The Natural Systems Institute
Natural Systems
Philosophy
Applied to the Diverse Issues and Disorders of Our Culture
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
To some, at first sight, the essays and expositions below might seem like a large collection of stand-alone topics. In fact, all of them taken together, are expressions of the ”Natural Systems" philosophy. That is to say, all items are a part of an integrated whole. The point of the ‘whole' of "Natural Systems" is to get people to make a paradigm shift toward seeing the world in terms of integrated structures and systems. Instead of seeing or focusing on separate, fragmented, compartmentalized institutions, or organizations, "Natural Systems", at the highest level of external structures and systems, focuses on a society or culture as a whole. There can be several or many levels of external structures and systems, depending upon the purpose of the analyst. When focusing on any one aspect of any level of structure or system separately, the reader is directed next to try to see this structure in relation to others on a higher level and in relation to those on lower levels as well.
Particularly, this paradigm shift entails a shift away from analyzing or relating to the world simply from a person-centric point of view, as has been done for all previous millennia, toward a structure-centric perspective. Most importantly, that structure-centric perspective in "Natural Systems" entails seeing the world as an integration of the structures and systems of the external world with the internal structures and processes of the singular, individual, person.
Taken together, I have labeled these two, the external structures and the internal structure and processes, as two juxtaposed dimensions called the "Duplex Pyramids.” The "Duplex Pyramids" is the logo of Natural Systems. This logo has one pyramid on the bottom, representing the internal structures and processes of the individual. Above the bottom pyramid, an inverted pyramid represents the external structures and systems of the world. To see the world in this holistic manner means becoming able to see and understand how these two dimensions are integrated and how they interact.
Of course, "Natural Systems" still involves taking into consideration how the singular individual has or can have an impact on the external structures and systems of their world. However, that emphasis must include, rather the emphasis must be supplanted by, a focus on the external structures and systems of the world. We must try to determine how they shape the person. Furthermore, "Natural Systems" emphasizes how we can and should change the external structures and systems in such a way as to promote the growth of persons toward greater health and higher levels of maturity.
The ultimate purpose of "Natural Systems" is to discover how we can break the ossified, once successful and now deadly, interlocking, systems of institutions that comprise an entire culture, particularly our own. These ossified and deadly structures and systems of the world now, more than ever, are destructive to the earth, its natural environment, to our way of life, the quality of life of all people and creatures, and to the very survival of all individual persons and all life inhabiting the entire planet. "Natural Systems" hopes to begin to reverse these deadly, the destructive trends of these structures and systems and replace them with more globally beneficial trends for the present and hopefully, for billions of years yet to come.
The first listing under the 'Outline of Topics' is, naturally enough, the Introduction to Natural Systems. It is important to understand. No, it is most important to understand that restructuring civilizations' structures requires a 'levels' approach to structural analysis. The analyst makes an initial decision concerning how many levels of external structures to use. The number of levels typically is revised repeatedly as the analyst gains more insight into the issue being addressed. I typically begin with about five levels of external structures. Similarly, it is important, no it is essential, that the analyst decide which systems will be involved in the analysis. Each level of structure entails multiple systems. I typically examine about eight systems within each level of structure that is examined. These levels of structure and the systems that are interlocked and dynamically functioning within them are explicated in the Introduction immediately below. This way of proceeding attempts to be true to the internal structures and processes of the person as they are shaped by each aspect of the interlocking systems within each of the levels of external structures. For me, this has been and continues to be a very mentally demanding way to proceed.
I first began noticing the roles that levels of external structures and their systems played in shaping the internal structures and processes of persons in the latter part of the nineteen sixties. Over the many years after that initial insight, I began to and I continue to try to formulate how these two, the external and internal, dynamically interact. I am still doing so today. I do this because I found, over the course of my career, that the more thoroughly I understood these relationships, the more successful I was at reforming institutions such as adult and juvenile prisons, mental hospitals, educational programs, and community organizations. In consequence, that success was evaluated in terms of the extent to which individuals subject to the programs of these reformed institutions grew more healthy, mature, and socially responsible.
