THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS, YET THERE IS SYSTEM IN‘T
Some days ago, I juxtaposed superficial pseudo-solutions with fundamental solutions. Symptomatic solutions are quick fixes: They seem to eliminate the problem (although in fact fact, only the symptoms), and they do so quickly. Fundamental solutions need more thought, more insight; they are usually not feasible from one day to the other, so you need to be persistent; they capture the whole thing and not just some aspects, so they are more demanding and complex; and they usually require profound changes that you rather avoid; all in all: They require selflessness, integrity, spine, vision… — characteristics that are usually not very helpful for climbing the career ladder. To serve a cause that you are convinced of, even if it is to your own disadvantage, is very different from your adapting your convictions (if you have developed any at all) to every situation as soon as the opportunity arises.
For example: Everyone — especially every political and economic decision-maker — knows that the fundamental problems of our time (from global warming, the enormous ecological footprint, large-scale livestock farming, etc. to systematic tax evasion) cannot be solved by quick fixes. They know that fundamental solutions that not everyone is happy with are necessary. Which brings us back to the symbiosis of politics and big business, which has no interest in changes that curtail its MoneyPower. And that’s why they puts all the levers in motion to block and torpedo all fundamental solutions: Scientific studies are bought or otherwise sabotaged and discredited, armies of lobbyists are engaged who flatter and bribe and threaten, lives are destroyed, and even people are eliminated. The end justifies all means to thwart fundamental solutions and to minimize changes. After all, it’s about gigantic sums of money. That this strategy of prevention threatens society or even the existence of humanity — who among them cares?
And this is exactly where the interface between personal and systemic can be found. Outrage at decision-makers’ personal weaknesses may or may not be justified, but these could not run free if the system didn’t enable it. That is why it makes no sense to replace people as long as the system wherein they operate remains unchanged. It will absorb and adapt the new people, too, and no matter how differently they started, they will end up the same. And that is why it is pointless to bring right-wing or left-wing or “new” parties or “movements” to power instead of the “old parties”: They are — even if perhaps not by name, but functional, systemic — parties. And that means that even if they want to act differently, they will be digested and integrated by the party system.
It is true that no matter which of our current crises we look at, they may be linked to the imperfections of various people, but essentially they stem from systems in which those people are only smaller or larger cogs. If they do not work according to the system, they are sorted out and replaced by compatible ones. The popular rolling of heads after a scandal, a crisis, etc. may appease the media and the voters, but it does not change the system in which those heads work and according to which their replacements will have to function unless they want to be eliminated.
In LEF I have not only analyzed these systems, but also outlined the necessary changes and new systems, which can be implemented at any time and on any scale: On a big scale, by republican-democratic alternatives to representative democracy and the party system, on a small scale by proposals that show how everyone can act differently in their respective spheres of influence, and achieve something different than before. Impossible? Only as long as we think it is.
“Where would we end up, // If everyone said // Where would we end up // And if nobody went // To have a look // Where we would end up // If we went.” (Kurt Marti)
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