I love getting the time to share ideas about community with both of my parents. My mother has been working as a professional in social community services and counselling and my father is a well respected town planner. Both have been practicing their respective crafts for over 25 years.
In talking with my father today a discussion began which centered around sustainable community and development evolution, both in the built environment, economy and community. For the first time I realised how closely my personal views about 'progress' had similar values as to those of my father. Little surprise there as I used to constantly raid his library whilst in High School, discovering titles such as "A pattern Language" at the age of 14.
Excitedly, i was able to get some refferences from my father for further reading again today. One is a book by Senge about the use of systems thinking in professional development called "The Fifth Discipline", the other is by a woman named Donella Meadows in an article called Dancing with the System [I highly recommend reading this article] . Both articles seem great introductions to applications of systems thinking... a kind of gestalt view of the interpolation and connective complexity in the world around us.
I find myself drawn to the Systems Thinking method; not to naively try and determine an increadibly complex future or design path or social panacea. But rather to find a more effective, efficient, sustainable and organic practice method.
It will be interesting to see how this ties in to my thoughts and deliberations on the sustainable grass roots methods of sub-cultures and community organisations; both illicit, malevolent, and benevolent.
For a taste of Systems Thinking: here is an excerpt from Senge's book. It hails from Chapter 21 of The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge. entitled "THE INDIVISIBLE WHOLE". Pages 370 and 371. Random House Australia. 1992. Milsons Point. NSW. Herein he describes the way Russell_Schweickart (a US astronaut) discovered the reality, benevolence and pertinent nature of "Systems Thinking"
"Floating in space, Rusty discovered the first principles of systems thinking. But he discovered them in a way that few of us ever do- not at a rational or intellectual level, but at a level of direct experience. The earth is an indivisible whole, just as each of us is an indivisble whole. Nature (and that includes us) is not made up of parts within wholes. It is made up of wholes within wholes. All boundaries, national boundaries included, are fundamentally arbitrary. We invent them"and then, ironically, we find ourselves trapped within them.
"He began to involve himself in activities that seemed congruent with his new understandings.
"One that had a special impact was learning about the "Gaia" hypothesis - the theory that the biosphere, all life on earth, is itself a living organism. This idea, which has deep roots in many preindustrial cultures such as Amednican Indian cultures, "struck a deep chord in me,"says Rusty.
"For the first time it gave the scientist in me a way to talk about aspects of my experience in space that I couldn't even articulate myself. I had experienced the earth in a way that I coldn;t even articulate to myself. I had experienced the earth in a wat that I had npo way to descrinbe. I had experienced the ALIVENESS of it - of it all."At the conclusion of the leaderrship workshop, someone asked spontaneously, "rusty, tell us what it was like up there?
"He paused for a long time. When he finally spoke, he said only one thing.
"It was like seeing a baby about to be born".
"Something new is happening. And it has to do with it all - the whole"
I hope this all turns out with legible syntax. It is rather late (or early morning) as I write this. Food for thought none-the-less.. and some new leads.
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