Aside from the external structures and systems and internal structures and processes, Natural Systems has also developed and method for delineating and shaping the processes of intentionality. Traditional psychology has rather exhaustively researched the internal structures and processes of humans such as perception, memory, learning, cognition, motivation, life history, identity and self-concept, and behavior, particularly interpersonal behavior. The processes of intentionality, as an internal system, have been given little attention. Intentionality has been thought to be too subjective and speculative. Natural Systems developed a model of intentionality, researched it, and successfully used it in designing the programs of external structures and systems so as to shape the person's intentionality processes to induce growth toward increased physical and mental health, maturity, and social responsibility.
In my retirement, I have extended the use of the Natural Systems approach to analyses of a broader and deeper range of cultural problems, as you will see in the essays and presentations under the thirteen topics listed below.
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Outline of Topics
Introduction to the Natural Systems Theory, Philosophy, and Approach to Solving
Cultural Problems
I. Thought, Perspective
Taking, and Creativity
1.
The Idealist’s
Dilemma
2.
Pre-Logical and
Paleological Modes of Thought
3.
Epistemology In
The Modern World
5.
Suggestions for
Socially Responsible Thinking Techniques
6.
Creativity and
Managing the Conscious Mind
(This PowerPoint Presentation has
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7.
Shakespeare Was
a Woman: Queen Elizabeth I - A Cognitive-Structural Analysis
8.
Of Butterflies
and Writing
9.
How Big is the
Arena of Your Mind?
10.
Look for what
you do not see and listen for what you do not hear
11.
A Set of Fresh
Eyes
12.
Bergson's Dictum
Revised
13.
Hysterical
history blindness
14.
De-Centering
Exercises
15.
Highest Level
of Intellectual Maturity
15. How Neurotransmitters and Natural Systems Interact
16.
The Fault Dear
Brutus Is Not To Be Found In Ourselves
17.
Weltanschauungen and Zeitgeist
18. A Hint of the Finite Presaging a Disturbing Infinite Possibility
19. Processes of Intentionality Inside Your Mind (This PowerPoint Presentation has 243 slides and make take 2 minutes to download. You may need to download, install, and use the PowerPoint Viewer posted just above the Outline of Topics.)
19a. The Processes of Intentionality Inside Your Mind (this PowerPoint Presentation has 243 slides and make take 2 minutes to download)
20. An Inevitably Cognitively Dysfunctional Congress
21. The Body-Brain-World Connections
II. The Media and Political Culture
1.
America's
Politics as Impromptu Theatre
2.
Ad Hominem
Arguments
3.
Bill to Outlaw
Libelous and Slanderous Political Messages
4.
A 'No Wax in
the Ears' Critique of the Rhetoric of Presidential Candidates
5.
Can You Do the
Two-step?
6.
Blogs Reflect
the Nature of the Modern Mind
7.
How the Media
Prevents a People’s Revolution
8.
Advertising: A
Paradox of the ‘Best’ of Intentions and the Worst of Consequences
9.
The New
American Revolution
10. The Media as Objective Self-Critic
11. Wanted - A Neo-Saul Alinsky Needed Immediately for Culture Busting
III. Our Culture’s Zeitgeist and its Structures and Systems in
Need of Reform
1.
My Calliope
Blew Hot Air
2.
Landslaught
3.
Power and Culture in
America (Work
in Progress)
4.
Proposal for
Promulgating Activism Agenda
(Work in Progress)
5.
The
Brilliant, Devilish, Duplicitous, Successful Agenda of the Super Rich
6.
Caveat
Emptor Policy of the Credit Card and Bank Corporations
7.
View from
the Bottom of Reagan's Shining City on the Hill
8.
Another of
America’s Dirty Little Corporate Secrets
9.
Tilting the
Balance of Power among Nations of the World
10.
Natural
Systems versus the Industrialized World
11.
Two Ways of
Viewing the Rest of the World from January 20 On
12.
Two Paths
to Transforming Our Violent World
13.
Highest
Level of Societal Maturity
14.
This Fourth
of July
15. Ours Is an Age of Inauthenticity
16. The Era of 'The Now Generation' Must End
17.
Uncorrected
Causes Equate to Ineffectual Treatments
18.
Happy
(Ironic) Thanksgiving Day
19. "Invictus" the Movie and Mandela the Man
20. New Year's Resolutions for 2010
21. The Media and Enslavement by Proxy
IV. National and World Politics and Economics
1.
Speculations
about the Bush Personality and the Structure of His Presidency
2.
Bush’s Faux
Economy
3.
McCain Campaign
Finance Brouhaha
4.
