption, implementation and success of social technologies for open innovation and collective intelligence were dependent on leaders’ personal boundary judgements toward social technologies. This paper introduces the Boundary Triage, a symbolic representation of the partial ontology of the Boundary concept that I abstracted from a transdisciplinary review of technology, innovation and leadership literature. The Boundary Triage aims to provide a theoretically grounded, easily understandable and deployable a systemic leadership development tool based on systems thinking to non-systems practitioners. The ‘Boundary Triage’ is still in its infancy and needs to be tested and developed further. In line with Maturana’s (1980) approach to coining the term ‘autopoiesis’, which was initially advanced as a proposition to be tested, by calling the partial ontology of Boundary the Boundary Triage it will have the freedom to be tested, explored and developed both as theory and as a practical tool. The partial ontology of Boundary proposes that a single Boundary is socially constructed and reinforced by environmental, physical, psychological, and physiological factors. Represented by the Boundary Triage, a Boundary consists of the interactions of a Creator (C), Acceptor(s) (A) and Reinforcing Factors (RF) that have an emergent effect on the Boundary. Two further concepts are to be used with the Boundary Triage: the Bounded Event (BE): the moment/time a Boundary is conceived, and the Bounded Object (BO): what is taken away from the BE moment and carried as a memory, belief, worldview or paradigm. In practise, the Boundary Triage as an immediate ‘triage’ when a boundary has been ‘crossed’ in a social context recognised either by language, gesture, feeling or atmosphere and quickly prioritizing the RF of the Observer and the Observed, and aiming to adjust them psychologically and through dialogue. As a personal heuristic, the Boundary Triage is also used by a leader to reflect on the ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘where’ and ‘who’ (BE) that created the BO causing the ‘mess’, critique the BO and review personal worldviews and paradigms. Informal empirical examples by individuals to date have reported improved performance, better communication and more self-awareness but the role of values and ethics is still to be determined. The Boundary Triage is purposely simple for the non-systems practitioner, but it is partial and needs to be developed further. Fieldwork is currently being conducted to develop the Boundary Triage as a viable systemic leadership tool.
The two loops model has been a fundamental piece of The Berkana Institute’s theory of change. As one system culminates and starts to collapse, isolated alternatives slowly begin to arise and give way to the new. In this video Deborah Frieze, Berkana’s former co-president, explains the two loops theory and speaks about the way that our work to name, connect, nourish and illuminate has fit into this model. She also identifies some of the different roles we might play to hospice the dying system, usher in the alternative system and make clear the choice between the two.
We believe that no universal solution exists for the challenges of this time: increased poverty and disease, failing large-scale systems, ecological degradation. But widespread impact does become possible when people working at the local level are able to learn from one another, practice together and share learning with communities everywhere. We have observed that large-scale change emerges when local actions get connected globally while preserving their deeply local culture, flavor and form. And we have called this trans-local learning.
[Another explanation in more words at https://medium.com/@brittneebond/two-loops-model-9a3d52c7da4e ]
Co-working and co-living consultant; specializing in sustainable impact and women entrepreneurship.
Two Loops Model
Exploring how systems change.
The Two Loops by Margaret Wheatley and the Berkana Institute has shaped the way I work with organizations. I’ll share my notes here on the model so you guys can keep passing it on.
Today we are living with the strong remnants of what’s called the Newtonian world view -> a mechanistic view.
Basically, if something breaks in our societal systems, we separate it into parts, analyze them, find the faulty part and switch it out for a better one. Except that doesn’t work. Rarely does it result in the kind of change leaders hope for. Instead, they were confronted by 8 new problems caused by their initial solution (and the initial solution might also be back and bigger this time.)
We can’t plan to avoid these consequences because we can’t see all the connections below the service.
When we take a step back, we realize we’re tugging at webs of relationships that are seldom visible… but always there.
In the last 100 years, we’ve progressed to realize a couple key points:
Our world view is constantly changing
Our world is quite adept to change
Living things operate differently than mechanical things
This mechanistic world view doesn’t work because:
Humans don’t function like machines.
That’s why we should now look at a new systems model called Two Loops.
It tells the story of how systems dies and new systems emerge constantly. It works on all levels and isn’t linear. As systems ascend and become more the more dominant system, they become more powerful and entrenched.
