Critical Systems, Thinking and Practices - Report Example

Critical Systems, Thinking and Practices Essay 5th June, My research is based on “Critical Systems Thinking for Professionals and Citizens” the paper has been discussed and written on various occasions; my paper is to give the viewers another perspective and to get in depth knowledge of the topic. The aim of the paper is to critically analyze and develop a system which can be applied by the masses. The core objective behind selecting the topic is to equip the masses with the capability of thinking which can help the nation in developing new and effective reflective skills; these skills are helpful for enhancing professional competencies and aid at creating effective citizens. Thus the discussion under focus in “CIVIL SOCIETY” Civil Society We would start the paper by discussing the image of a civil society and the related issues of the paper. The civil rights are law defined for the citizen of a country and the concept of citizenship is derived from the same; it has its roots in civil rights (W, 1994). Much work has been conducted on the similar lines; to define citizenship and civil right many scholars have worked and research; one of the them T.H Marshall’s in his study titled Citizenship and Social Class has defined three different types of citizen rights; civil liberties, political participation and the right to social security and welfare. The civil liberties are the rights related to strictly speaking, the rights of political participation are the rights given to citizens to participate in political activities and the rights to social security and welfare is related to which entitles the citizen to social and economic rights. The question to be asked and answered here is that are the definition of citizenship correctly defined; are we satisfied by the response to the notion of citizenship; the question is raised due to the ongoing phenomenon of “Modernization”; because it is an ongoing process and all of the environment is changing around it that is why it has lessen the definition of classical citizen rights. Max Webber has wrote a paper with the subject the process of “rationalization” of society (Weber, 1970), in the paper he has talked about the changing environments; and how the expansions of scientific and political sphere is brining rationalization to many areas of life; and this is also effecting the role and image of citizenship. The old rights or as we call them the conventional rights did not gave much room to the nationals to adequately participate in the process and that affected their lives and daily routines. The citizenship concept is still being followed upon by the historic rules and regulations; along with many other factors, democratic role of art, science and technology are not considered the part of the concept of citizenship. It is time that we upgrade the concept of citizenship and should be a true representation; part that does not only focus on the rights but at the same time also incorporates the civil competencies; and must revolve around the new concept. It is time that the market needs to be reevaluated and the old institutions that have been the base to form the concept of rationalization for citizens should be changed to the institutions that has played an important role in the modern times; some of these institution include the department of science, politics, democracy, parliament, and other industrial corporations. These are the essential point of focus also called the “locus of control”. If we view closely to the emerging societies; they are being driven by self-motivation and encouragements. There are societies being formed which have their own political culture which is different from the rest; they are decentralized in nature, subcultures are emerging; these subcultures are becoming increasingly popular among many areas; the main aim of such cultures is to develop a political culture in which citizens and citizen groups will participate and will develop awareness and create ideas of new skills that would eradicate the old school and steering centers towards the new ones. The world today has become a world of awareness and communication; there are various channels on which one can express their views and ideas; if we mention one of these areas that come to the minds of the citizens is the public media; they are becoming more aware of the technology and are making better use to express themselves and World Wide Web, which is also known as www; has been one of the most popular sources of information sharing and extraction of information and knowledge. Citizens are making use of these channels to make all the information available regarding legal actions, and civil disobedience, and to form citizen groups where all the members to actively voice their opinion about the inquiry and planning, to generate citizen reports, evaluation of all the stakeholders involved, and the research actions taken up the participants. One of the most popular debates that take part in the groups is the critical response to the opinions and rationality claims which are stated by the experts of the fields. The most interesting aspect with the increasing groups and debates is that it has given a new meaning to the concept to citizenship; it is being redefined on daily basis and efforts are being made to ensure that the right representation of the word is achieved; the process will take time to be implemented in its full form but the efforts have given a new birth to the concept and meaning of citizenship. The young generation needs freedom from the old school and they are taking aggressive measures to ensure that they