Presidential
Debates Reveal Politicians Lack Empathy in International Relations
5.
Dennis
Kucinich: A Natural for a Neo-holistic Democratic America
6.
Turning Red
States into Blue for the 2004 and 2008 Elections
7.
Comparing
Campaign Contributions for Clinton, Obama, and McCain
8.
Uncertainty and
the Bear Market
9.
Bush Speaks to
World Economic Conference of March 2008
10.
Preamble to a
Legislative Travesty: Bailout Bill of 2008
11.
Mother Jones:
Comparing Domestic Economy in Relation to Stock Markets circa end of 2005 to
2009
12.
Balance of
Power among the Nations of the World (see IX. 4. below)
13. Nuclear Double Standard Redux
14. Unraveling the So-called Progress of the Last Forty Years
15. US As a Moral and Behavioral Model for the World
16. Once Slaves Now Saviors - An Irony of American History
17. Bringing a Structures and Systems Analysis to the Crisis in American History
18. Shaking the Foundations of American Politics and Economics
19. 'Commons Dilemma' versus the ‘Zero Sum Game Theory’ as Preferred Economic System Model
20. Fallacy: Competition is Good and Necessary for Innovation and Progress (Work in Progress)
21. The Making of a Born-Again Socialist
22. Bellwether for Our legislative Bodies' Commitment to the People and Planet.htm
V. Energy and Environment
1.
Energy Time
Lines by Years in Futuristic Projection
2.
Why This
Deafening Silence about Our Most Viable Solution to the Energy Crisis?
3.
Salvaging Our
Glorious Natural Existence
4.
Civilization
against Living Things on Earth
VI. War, Military, and Promotion of a Culture of Violence
1.
Lincoln’s War
Was Not Inevitable?
2.
The Existence of a
Armies Entails that the Heads of State Must Wage War
(Work in Progress)
3.
Preliminary to
the Biden Plan for Iraq Withdrawal
4.
Plan for
Withdrawal from Iraq a la Joe Biden
5.
Why Troops to
Afghanistan?
6.
Reopening the
Debate about Rationale for Going to War with Iraq-Scott McClellan's Book
7. The Good Soldier (Work in Progress)
8. The Israel-Palestine Impasse
9. An Irresistible Force with an Insane Rationale
10. Recognizing the Recipe for Failure of Future National and International Efforts to Reform
11. The Transmogrification of Western Man (Work in Progress)
12.
Of Swine and Pearls of Great Price
VII. People, Human Relations, and Culture
1.
The Central
Characteristic of the Human Being is Care
2.
Highest Level
of Personal Maturity
3.
The People
4.
Highest Level
of Interpersonal Maturity
5.
Dear Nuts
6.
About Stupid
People
7.
Brilliant
People and Ill-Starred Ages
8.
The Inner
Processes of the Mind
9.
Complex
Implicit Parents and Conflicts of Will
10.
Psychologists'
See Through Lens of White Superiority Bias
11.
Fleeting
Glimpses into the Twisted Dark Hearts of Two Politicians
12.
When Only Its
Heroes and Celebrities Are Strong-A People Becomes Weak
13.
The Egotism and
Narcissism of Our Beliefs about Cause and Effect
14.
The Personality
of the Nation Revealed in a Single, Telling, 9/11 Incident
15. The Other (Being Revised)
16. The Objectionable Other.htm
17.
Awakening To a New
Kind of Fulfillment
VIII. Law, Free Will, Personal Responsibility, and
Structure and Systems as Cause
1.
Freedom of Will
is First Acknowledging How Little Freedom of Will One Has
2.
De Jure Free
Will versus De Facto Free Will and the Obsolete American Justice System
3.
Genetics versus
Personal Responsibility versus Structure of Society: Reframing the Debate
4.
Jurisprudence
in Modern America
5.
The Ossified
and Obsolete Paradigm of Social Sciences
6.
Changing from a
Person-Centric to a Structure-Centric Model of Human Behavior
7.
Shifting the
Focus from Person to Situation in Causal Attributions Related to Blame
8.
A Plan for
Restructuring the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department (1994)
9. The Psychological Effects of the Structure of Juvenile Justice and Court
10.
Society's Paths of
Reaction to Non-Normative Behaviors
11.
Description of
a Successful Model Juvenile Correctional Institution
12.
Natural Systems Based
Community Organization Can Transform the Justice System
13.
