INDUCING SYSTEMS THINKING IN CONSUMER SOCIETIES

We introduce some core principles related to systems thinking: interaction, establishment of systems through organization and self-organization (emergence), and the constructivist role of the observer including the use of language. It is not effective to deal with systemic properties in a non-systemic way, by adopting a reductionist way of thinking, i.e., when properties acquired by systems are considered as properties possessed by objects. We consider the reduced language adopted in consumer societies as functional to maintain consumerist attitude. In consumer societies, language is suitable for maintaining people in the role of consumers with a limited ability to design and create. In this context freedom is intended as freedom of choice. To counteract this reduced language, we propose the diffusion of suitable games, cartoons, comics and pictures, images, concepts and words which can enrich everyday language, especially that of young people, and provide an effective way for inducing some elementary aspects of systems thinking in everyday life. The purpose is to have a language to design and develop things and not merely to select from what is already available. We list a number of proposals for the design of such games, stories and pictures.