As I mentioned last week, we are taking a pause from Poetry Club to get into some deeper reading once again.
I’ve been feeling the gravitational pull to Donella Meadows’s work for some months now, and I am excited for us to dig in. I started reading this back in 2020, but never did get around to finishing it. I suspect there’ll be many Philosopher’s Toolkits instalments emerging from this and a paradigmatic language evolving out of it, so I hope many of you will join the journey.
The book is available for free online in PDF form here. In the meantime, if you want to grab a physical copy, you have time. Next week we'll just cover the intro so you'll have time to get the physical book if you prefer and we can all get our heads into Systems Thinking mode.
Plan of Reading:
Week 1 (next Tuesday, August 12th): “Introduction” (chance for people to get the book if they want and to read the intro) (pp.ix-10)
Week 2: "ONE: The Basics" (if I remember right this may be a bit theory heavy so this chapter will be more than enough) (pp. 11-34)
Week 3: "TWO: A Brief Visit to the Systems Zoo" (pp.35-74)
Week 4: "THREE: Why Systems Work So Well" and "FOUR. Why Systems Surprise Us" (pp.75-110)
Week 5: "FIVE: System Traps . . . and Opportunities" (pp.111-144)
Week 6: "SIX. Leverage Points—Places to Intervene in a System" (pp.145-166)
Week 7: "SEVEN. Living in a World of Systems" (pp.166-187)
Week 8: Appendices and wrapup (I'll be organising a group hangout here to chat about it — we could have others along the way on Discord if people are interested (paid members: let me know if you need access to the Discord)
Goodreads blurb:
Meadows’ Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global.
Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.
While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.
In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.
Just read the first few pages and I’m intrigued. This will be good.
Ok I want to try to catch up with this book club. I am advocating for systems thinking in science for a long time and my writing as a biologist considers the interacting systems that we a re shaped by, so I have been meaning to read this for quite some time!