Many people are familiar with the cliché of "working within the system" to change it. And surely almost all are familiar with the parallel clichés of those who "buck the system": the maverick or the rebel, or any other word for those who "think outside of the box" or "transcend the dominant paradigm." (Or however memes which surface in their mind might pose the matter.) However, few people really see any relevance in either of those two main categories of roles, ideas and behaviors concerned with strategies of change.

This is not because few take exception to the way things are. After all, aren't we used to frequent complaining and common complaints about "the system"? Nor is it because many already unthinkingly rebel against the systems to which people have accustomed themselves, without noting how they do it. And it is certainly not because they are carefully weighing the wisdom of using what exists, versus working toward fundamentally altering or replacing what exists.

On the contrary, most people work within conventional systems so usually and habitually they almost entirely forget about those systems, and thus neglect to notice and even conceive of particular systemic characteristics as opposed to other possibilities. A system or systems encompass almost all they do notice. They have become almost exclusively sensitive to graduations and gradations within that limited set of systemic possibilities, that system or systems which they recognize as usual, and in fact as fundamental within their perceptual everything.

These relatively small gradations perceived in the events of the day, or among easily conceivable possibilities some tomorrow might bring, actually then replace the weight and importance of far more considerable options within the whole wide breadth of possibilities an open-minded maverick might be able to conceive. Practically, alternative possibilities of mere details and relative minutiae, the finites of the consolidated, accustomed practices most people know and follow habitually (only recognizable as systems by outside thinkers) comprise the common range of thinking… which range otherwise could comprise truly alternative systems within a theoretically infinite set limited only by imagination and functionality, which each involve various details and minutiae as to their implementation. All of that, people do not perceive.

Persuasive if not so eloquent evidence of this unawareness can be found by asking others [1] to define the important characteristics of "the system," which people often speak of so frequently, as if they know it well, or "the ___ system," in context:

How many people will count compulsory authority and centralized governing as basic factors of their archic as opposed to anarchic political system? They will more likely bring up "democracy" which is a nebulously defined thing in itself, but certainly less basic and well within a subset of certain governed societies. Almost as few will notice iconic leadership by a political officer on top of a system of hierarchical political offices. Or nationalism, or culturalism, both principles immediately beneath the notion of Kultur-Staat, the modern "nation-state," the phenomenon of a delineated, motivated, socialized political society built around a "people," a collectively-conceived racial culture. How many people will think to relate moralism, collectivism and hierarchy as definitive factors of their religious system as opposed to possible amorality, individualism and independence — or religiosity as a defining characteristic of their cultural system instead of unreligious alternatives? How many people will enumerate legally-defined corporations within their business system instead of alternatives? Indoctrination — moral, paradigmatic, and social — as definitive in their educational system? Compartmentalization of fields, and guild certification within their academic system? Obligatory expectation in following particular customs of association within their social cliques and friendships and families, within their social system? Fear, doubt and guilt as basic, daily realities in their personal emotional and motivational systems? The assumption of uniform, constant self-identity within their existential system?

We could certainly continue the experiment further to involve virtually every aspect of a life. With a bit of work one could go on and on and on, identifying characteristics of how we live, conventions and factors of our various interrelated "systems" that we may take for granted, as assumptions. (See Note On Further Brainstorming below.) But for our immediate purposes, simply realize that most or even all the systemic characteristics we might think up, each with their implicit consequences, sometimes useful, and sometimes quite contrary to the needs of a person, go unnoticed regardless of implication.

Such results as we would surely obtain in such an experiment would seem to indicate much more than ignorance, or spare acquaintance with apparent, learnable facts among poorly (publicly) educated modern people, something already decried by many critics of the state of things today. (For example, Americans in general know famously little about American history and how it differs from or explains the present circumstance, or about world geography even though the US government nearly covers the globe). Ignorance is somewhat beside the issue, more a result than a cause. Indeed, to most people informative facts are understandably incidental to what they mean, and a desire to learn facts would likely rest upon a reason to know them, in the knowledge that they would fit into a meaningful pattern, such as those "systems" noted above if people conceived of them.