reach their goal in due time; there are many instances where the young generation has shown increasing tendencies towards political abstinence; in such circumstances the concept of political decentralization and deinstitutionalization appears to be more effective and result oriented. Their impacts are more significant than the old school process and procedures. If we look and study closely the effect of abstinence of political activities by the young generation is in itself a movement from the old political concept to the new one; however one should not misinterpret as loss of interest in the political arena (Barbalet, 1998). Citizen are moving away from institution with political impacts because they have a strong see of lack of achievement and they believe that their efforts and time are being wasted as they are not being awarded with roles which would provide meaning to the institution at large or to them at a personal level. We can explain the above mentioned concept with the changing environmental issues where the citizens are taking ownership of making amendments and think of themselves as an important stakeholder and believes that it becomes his/her social responsibility to ensure that the areas around them are secured and their input has helped to make a difference. These are the citizen who will make the change in the effects that are being generated by the concept of rationalization; these who are self-motivated citizens; who believe that the world and its regulations should be changed for good; they feel responsible and they believe that they are given the burden of change; they even start to represent the population who are not vocal or not much motivated to speak if they believe that things around them should be changed. They would become a wall between the threatening repercussions of the rationalization process and the society. Initially the process was thought to be time consuming; it took ages to describe it to the audience the far reaching effects of the concepts; but the gradual change and awakening of the population has steered the meaning and focal point of discussion; these institution now include the parliamentary, democracy, bureaucracy, science and other private organizations (Heinz, 2008). Change is the only constant; with change new additions are made to the existing concepts; they are redefined and a new definition is emerged. If we look at today’s world of human than civil rights are an essential issue under change but the issue alone is not enough to substantiate the change. With the discovery of the civil society and the participation of citizens in different governance which includes collective affairs; it becomes a central focus point. Along with the governance of collective affairs which has played a vital role the concept of empowering states has also led to a massive change in the thought process; the empowering states are those where the citizen are given much of the authority and power and they are encouraged to have an active part in the society improvements and management. If we have to revive the idea of critical thinking in respect to professionals and citizens we need to revolve our discussion around active citizenship. It is if we improve and have a continuous process of improving these rights and regulations and update them according to the need of them we can make the society more effective and responsive. Professionalism Concept of Professionalism faces the same drawbacks as the concept of citizenship; the concept of professionalism does not convey the proper meaning of which could be used to understand the concept of the reflective skills required for the effective participation of the citizens in the civil society. If we look at the modern definition of the work “professionalism” we would come to the conclusion that it is defined as a term of expertise; a person who is well equipped in one concept or one area; however if we look deep into the meaning and explanation we would know that competence is discovered through the responsibility given to an individual (Habermas, 1987). If we look at the civil society we would conclude that we cannot judge it by competence only; expertise is not enough to conclude that professional intervention can be imposed on the citizens. In the evolving state and the growing concept of professionalism intervention, we would notice that professional are moving on skills and expertise that was defined ages ago; they need to upgraded and enhanced; such skills are required that would aid them to identify the consequences in a chorological order; and not only to identify them but to be equipped with dealing them. The skills need to teach them to deal matters in self-reflective and open way; reflective competencies are an essential and are an important part of the professionalism. All the concepts are co-related and that is why concepts need to be evolved simultaneously; they are a supportive factor to each other and need to be defined in the modern terms so that the concept of rationalization under the light of professionalism. One has to understand that the two concepts have a deep connection; citizenship and professionalism, the chain moves in a flow, where the citizenship does not requires only civil rights but needs to have some critical competencies; these competencies in return does not only require expertise but also a proper understanding of all the concepts such as citizenship. I believe that we need to incorporate changes in the learning in our institutions; we need to focus our concept of professionalism; they need to understand and practice the concept not only in terms of expertise but also in terms of