Systemic
approach
Why
a systemic approach? The answer is simple. To be able to understand
the WHOLE without necessarily having to understand the impossible
details of all the parts. Those are indeed infinite, and, therefore,
ask for an infinity of specialists
on the bottom of an infinite debate. So that in extreme cases the
world can fall to pieces before you get a glimpse of the
beginning of a possible comprehension. In order that the trees do not
hide the forest, the recourse to systemic
becomes impossible to circumvent.
You
can thus understand the whole
without necessarily understanding the elements
of this whole. All you have to do is to put between
brackets the
'contents' and let the 'container' give intelligibility.
The world is a whole and this whole
is never simply the sum of its parts. A question like this one:
'world, where do you go?' could thus not be mixed up with the
question so much easier: 'components of the world, where do you go?'!
Our
approach goes against constant drifts, which today are even more
fallacious. Firstly, the ideological
drift, especially under its species of 'moralizing' kitsch which
despises the 'reality' and takes pleasure in simple construction of
'ideas', guarantors of easy hits and emotional euphorias. Secondly,
what you can call the 'philosophy of the storekeeper'. This
positivism of the shop manages the ingredients held in stock as if
they had their importance in itself, and considers all the remainder
according to the calculations of this management. Such is in general
the world of the 'specialists' or other 'experts-in-this-or-that'
which unceasingly claim new prospects and unceasingly are lamentably
mistaken. Lastly, on the plan of a praxis, without the systemic
approach, there is only a proliferation of transitory tactics
without real
strategy.
To
understand
alive realities one should not think 'structure'. You have to think
'system'.
`Alive System. A 'structure', that of the crystal for example, finally finds
its explanation in its chemical geometry. An 'alive
system',
on the other hand, survives only in opening.
From its simplest forms to its most complex one, step by step in
interactive interlocking with the whole of life, with the whole of
nature, with the whole of the ecosystem, with the whole of the
cosmos. Here the 'contained' objects are impossible to isolate. They
are alive
realities. Organic realities. Realities in interdependence, in
inter-reaction, in interrelationship. Impossible to look after a body
without looking after the entire body and, especially, without
looking after the environment
of this body.
1
- Each system, whatever its complexity, its size or its situation in
the middle of an other system, functions, as
a system, in an identical way. 2
- It is thus enough to know the operation of any system to understand
them all. 3
- Any system can thus be taken as 'model' of operation.
An interactive whole of micro-systems buckled the ones into the others
can form a more complex system. There is theoretically no limit for
the increasing complexity. Each of the 'openings' of a system can be
connected on those of the next system, and so on, gradually, from a
minimal systemic unit towards the greatest one.
From
the simplest micro-system to the most
complex macro-system, and whatever its degree of systemic complexity,
it is the function
which characterizes a system. And functions can be of an incredible
diversity.
A
system in itself with its inner working and all the complexity of its
articulations can be regarded as a 'black
box'. The term says its 'mysterious'
complexity. He also says that this 'box' can remain obscure without
darkening the intelligence of the 'whole'. Its 'contents' can thus
remain in the shade. But what has to be absolutely clear is its
'containing' environment,
that is its function, its entries
and its exits.
The
systemic approach does not relate on the contents but on the
container,
namely a dynamic space
with its entries
and its exits.
This approach is of an extraordinary fruitfulness. Here the
intelligence of the whole
precedes and conditions that of the part.
The intelligence of the including precedes and conditions that of the
included. All the elements are understood starting from this whole.
What
makes basically
of a 'whole' a 'system', is its
organization.
A system is not understood starting from its components, neither from
the connections between these elements, nor even from the
interactions between these connections, but primarily according to
its organisational specificities. It is as organized, and only as
organized, that a system resists its reduction in elements and
transcends the quantitative juxtaposition of the multiplicity and the
diversity which composes it. In this organized complex unit the whole
is always more than the sum of the parts, the organization to
some extent conferring them a
supplement of being, of operation and of action out of proportion
with the
parts alone. But already a part is still more than a part. The
organized whole is a new emergence.
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