Using the fossil fuel economy as an example:
Oil was discovered
We found we could use it as an energy source
Over time the world economy was structured around fossil fuels
At the top of their game, life was great! The money was rolling in and the economy was booming. The people who hold this system up and fight to protect it are called stewards. They are comfortable in an established system. Stewards try to maintain the system as best they can for what they feel is the greater good of the system they are serving. (They are keeping it stable for the rest of us.)
All systems eventually begin to teeter and start to lose their significance. They enter hospice when they start to decline and are on their way to death. (We can only live off fossil fuels until it kills our climate or we run out of them.)
An interesting movement happens right at the peak of every system: some people drop out. (They realize as a fact that fossil fuels are a limited resource.) These pioneers walk out to start a new system. These pioneers look at the way things are, the deeply held beliefs that underpin the current system, and see that another way is possible.
This is a radical act; they are leaving the comfort of an established system at it’s peak and going alone to start a new one.
Ok, so now you have a bunch of divergents alone at the beginning of the new loop. It can be a really lonely time (picture scientists in their basements working on solar panels). What do they need to do to build this new system? To create a new movement? They need to find each other.
THey need to name themselves. They need to be able to google themselves (renewable energy, green economy, etc.)
Now we know what we are- next we need to connect with each other. We need to build a network and build social capital.
Once connection happens on a regular basis and is centered around progressive action, it becomes a community of practice. This includes failing forward together and upwards as the new system continues to emerge and build. It’s also a place to nourish the system so it can keep growing. New systems need: time, space, money, expertise and skill building.
Once the new system is on the upward swing, it hits an illumination stage (fossil fuel cars will be banned by 2040 in most European countries). This is where we tell the success stories to inspire the people in the old system to come over and transition into a new way of living. When, how and to whom we illuminate is a careful dance. Timing is everything.
The Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS) is an Austrian independent research institute, internationally acknowledged as an ambassador for the systems science heritage and present state-of-the-art applied systems research.
The Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science focuses on the Foundations of Systems Science, exploring and explaining the nature of the world, and Systems Design, understanding and deploying change in this world.
The objective of the BCSSS is to inspire the development of systems science by fostering systems research and supporting systems thinking. Given the global challenges of today, systems science is needed more than ever.
In particular, it revisits the General Systems Theory (GST) as founded by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and others in order to reassess it in the light of today’s global challenges and to illuminate the course of development systems science has taken since.
We execute and support use-inspired basic research projectsfocusing on the foundations of systems science, systems design and complexity management towards systemic sustainable innovative solutions.
We support the next generation of systems researchers with scholarships and awards.
We administrate the archive of Ludwig von Bertalanffy and other collections which are of interest to the systems movement and open the heritage to the public.
We execute and support international scientific forums like the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR) to foster global networks between researchers and practitioners.
We disseminate systems knowledge by executing and supporting lectures and workshops.
We disseminate systems knowledge by publishingthe book series Systems in co-operation with systems engineers and theOpen Access Journal Systema: connecting matter, life, culture and technology.
The association by Austrian law is an active member of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR), the largest umbrella organization in the field of systems science.
[this is the front page, click through headline link to find more. I found this through Gene Bellinger, who posted the link to Maria Lenzi and Helene Finidori’s Systems Science and Pattern Literacy group on linkedin:
Von Clausewitz, the seminal 19th century Prussian military theorist, famously wrote that war is merely “the continuation of policy [with the addition of] other means” (mit Einmischung anderer Mitteln). This suggests that war is essentially about politics. Clausewitz also spoke of the so-called trinity in war of people, army and government, suggesting that Clausewitz’ ideas mainly apply to nation states, a concept that itself is now under attack because of the rise of non-trinitarian wars involving non-state fighters as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Mali. The question is of course whether these countries were fully developed nation states (well, probably not) in the first place, and whether the nation state as a concept is in decline as suggested by current theorists such as Van Creveld. Clausewitz also used a second trinity – passion, chance, and reason – for his analysis…
Patterns can be found in many domains of research and praxis: design, systems and complexity science, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, linguistics, architecture, computer science, information technology, artificial intelligence, engineering, environmental sciences, biology, education, mathematics and many more…
Researchers and practitioners in these domains have different understandings and approaches to patterns. Yet, could some coherence be found across domains?
I have just finalized a survey with the research group Systems Science and Pattern Literacy at the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science.
Patterns it seems to me are not very central and acknowledged in systems science / systems thinking, or are they?
We will welcome the insights of this community on your understanding of patterns and their role in your activity.