citizenship. We would achieve competent professionals who are competent citizens. We need to understand the importance and relationship of both the concepts; we need to ensure that the right amount of knowledge is shared; and the right meaning is delivered. It is easy to study the two concepts in isolations but the relevance of both studied together is not only critical in nature but over the time it has become important. Once we have learned the importance of the correlations of both the concept we need to drive ways which are easy to understand and acceptable at all levels. These terms have to be defined in generic terms so they are understood by the masses. The concept of masses includes the majority and ordinary people (Ulrich, 2003). In order to come up with effective ways to co-exist the both we can take help from Critical Systems Thinking; as the concept is understood it offers us a way to cope with the issues and develop ways to make it understand in easy language. We can only find ways if we are willing to make a change; and we are willing to use these systems effectively and adequately. These efforts should thus include ways that would include ordinary people; and ordinary professionals from the start of the process; we should avoid taking up methods which would require some cognitive techniques that would risk of excluding the masses. System Ideas This part is the answer seeking part which involves the question that what are those critical ideas and solutions that would become a source of solving the critical competencies; for the majority and masses. I have looked thorough many ideas and research that have been conducted on the topic and I have concluded the concept of fundamentals to own critical thinking and the concept I would revolve my paper is called the Critical System Heuristic. These would further include the findings from the written research and paper titled “The critical employment of boundary judgment” which is also commonly known as the boundary critique. The abstract of the paper talks about the practical implications of the differences in practices; its meaning and validity depends upon how we bound the system of concern; that section of the world that we take to represent the relevant context. The context of the paper talks about the systems that are made the humans and how they can be altered for the sake of betterment of different concepts; these boundaries are human made and we tend to change them if we are motivated enough to change them. They are hard to deal with because it takes a period of time to convince the people around us to cope with the change and then to familiarize them with the new one (W, 1998). Our judgment about the merits of a particular proposition depends upon the context (if we compare the same to any other proposition); the context is the main resource that would define the actions and the reactions; the facts and values and how we will assess them. If we look at the boundary issues we would conclude that no one is the expert in the areas; any person who can participate and give ideas can be a huge influence in the subject; that is why all of the people stand at the same level. This is a platform that would provide the ordinary people to counter the effect of the claims made by the experts and professionals; who consider them to be the decision makers. It gives the opportunity to all individuals to voice themselves to make claims and to participate in discussion that could lead to concrete solutions The concept carries importance in many different forms; I believe it to be significant for the reason it gives room for all the people to participate and it makes them stand on the same level; one does not need to be expert in any field or area to be nominated and then the masses has to follow the rule of one; this way everyone get the chance to voice their opinion and participate in the discussions. The weightage to all is given the same; the expert opinion is not the one that is heard. It is one of those effective ways that have the power of converting the system ideas in to methods form of argument; the sole reason in the quick transformation is the acceptance by the masses. It has the ability to make a claim valid or not valid at the spot; because the response of the people speaks for itself (Ulrich, 1991). We reach to void statements by investigating the underlined boundary judgments others than those proposed by the proponent; the critical power resides in it; the empowered society where the citizens are given enough confidence to take part in matters that would affect them directly or indirectly the building of a society and all the related elements that would a factor in their daily lives; if they are not affected by them directly there are ways that would affect them indirectly that could include the influence on friends and family member or to the neighborhood and other people and places that play an important role in our lives. It empowers the citizens by given them confidence of voicing themselves without any consequences; it also explains that how these normal populations are capable of participating and questioning propositions, and not only do they contest in the proposition but at the same time they can place a counter proposition to an existing concept; and they could voice themselves without any risk of being convicted. The system is a genuine representation of system theoretical conjecture; we need to have some boundaries when we talk about to conceive the system; the process can be made complex if we do not show any interest about learning about boundary critique; which includes the arguments on our existence; questions of who we