This four-week series by Fr Robert P. Maloney, C.M. aims at helping members of the Vincentian Family find more ways of talking and reflecting about concept systemic change and its implications. We think it succeeds and will be interested in hearing what you’re talking about. –.ed
Many who work among the poor speak use a phrase that captures a key purpose of their work: systemic change. This potent idea has captured the attention and imagination of leaders of the Vincentian Family. Why? One way to look at that question is to think about the concept of systems.
A place to start is with our common sense, with what you and I already know about a very complex system: our own bodies. Consider, for instance, the effects of a broken bone. If I break my ankle, it hurts. My pain affects my overall happiness and my mood. That, in turn, affects how I relate with others. The broken ankle also distorts how I walk. As I hobble along, my hip or my back might start bothering me. A throbbing ankle and an aching back can be a fast track to headache or grouchiness. My work, my study, and my interactions with everyone – all these might begin to feel the pain of the broken ankle.
But as my ankle heals, I have less pain. I begin to walk better. Gradually, my hip and back settle hack into their normal working order. My headache disappears. So does the grouchiness! I find myself relating better with others. And my effectiveness at work and study improves, as well.
Systems are all around us. We speak, for instance, of the solar system, a railway system, a monetary system, a sewage system, or a system of government. We refer to the nervous system and the digestive system.
We also use the word in the realm of ideas to describe a whole way of thinking, as when we talk of a philosophical system or the Thomistic systern. Sometimes we use system to describe the prevailing way of doing things, as when we say that someone “knows how to work within the systemâ€; or, we use “system†to describe a special well-worked-out way of acting, as when we speak of a system for winning at bridge or at black jack.
Essentially, a system is a whole, a unified composite of things that work together. It functions through the interaction of its parts and is, actually, greater than the sum of its parts. As the parts interact, they affect each other constantly, for better or for worse.
Etymologically, the word “system†comes from two Greek words: s ii “together†+ histanai “cause to standâ€. A system, therefore, in its root meaning, consists of things that “stand togetherâ€. The concept has come to be applied in numerous branches of knowledge, from the philosophical notion of “a set of correlated principles, facts and ideasâ€, to the medical notion of “a body as an organized wholeâ€, to the computer sense of “a group of related programsâ€, or an operating system. There are many synonyms for system, such as a whole, a complex, an entity, an organization, a scheme, a setup, a structure, a sum.
In the 20th century, the implicit understanding we have of systems began to be applied more explicitly in a variety of fields. Modern sciences, for example, look continually at systems made up of parts that interact continually and, for better or worse, exert influence on each other. Physicists and astronomers know that when a star explodes, everything in the universe somehow feels the impact. Medicine, too, sees the human body as a complex system. A failing kidney, for example, affects the blood, and the blood that circulates throughout the body affects all other organs.
Society, too, has come to be viewed by economists and sociologists as a system. When elements that influence the lives of people within the system — family, institutions, jobs, housing, food and drink, health care, education, moral values, spiritual development, and more — function together positively, people thrive. If one or several of these elements are lacking, the whole system begins to break down.
Increasingly, the various fields of thought and discovery share a common belief in the unified nature of reality. All fields recognize that reality is complex, but at the same time all affirm that “everything is connected to everything else.â€
Many who work among the poor share that conviction. They know that changing the situation of the poor requires that our focus must be broader than any particular problem. Important as it might be, for example, to supply food to the hungry, there is a big question that cannot be ignored: why are people hungry? We now know that “quick fixes†prove inadequate in the long run.
Using the example of hunger, the real problem is not how to supply food, but how to address the cause of people not having enough to eat: the socioeconomic system in which they live. Addressing the cause means intervening in a way that results in the system as a whole being modified.
Such an approach is necessarily interdisciplinary. And it involves many different actors within society. Among them: the poor themselves, interested individuals, donors, churches, governments, the private sector, leaders in business, unions, the media, international organizations and networks.
In works among the poor, systemic change has aims beyond providing food, clothing and shelter to alleviate the immediate needs of the poor. It focuses on assisting the needy to change the overall structures within which they live. It looks to their being able to develop strategies by which they can emerge from poverty.
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