Here’s the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MappingPatternsLandscape
Thanks 🙂
Mapping the Landscape of Patterns Across Domains Survey
We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers united by a shared interest in recent approaches to cognitive science, often known as “4E cognition” to refer to their emphasis on embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition.
Our research group is officially hosted by the Research Institute for Applied Mathematics and Systems (IIMAS) in the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the southern parts of Mexico City.
We also have ties with the Centre for Complexity Sciences (C3), also at UNAM.
COORDINATOR
Tom Froese – http://froese.wordpress.com/
UPCOMING EVENTS
Enactivism
March 15, 2018 – March 17, 2018, Memphis
http://www.ummoss.org/enactivism18.html
4EC & Mental Disorder
April 5, 2018 – April 6, 2018, Exeter
https://www.joelkrueger.com/4e-conference
Reconceiving Cog.
June 27, 2018 – June 29 Antwerp, Belgium
ALIFE 2018
July 23, 2018 – July 27, 2018, Tokyo, Japan
Movement: Brain, Body, Cognition
July 27, 2018 – July 29, 2018, Harvard Medical School
https://movementis.com
What do cities, robots, corporations, political organizations, human bodies, and ecosystems have in common? For the scientists involved in the development of cybernetics from the 1940s to the 1960s, this was all but an awkward question.
In their intellectual and hands-on experimentations, cyberneticians called forth a world in which machines, bodies and nature are entangled as complex and dynamic systems. They theorized that information would and should flow ever more effortlessly within and between these systems.
The purpose of the seminar is to revisit the legacy of cybernetics to shed light on contemporary digital politics. Many of the fundamental questions asked by cyberneticians regain salience today. What remains of liberal individualism when the boundaries between humans, machines and nature are blurred? What are the systemic properties and operating routines of democracy in a world in which machines and humans are increasingly entangled?
Programme
Scholars from fields as diverse as Philosophy, Anthropology, and Artificial Intelligence will give presentations. The speakers include Simon Marvin, Noortje Marres, Andrew Pickering, Willem Schinkel and Tsjalling Swierstra.
Registration
There is limited seating. Are you interested in taking part? Please inquire with Anne Hovingh: anne.hovingh@student.uva.nl. After you register you will receive a more detailed program with abstracts, locations and times.
Public event
The seminar will be concluded by a public event ,The Politics of a Cybernetic World, on Friday March 23 at 4PM at Crea with lectures by Luc Steels and Katherine Hayles, a theatrical performance prepared by Ricarda Franzen and concluding reflections by Andrew Pickering.
Funded by
The event is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) as part of the research project Safeguarding long-term equal stakeholdership in the Smart City & the Center for Urban Studies of the University of Amsterdam as part of a collaboration with the Sheffield Urban Automation Institute.
A creative and engaging event exploring the politics of cybernetics with professor Katherine Hayles, professor Luc Steels, professor Andrew Pickering, and dramaturg Ricarda Franzen
Event
What forms of political subjectivity and social organization emerge when people and things are increasingly connected through digital infrastructures? What can robots teach us about inequality or democracy?
During this event, speakers and performers revisit the legacy of cybernetics to shed light on contemporary digital politics.
This even is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) as part of the research project Safeguarding long-term equal stakeholdership in the Smart City and the Center for Urban Studies of the University of Amsterdam as part of a collaboration with the Sheffield Urban Automation Institute
The programme
Theatrical performance directed by Ricarda Franzen
Lectures by Katherine Hayles and Luc Steels
Discussions with speakers, audience and Andrew Pickering
Venue
CREA ‘Muziekzaal’, Nieuwe Achtergracht 170, Amsterdam
Registration
Attendance is free of charge but seats are limited, so please register with Anne Hovingh: anne.hovingh@student.uva.nl
The speakers
Katherine Hayles is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Program in Literature at Duke University, and Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles. She teaches and writes on the relations of literature, science and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Amongst her distinguished works are How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis; How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, and Writing Machines.
Luc Steels is professor of computer science at the University of Brussels (VUB), co-founder and chairman (from 1990 until 1995) of the VUB Computer Science Department (Faculty of Sciences) and founder and first-director of the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris. His main research field is Artificial Intelligence covering a wide range of intelligent abilities, including vision, robotic behavior, conceptual representations and language.
Andrew Pickering is an emeritus professor at the University of Exeter. He is internationally known as a leader in the field of science and technology studies. He is the author of Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science and Kybernetik und Neue Ontologien. In his book The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future, he analyses cybernetics as a distinctive form of life spanning brain science, psychiatry, robotics, the theory of complex systems, management, politics, the arts, education, spirituality and the 1960s counterculture, and argues that cybernetics offers a promising alternative to currently hegemonic cultural formations.
Ricarda Franzen works as a dramaturg, sound artist and researcher at the University of Amsterdam. Coinciding with her interests in art practice, she is interested in aspects of sound in relation to its environment but also as being used in theatre and radio dramas. For the Rotterdam-based laboratory for Unstable Media she co-produced a performance based on the ideas of Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan. For the theatrical performance she developed for ‘the State of cybernetics,’ she similarly draws inspiration from a group of historical cutting-edge thinkers and tinkerers.
The organizers
Justus Uitermark is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. He is affiliated with the Center for Urban Studies and the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. Uitermark’s research uses relational theorizing and network analysis to examine self-organization, political conflict, and the social organization of the city. With colleagues at the University of Amsterdam, he is currently researching the online/offline interface, utilizing data sourced from Twitter and Instagram to analyze subcultures and social movements. Recent publications include “Longing for Wikitopia. The study and politics of self-organization” (in Urban Studies) and Cities and Social Movements (co-authored with Walter J. Nicholls, Wiley).
Dorien Zandbergen is an anthropologist of digital culture and politics, currently working as a postdoc researcher at the Sociology Department of the University of Amsterdam. Her current work critically explores the politics of urban digitization. In the documentary In search of the Smart Citizen, which she co-produced with Sara Blom (Creative Commons 2015), she interrogates the vision of the “smart city.” She founded Stichting Gr1p to support artistic and literary interventions that help make complex technological themes, visible, debatable and tangible for a broad audience. Her recent academic publications include “From data fetishism to quantifying selves” (with Tamar Sharon, New Media & Society, 2016) and “We Are Sensemakers.” The (Anti-)politics of Smart City Co-creation” (Public Culture, 2017).
I think this is really a big deal – as Patrick Hoverstadt says:
“Michael Pfiffner did a study across 137 organisations and found a -0.78 correlation between organisations ‘conforming’ to VSM as a normative model and organisational crisis – in other words the more VSMy the organisation, the less likely to end up in crisis and the less VSMy the more likely to end up in crisis with a predictability of almost 80% accuracy. I think that is significantly better than anything else I’ve seen as a general predictive model.”
System viability of organizations and the aetiology of organizational crisis : A Quantitative Assessment of Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model
Pfiffner, M.D.
(2017) Utrecht University Repository
(Dissertation)
Supervisor(s): Schruijer, Sandra; Boselie, Paul
Abstract
Subject of this dissertation is the aetiology of crisis processes which place organizations under existential threats and which often cause organizational demise and bankruptcy. To date, research on organizational crises (OC) has not succeeded in identifying the generic grounds for these detrimental processes in organizations. A minimal consensus can be … read more
Complexity suggests a different approach to engaging with the world – a middle ground between control and laissez-faire.
We’ve chosen the wrong science to understand the social world.
On the one hand, there is an increasing focus for public sector organizations on defining detailed rules, standardizing methods, evidencing and measuring outcomes. The intention is to make the hospital or school work as an efficient, optimized, well-oiled machine. The belief is that if we tell people exactly what to do and check they do it exactly, then standards and efficiency will improve.
On the other hand, when it comes to commerce and the private sector, there is almost the opposite – increasing deregulation and laissez-faire driven by a strong belief in the invisible hand of the market and in the power of competition to lead to optimal outcomes. The economic world is still largely modelled as if it worked predictably and controllably, moving inexorably towards equilibrium.
What is remarkable is that these beliefs seem to harden and become ever-more entrenched despite the repeating crises facing our economies, ecologies, and societies. They persist in spite of the stark and often completely unexpected social eruptions and political crises that dominate the news. They persist even in the light of increasing evidence that policies are failing. For example, the UK – despite continuing focus on ‘machine thinking’ (defining detailed teaching methods and lesson plans, detailed measuring of performance of schools, teachers and pupils) – is near the bottom of 24 countries in relation to literacy and numeracy. And, despite neo-liberal free market policies and the promise of ‘trickle down’, inequality continues to rise; the UK is 28th out of 34 OECD countries in relation to income inequality andbottom of 37 countries in relation to difference in healthy eating between rich and poor children. If ever there was a need for fresh thinking, we are seeing it now. Yet most of the solutions that are attempted consist in propping up the status quo, doing more of the same, rather than thinking afresh and questioning underlying assumptions.
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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