Nor would mere conformity and resistance shown toward dissent explain away such pronounced ignorance of basic factors, although questioning fundamentals of one's own system is rare partly for that reason. For after all, it is quite possible to have some inkling of how one's own world functions and still defend its essentials conservatively, as for example history's more astute religious reformers and defenders have proven. (It is also worth acknowledging that conformity in a certain sense works hand-in-hand with differentiation in contributing to advantageous progress, including education, awareness, and other facets of civilization; in fact it is most evident that reactionary dissent does not always produce such advantage.)

And do not make the mistake of thinking that the solution and explanation could be identified in not enough criticism of the way things are. Take care about the appeal of starting from critical approaches merely because they seem energetic compared to complacency. Simply criticizing a system does not free oneself from it, nor does it substitute for noticing the system's factors, or necessarily motivate such awareness. Complaints or critiques about "the way things are" usually contribute little to stepping outside of a system which includes oneself — in fact it can reinforce connections of antipathetic mutual dependency. Reaction against the factors of a system by itself does not supply the broader awareness which can actually motivate an escape — or even an informed reconciliation with the factors of a system, if warranted. Opposition in itself just makes a person a critic, and a critic without a broader identity and scope becomes firmly dependent on what he or she criticizes. (For a striking example of this consider how many soldiers and war correspondents have criticized warfare, but how few ever bring themselves to endorse a world without it.) Instead, critiques should more usefully follow from noticing systems which include oneself; once we can step outside the system and of ourselves inhabiting it, evaluation may follow almost as a matter of course and with much less effort.

No, the culprit is not simply ignorance or conformity or lacking dissidence. The more relevant phenomenon to describe what enabled the present general lack of conscious perspective is an underutilized, atrophied and withered skill of noticing fundamentals, among virtually everyone. And the reason for this is the catastrophic failure of a discipline all too few believe important besides those commissioned in the establishment to practice it superficially, tangentially, and ponderously yet with little weightiness.

To be able to consider the important fundamentals of life, in order to decide which to keep as they are and which to change, one must first pay attention and notice fundamentals. One cannot substitute noticing the superficialities of a limited sense of reality for noticing the fundamentals beneath it.

And if nothing else, speaking of fundamentals in this way should call to mind philosophy. Consciousness of fundamentals is a basic duty of philosophy as a worthy pursuit. A philosopher in any productive sense of the word must become conscious of fundamentals, and must educate others about the implications of every possible option among fundamentals, which ramify into the systems people create and build, and live with and build upon. The eminent ignorance of fundamentals, and thus the products of careless, and implicit rather than conscious, and explicit choices on fundamental questions influencing every sphere of life, show us beyond doubt that some poor choices were made about philosophical systems, and about the academic systemization of philosophy and philosophers.

Note On Further Brainstorming

As pointed out above, the conventional factors noted in this article only offer a beginning. They offer a provocative introduction to becoming aware of the mostly unnoticed labyrinth of systems inside which one lives, though reconsidering just those will appear daunting or prohibitive to anyone inexperienced at self-examination. It is of course possible too that some reading this article may already be familiar with them. Or one or more of the examples may not apply to yourself with emotional immediacy if you have never taken them for granted.

I highly recommend continuing the exercise personally. Challenge yourself to trace more, and internalize what you manage to learn. (Remember of course, how much we all have deep homeostatic tendencies, and may resist exposure to anything which might alter our usual states of mind — even if we suffer from those beliefs!) Additional characteristics and systems you could explore might include:

Criminality and punishment in judicial systems. This is touched upon in The Promethean Manifesto: 4. Motivations and Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society: 8. We Defeat Ourselves… By What We Believe. The institution of law in its current meaning, particularly criminal law, is discussed as well in Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society: 7. Beyond Law.

Fiat, centralized money in financial systems versus free and decentralized money. See Promethean Capitalism Part 2., Value, Capital, and Currency.

Consequences of our particular linguistic-semantic system, such as having the concept is in Indo-European languages, which lead to Aristotelian Essentialism, and constant confusion and insistent argument over definitions of words which all have arbitrary meanings). Or different words for aspects of mind and body (or brain) which lead to Cartesian Dualism.

