People and systems

Do people change systems? Or are systems more likely to change people? The answer is yes to both. But it’s also pretty complicated too.

Individuals can’t change a system on their own. Systems are made up of people. A really bad person, even someone who is evil, can’t change a system on their own. They need others to comply with their demands. Without anyone complying, the system won’t change — no matter how forceful someone might be. There has to be compliance of others in order to change a system. There has to be a willingness to see the change — regardless of what kind of change happens.

We elect good people to office hoping beyond hope that they will go in to an unhealthy and in many cases abusive system and change it. But we make the mistake of putting it all on the shoulders of one person. One person can’t change a system. Too often what happens is that the system they are thrown into changes them instead.

We make other mistakes. We think that someone with good intentions can use an unhealthy system for good ends. But that doesn’t work either. Unhealthy systems make the people in them unhealthy. No one is strong enough, on their own, to with stand the strain of an unhealthy system. They will succumb to that unhealthy system eventually and be changed by it.

The reason for this is simple — systems exist for self-preservation. Systems are whole groups of people who comply with the expectations of the system. They may not like the expectations, but they still comply with them.