are and what we are; what should be the ideal ways; and many other related issues; if we do not show any interest to highlight these issues the concept of system thinking does not make any sense but if we ought to learn about them and not only learn but to ensure that we make an impact by changing things in accordance to what we think the system philosophy becomes a sort of criticism. System Thinking – Critique We have already explained that none of the concept can move independently; similarly the idea of critique and the idea of system cannot be experienced individually they have to be correlated. The conclusion is made on the fact that the claims do not have much validity if they are explained in isolation; they can only be reached to concrete conclusion if they are explained in the light of each other (Peirce, 1997). Critique must have some grounds and evidence; because if it is not presented with any evidence it becomes void and empty; and it becomes hard to explain the concept only with a mind idea. In order to make the process simple yet convincible the impression of system thinking is implemented. If we try to define a critique that is grounded without the help of system thinking the process becomes lengthy and difficult to explain. This would not only lead to immeasurable regress of training but at the same time the validity claim will eventually rest upon the ultimate conditions of rationality as one of the researchers have presented the model titled model of rational disclosure by the researcher named Habermas; according to the research if any critique is made in isolation of the other critical factors that might affect them it would create an ideal speech situation; a place where all people would only voice themselves without realizing that we need to come up with suitable solutions and we cannot build a case without considering the factors that might affect them; these can include social, political and environmental factor. If we look at the other way round and discuss system thinking without the critique would again amount back to the boundary judgment; and the would result in a non-systematic discussion; system thinking helps the individual to look at a perspective with deep insight and come up with constructive arguments; these arguments are not complete in a subject of systematic discussion. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that that the system idea and indication of critique requires the support of each other to prove its validity and completeness; they need the support of each other to convey the message in an effective manner; to ensure that it is not treated in isolation. It is very important to realize how the who concepts have to be brought together to ensure that the maximum effective output is achieved; it needs to be used in a manner where the system philosophy can be experienced critically and the criticism can be experienced systematically; the blend of two and how much one should affect the study outcome of other is very important and critical; and one should use the both concept in the right mix so that the system thinking is not impacted by the critical aspect of thinking and the critique is not impacted by the system thinking. The link between the two are defined by the model of a critical employment of boundary of judgment thus gives a essential methodological connection between the system impression and the impression of critique; the boundary of judgment plays as a liaison role between the two concept; it is an imitation of how the two should be correlated in an aspect where they don’t influence each other yet they also aid each other to reach to constructive conclusion. Although the ideas has not been much discussed in the past but at the same I follow those researchers and experts who believe that these aspects should be given due importance to provide a key aspect in the promoting the theory of Haberman (Habermas, 1987); where theories are compelling and where the masses identifies the “ideal speech situation” the communication which is not distorted by the outer factors. Situations, which is ideal in terms of communication; the discussion which are taken place in isolation and discussed without any interference We cannot sit around and wait for time to come where we can have perfect rationality; where everyone is given due importance and weightage and none of the options either they are supported by evidence or not are not discarded; but we can make changes that could help us reach the idea rationality and in order to make changes we need to make aggressive measures to place the system idea to put effort on jobs and other related sectors; where the job is about critically dealing with certain situations with normal circumstances and imperfect rationality. But the only ways to ensure that we end up with the ideal goal of perfect rationality we need to take steps that would initially progress towards improving the imperfect rationality; that would encourage a certain aspect of rationality; would inculcate the voice of people; and would encourage the masses to participate. This would be a move forwards towards achieving the ultimate goal that would require sometime to take effect. Keeping in mind the above discussion I am one of those who believe that the idea and concept of critical employment of boundary judgment – of systematic boundary critique – appears to be the most effective. The boundary represents the concept of creating a balance between two concepts; it is a good representation of the ideas that are initially effective in making a sound impact on different variables; these variables will include politics, society, science, diplomacy, environment