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Pill Pod 142 - Systems Theory Politics
🕑 Added 2023-10-14 03:11:42 +0000 UTCThis is the sixth episode on systems theory, and interestingly, the first time Victor has been exposed to it. The book is Political Theory in the Welfare State by Niklas Luhmann (https://amzn.to/48Q6I3g), and we hope to give you a glimpse of what it looks like in practice, though under the shadow of the latest horrors in Palestine.
Comments
Jonathan Knowles
Why was the book linked 435$?
RasVis
Oh by the way, you may like some of Stafford Beers writings!
Well Written Agenda
Thank you!
RasVis
Thinking in Systems: A primer by Donella Meadows. It’s written by a technical person, but I believe it’s readable by anyone. I don’t know if this could suit you, but I think it’s a good recommendation for systems thinking. You did say beginner babies :)
Rachel Davis
I wrote my 100 pages master's theses about Israel-Palestine/Arab conflict from a systems perspective (spoiler: it's the military industrial complex) without knowing what this theory was until right now. Jesus. Thank you.
big sinking energy
We’re getting into systems theory in my graduate critical theory class. Specifically studying Niklas Luhmann and his conversion with Haebermas
Myles Jeffers
The optimism to me comes in death, the fact that every living system must die. For a "bad" system, death and sickness is "good". To change a healthy system you must become a cancer to its body. Potentially cancerous cells pop up all the time in our bodies but most are destroyed by the immune response. But if a cancer becomes proliferative enough it can take over and cause a positive feedback loop. The '71 Paris commune was a cancer that got quickly destroyed by the immune system of whatever forces were operating. IMO activists could look to the human body for ideas on how to take down a functioning system.
Max Monheit
Ofc its understandable why Hamas is supported since they are the only influential group resisting the status quo given that the PA is just an extension of the Israeli security state-- obviously violence was inevitable here and is the only tool Gaza has for getting concessions. But saying they stand for the end goals of all Palestinians is the kind of shit that is being used to justify indiscriminate bombing.
Max Monheit
Message discipline and recognition matters for accomplishing goals such as a ceasefire, getting the us to temper military aid and stop blocking UN resolutions, international court coming into play- as bullshit and bourgeois as international law is (needs to be backed by global hegemons) it is a useful tool in this case given the scale of israel's abuses and potential to tip the scale towards some kind of one state solution with equal rights/freedoms for all citizens. Celebrating the paraglider stuff comes off as callous, affirms the mainstream's incorrect assumptions about the goals of the left/Palestinians, and seems to ignore that the price paid for it may just be the total genocide of Gaza. It'd be one thing if there was a real chance of defeating Israel without wiping out an entire people in the process, but their international backing makes that very unlikely and the result will probably just be an even larger regional war.
john gautreaux
(Dumb Canadian voice) uh my names victor and what makes me the most offended about all the genocide and concentration camps and massacres is how some leftists celebrated the paragliders
Alex B
Online moralising/political participation are superstition, impotent attempts to ward off the unpredictable destruction of (sociological) nature spirits by feeding them symbolic offerings at shrine walls. Impotent but inevitable cope
Well Written Agenda
I'm super stoked on these systems theory episodes. Does Pills or Eric have any book recommendations for beginner babies to start learning about systems theory?
Recoil
Please keep systems theory episodes coming — they are dope
Joe Green
I have spent my entire adult life in the Mental Health Industrial Complex, mostly as a therapist, which are essentially the "workers" of the industry. And like any worker, you learn rather quickly about all the irrationalities and counterefficacies of the system for which you work. Several years back I had an opportunity for a middle management position at a large community mental health clinic. I thought, "this is the chance I've been waiting for to make some change." But I learned changed isn't possible. Even management makes no decisions. I'm given my orders from upper management, who is given their orders by various insurance agencies and government oversight committees, who are in turn given their own mandates by the systems they belong to. So no one is actually making any decisions, and everyone is just following orders. And if anyone does try to change something or to do something outside the dictates of the system, the system will excise them. I saw this first hand. I tell people in the field that change isn't possible. They think it's defeatist, but I've yet to be proven wrong.
Heather Harrington
Thank you Victor. I too do not want to celebrate such darkness. “Evil” is the supreme ruler of Iran. Not the Iranian people. Hamas and hezbollah do not represent the Palestinian people or the Lebanese people. Hamas is a terrorist organization, no better than ISIS. I do not celebrate Hamas. I do not celebrate Hezbollah.
ageOfBumFires
Thank you Eric at 55:00, also Pills 57:50. Your phrasing helpbed make things click for me. Definitely worth continuing the line of thought. My only thought on Gaza probably worth sharing is that I find it incredibly depressing that I have absolutely no idea how I can help, or do anything of consequence, like, at all. That media, any media (even the discussion here), just time and time again seems to reinforce this learned, perhaps rightfully, perhaps not, feeling of powerlessness to help. Of being too far out of reach. Just to know I live in a reality where it's possible to have that feeling, that thought, it's a bit overwhelming.
Henry Martyn
This was really great! Much of the systems theory stuff admittedly has gone a bit over my head (I work 60 hours a week as a welder, I only have so much time to read theory lol), but I felt it came into a bit clearer view on this ep.
Plastic Pills
Too true
Qoheleth
53:25 - the deep state like the unconscious is not deep but seen right on the surface 👍
Qoheleth
Not going to moralize about it. I’d just rather keep my life when I’m near a situation with those juxtapositions I don’t personally control.
Qoheleth
Pills after 12:50 time stamp. “why is there a system in place that allows for a concert to take place in the site of a concentration camp?” Yes, but we have a similar juxtaposition when there are homeless encampments within distance from wealth. We should question that system too but by these standards we are near all “guilty” or “fair game”