Preconditions
for a Paradigm Shift in the Justice System
IX. World Religions and Cultural Control and Conflict
1.
This is the
Riddle of the Ages
2.
Remembrance of
Things Past: A Major Difference Between the Middle East and the US
3.
A Brief
Contrast between Eastern and Western Religions
4.
Global Fundamentalism
and Global War
(see IV. 12. above)
5.
The Timeliness
of the Pope's Visit in Relation to the Embattled Evangelicals
6.
Pastor Mueller,
Doctor King, and Pastor Wright: a Heroic Trilogy of Truth Sayers
7.
East vs. West
Religion and Romance, Structural Analysis
8.
Western Myth of
Exclusive and Everlasting Romantic Love
9.
Evaluation of
Atheism versus Belief in God
10.
Why Theism and
Deism Are Empty Concepts
11. Significance of Ancient Religious, Legal, Literary, and Scientific Texts for
the Modern World (Work
in Progress)
12.
Theory of
Evolution versus the Biblical Creation Story
13.
Existence as a
Cursed, Inseparable Bond of Hope and Dread
14.
Existentialism
and the Abyss
15.
We Peacefully Sing the Lullaby of Lost Souls
16.
Now and Then
17. Jesus as the Ultimate Egalitarian
18. Serenity's Minimal Requirements
19. St. Paul and the Effects of the Ignominious Schism in Christian Doctrinal Tradition on US Politics and Religion (Work in Progress)
X. Gender Relations,
Sexuality, and Culture
1.
Couples Reciprocity Inventory
2.
Sexuality and
the Times
2.
Were Governor
Spitzer's Visits with a Call Girl' Inconsistent with His Prosecuting
Prostitution Rings?
3.
Onward Christian
Soldiers
4.
When
Co-Dependency Goes Awry (PowerPoint)
5.
Maturity in Intimate Relationships in Modern America
6.
The Evolution
of Human Sexuality
versus Contemporary Mores
(Work in Progress)
7.
Ode to a
Woman's Joy
8. Maturity in Intimate Relations in the Modern World
9. The Meaning of Sex, Subtitled: The Meaning of Existence Laid Bare
10. Learning Guiltless Sex in a Culture Laden with Sexual Guilt
XI. Education, Parenting, and Training for Teen and Adult
Growth in Maturity (PowerPoint Presentations
may open slowly)
1.
Education Reform and Solutions to School Violence
(PowerPoint)
2.
Parenting
Skills from the Natural Systems Perspective
(Twelve Sections)
(PowerPoint)
3.
Stages in Adolescent
Progression in Maturity and Categories of Highest Level of Adult Maturity
4.
Workshop
Outlines for Adolescents, Parents, Relationships, and for Organization
Development
XII. Caring for People:
Mental and Physical Health and Immigrants ((PowerPoint Presentations may open slowly)
1.
Guided Group
Psychological Help: The Natural Systems Path to Mental Health and Maturity
(Fifteen Sections) (PowerPoint)
2.
A New Paradigm for Psychological Treatment Based on Natural Systems
(Work in Progress)
3.
Crusading for Universal Single Payer Health Care Legislation
4.
Solution to the
Illegal Immigrant (Necessary Worker) Problem
5.
Cause and Treatment of
Addictions
(Work
in Progress)
(PowerPoint)
6. The 'Summit Rumble' on Health Care- February 25, 2010
XIII. Sources for Research to Assist in
Reforming the Structures and Systems of Our Culture
1.
URLs Related to
Politics that Have the Highest Levels of Reliability for Fact Checking
(Being Revised)
2.
Online Sources for
Social Reform and Activism
(Being Revised)
3.
One Hundred and
Fifty+ Documentary Films Relevant to the Diverse Disorders of Our Culture
4. Sources Related to Natural Bio-Geo-Socio-Eco Scientific Systems
XIV Management and Natural Systems (PowerPoint)
1. Management and Natural Systems/Natural Systems New Management Philosophy.pps
3. Interrelation of Eight Systems within Encompassing Structure
5. Objectives and Performance Evaluation
My Life as a Reformer from Adolescence to the Present (Being Revised)
There have been
visitors
to this site.
The documents in this web site have been
created and revised from around 1980 to
03/09/2010
For
comments
mailto: dredyoung@TheNaturalSystemsInstitute.org
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Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely, Ed