Various paradigms of scientific systems, such as creationism and evolution in biology, and traditional Darwinism and punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary biology. Or changing models of atoms, particles, waves, matter, and energy in physics. Also the approaches to "paradigm shifts" themselves, and the provision, in the philosophy of science, for paradigms and paradigm shifts versus the idea of continual questioning.

Linear, objective time versus space-time in dimensional systems. Consider that our only means of measuring seemingly "objective time" involves motion or other apparent state changes. It then becomes accessible to realize the idea of independent time, time as a thing-in-itself, is not self-evident at all; human beings have came up with any ideas of time we have and continue to impose these ideas upon their own perceptions.

Causality in a temporal system — i.e. the cause follows effect model. We might go further to the intimate idea of causation itself. [2] You will find no proof of this assumption despite its intimate connection to linguistic expectations, which enable our inculcated feeling that it is "true." Nietzsche and other prominent thinkers have questioned its stature as a given and identified particular basic errors connected with it. The modern pursuits of relativity and quantum physics depend on dispensing with it or modifying it. Strange experiences in synchronicity inspire us to question it. Yet constantly people still readily assume causes where they see effects, for example. In particular as we better internalize challenges to the assumption of objective time such as relativity, causality will seem less 'instinctive' to us. I do not mean that causation as a descriptive conceptual tool will necessarily get phased out as appraisals grow more sophisticated, but that people will certainly think very differently about causality in the future and will not assume causation as basic. Our thinking now can increasingly include alternatives (such as association of events in patterns, which I call patternism, or other acausal or syncausal models), and can notice the import of using the causation model and not take its neutrality for granted.

Infallibility/fallibility of the senses in epistemological systems.

Induction in logical systems — and logic in a rational system — and rationality in an evaluative system.

Features of emphasis in one's own personality system — whether introversion, extroversion, thinking, feeling, etc., according to the many models such as Myers-Briggs, Jungian, and Enneagram, themselves systems evidencing assumptions. This begins to get difficult since personality is partly hard-wired.

Psychological systems — in what ways do we see ourselves?

Priorities of one's own aesthetic system and those of artists.

Behaviors of your physiological system — health practices, physical habits, trained behavior, and so on.

Monogamy, polygamy, shame, promiscuity or other features of any system of sexuality.

Marriage (or other of a number of options) in any system of relationships.

… and so forth, ad infinitum. (Any one item in this list is naturally a topic for its own elaboration. It is mainly intended to suggest angles you may not have considered otherwise.)

Of course, brainstorming by itself will only begin to help us trace the consequences of implicit philosophical choices and imagine the consequences of other possibilities. And yet, as I pointed out, noticing is the most essential step. To try to trace the consequences of such possibilities and their alternatives is nothing less than demanding, obviously — in fact, a life's work, for philosophers. But also the sort of work essential to involve in any informed life.

Footnotes

1. As subtlety in this hypothetical device of mine would first require that you share with me an inclination towards the practice of self-development and are on the lookout for opportunities to evaluate yourself, for the sake of the slightly more oblivious I wish to be less subtle than usual at this moment, and make explicit that when I say others, I include you, the reader. I am really asking you, as well as those hypothetical "others." As you imagine how others might answer, imagine honestly whether you yourself could answer well, and what answers you would suggest. If this sort of question is mainly or entirely new to you it will support my point, but more importantly maybe it will encourage you to think deeply about the scaffolds on which you stand, again. It is so essential not to neglect your own relevant philosophy. [back]

2. Darios reminded me of this and a few other examples among those listed in the appended Note. Responding to a draft of this article, he suggested:

"one of the most challenging and fundamental examples I would use would be causation. To many people it may seem like splitting hairs, yet we have as yet no proof of causation per se and many a scientific and philosophical advance has occurred through actually challenging the established 'cause' and/or 'effect' in any particular instance (e.g. the moves from classical Newtonian to Relativity to Quantum Physics have exhibited increasingly complex appreciations of the use of 'causation', and with the rise of Quantum Theory in particular, appears to have finally caught up with Philosophy (from perhaps David Hume at the latest) in appreciating that causation itself constitutes a model and not a fundamental given)." [back]

Additional Reading

Meta-Intelligence

On Conformity

Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson