The Social NetWorker

Social Systems, Invisibility, and Self-Reliance

(This is a guest post by Megan Elizabeth Morris.)

As much as we might complain about the system and its flaws, there is no doubt that we have a spectacular system. It's not perfect (by a longshot), and it needs a lot of improvement, but it does some pretty amazing things. In fact, it's so good in some ways that it has completely replaced our desire (and often our ability) to care for ourselves in particular situations.

What does a young citizen do to strike out on his own and survive in the world? Why, just fill out a few forms. He can get a job at any number of places -- a fast food joint, a coffee shop, a gas station -- in less than a week, maybe in a matter of hours. He can run the register, and they'll give him money twice a month.

What? You mean he doesn't have to learn his father's trade or break his back farming or kill animals for food? You mean, someone's already created the process for him, and all he has to do is follow it the way everyone else does?

I mean, wow. That's really something, isn't it, what civilization does as it rumbles along! There's so much we just don't have to do for ourselves anymore. There's probably nothing wrong with that (depending on how you do it, and who you ask). But I wonder, as much as we value these systems... shouldn't we be keeping a better eye on them? On ourselves?

The system is so good that we don't really have to think too hard or be all that innovative to get along okay. It's so easy to get along okay (and I mean, everyone is doing it) that I think most people just default there: They get along okay.

The system is so good that compared to a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years ago, we don't find ourselves in supremely dangerous situations all that often. We don't face death directly every day quite the way we used to. Most of us aren't challenged every moment to be our best, because there is always a failsafe in place somewhere, a safety net, a spotter.

The system helps a lot of people and fails a lot of people. It changes the lives of some, and tramples others. But it's still there, doin' its thing. In many ways it's there so reliably that we barely think about many of its functions on a day-to-day basis.

We depend on it without even really realizing.

What does that mean for us?

Megan Elizabeth Morris (email)
Ms. Morris writes at Personal Revelations of the Magnificent Megan M. Megan Elizabeth Morris, or The Magnificent Megan M., [proper noun]: Superhuman font of knowledge, skill, determination & resourcefulness. Exudes enzymes that cause others to surpass their potential. Master thinker; writes, designs, manages, ideastorms, markets, inspires, connects, grows, teaches, makes things happen, changes the world, and throws a mean right hook. (Okay. Not the last one. Well! Not literally.)