and related subjects (Ulrich, 2005). If we make it fundamental; it would easy for us to demonstrate the importance of the concept in our daily lives of communication; the different modes of communication include debate; decision making, and it would also be communicated in a way that the ordinary men can comprehend. The entire exercise of the concept it to make the masses comfortable; to ensure the their opinion are given as much importance as an expert; and when it comes on dealing with certain matter the entire humanity is the stakeholders; all of us are affected by certain decision either directly or indirectly and the aim of the study was to lessen the gap; or to make rules that are acceptable by everyone in the society. The only challenge that has to be dealt with is to come up with ways that could explain the concept of systematic boundary; not only to convey the concept but at the same time the importance and meaning has to be explained in great detail. All of the citizens need to understand their own relevance in the concept and how they would make an impact if they are willing to make a sound change in the world they are living in. Once they are explained the meaning; it is also important for us to teach them and teach them in recognizing and utilizing the concept to boundary judgment; the core reason of the exercise would be to teach them for the reason of debate, reflection and arguments. It becomes difficult to explain the concept that we support while presenting our debate on critical system thinking and practices; the above mention concept of critical system thinking heuristics is only the basics and would require us to go into great detail before we could even start implementing the idea behind the theory; a lot of practice and input is required to make a constructive plan to ensure that not only the plans are met but they are met with effective outcomes; they need to be conveyed to the lay man in a proper manner. One cannot lose the insight and objective behind the theme of the study presented (Ulrich, 2005). It is a long process where we need to go deep into understanding the physiological framework of every individual; to converge them on to one point and one focus to encourage them to use critical systems and thinking practices; to come through with their fears and to equip themselves as responsible citizens; who have the right to speak for themselves and for the environment around them. Conclusion There are many areas that could be considered under the given topic of critical system thinking and practices; I have taken up the aspect of citizenship and citizen; which I believe the main identity of any person; and that is why not only should they know about the rules that are set for them but also have a voice in implementing them for the betterment of the country and everyone involved in them. The changing world requires few changes and all these changes should be implemented under certain time period but the most important one is the representation of the human kind and if these changes are not made in time the citizens loses their interests in the critical activities of the country; we are all the same but our nationality and our citizenship defined our locality and with respect to that all other relationships. That is why due importance should be given to implement changes with the changing world’s requirements; to take in to consideration of the entire stakeholder involved and to voice the public with their interest and input. This would not only react to concrete outcomes but would have acceptability by the masses. Although it has to kept in mind that a balance has to be created between the different concepts mentioned above; because if the balance is not created it would be difficult to make it understand to the lay man and if it is difficult for the lay man to understand it would be difficult to implement and the entire cause behind it would be lost. Bibliography Barbalet, J.M. 1998. Citizenship: Rights, Struggle and Class Inequality. Milton Keynes, England : Open University Press, 1998. Habermas, J. 1987. Beacon Press, Boston, Mass., and Polity. The Theory o Communicative Action. 1987, Vol. 2, Cambridge, UK . Heinz, Karl. 2008. SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND CYBERNETICS. CRITICAL SYSTEMS THINKING. Critical Systems Thinking, 2008, Vol. 2, University of Kassel, Germany. Marshall, T.H. 1950. Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge, UK.  : University Press, , 1950. Peirce, CS. 1997. How to make our ideas clear. s.l. : Popular Science Monthly, 1997. pp. p 286 - 302. Ulrich, W. 1991. Critical heuristics of social systems design. Europ. J. of Operational Research,. Systems Thinking: Directed Readings, Wiley, 1991, Vol. No. 3, 31. Ulrich, Werner. 2005. A Brief Introduction to Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH). England : University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and The Open University, 2005. —. 2003. A Brief Introduction to Critical Systems Thinking for Professionals & Citizens . Werner Ulrichs Home Page: CST . [Online] 2003. http://wulrich.com/cst_brief.html. W, Ulrich. 1994. Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to Practical PhilosophY. Wiley, New York,  : Haupt, Bern, Switzerland, and Stuttgart, Germany. Paperback edition , 1994. —. 1998. Systems Thinking as if People Mattered: Critical Systems Thinking for Citizens and Managers. University of Lincolnshire & Humberside, : Lincoln School of Management, 1998. 23. Weber, Max. 1970. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London : H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970. Read More