I loved the nerve explanation of systems that was explained in Podcast 7 because it illustrated how even slight biases and issues in a system can have massive long term, and sometimes painful effects.\u00a0\u00a0Dr. Bezio’s point that systems management should not be done by one leader, or even by a small team, reminded me of what we’re discussing in my Stalin history class right now. (Not to sound like a Stalin apologist because he was horrible and made a lot of terrible and influential decisions in the USSR), but some scholars want to frame history by placing all of the state’s power and decision making on him, when in reality the USSR was essentially a giant bureaucratic state that could only function with lots of collaborative work. In the US, our tendency to idolize our leaders (something I’m guilty of, I have a picture of RBG on my wall) can become problematic because we fall into the trap of oversimplifying situations and missing the nuances of how systems really work.<\/p>\n
I also liked her comparison of twisting your ankle while climbing a mountain and being allowed to adapt to new conditions to the unrealistic expectations we put on leaders to stick to their original stance even in new situations. Especially in light of the January 6th riots at the US Capital, the idea of term\u00a0limits can way to transition systems without breaking them seems very relevant and important. Dr. Bezio points out that it’s hard to stop a system once it’s started running, which is called a homeostatic feedback loop. Updating a system can be difficult and slightly destabilizing, but there are ways to cope with that. The best ways to adapt and create positive system change, which Dr. Bezio says are long term thinking, not oversimplifying issues, and proactivity, all seem at odds with natural human instincts of reactivity. However, I’m interested in further exploring how we can encourage people to push back on our reactive instincts to solve larger problems like climate change. Understanding how systems really work means that we actually know what are the most effective areas to target for change, and that might not always be the most visible leader. In terms of social justice organizing, understanding that distinction can be vital for success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I loved the nerve explanation of systems that was explained in Podcast 7 because it illustrated how even slight biases and issues in a system can have massive long term, and sometimes painful effects.\u00a0\u00a0Dr. Bezio’s point that systems management should not be done by one leader, or even by a small team, reminded me of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-responses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6902,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900\/revisions\/6902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}