Separating the players from the system

This is something we have a difficult time doing.

Its easy to blame that the whole system for our slue of problems. After all, a few bad apples rot the lot.

Free public education in theory is a good system because we don’t want to live in a world where the people around us can’t read. And in a lot of ways, it works.

Of course, there are bad teachers within the system. Ones who got their tenure and just there for the paycheck. Of course, knowing what we know now, we don’t need to maximize productivity over creativity.

All teachers aren’t bad either. We know this. Just like police officers or even politicians.

So is this a bad player or a system that allows this type of behavior to go unchecked? Are we simply using the wrong metrics? Are we optimizing and prioritizing the right things?

Two different approaches and mindsets here. Do you believe that the institutions in place are sacred, good enough as is or do you think it is time for a restart? If we switched the players out, would we see a different result?

Make no mistake, just about every major area in our culture needs radical reform. Healthcare, gun control, how elections are held, equality, taxes, the environment…we can’t continue in the direction we are going without suffering the consequences of unsustainable behavior.

The people that serve in these areas are not going away either. Bad players will always exist in a collection of people. The system makes it more difficult to blame for our problems because they don’t have a face to it. It’s just this thing floating in space. Nothing tangible to grab a hold of.

If enough people care, you can change things. It’s worth reminding that it is all invented. Money, government, everything we are so used to seeing. We become anchored to a world we are used to seeing and fail to imagine a world that doesn’t exist yet.

At the end, you can’t hold institutions accountable for their actions because they are not real living organisms. Accountability exists between person to person. Holding people accountable is a way to change behavior.

Behaviors change systems. Systems change behaviors.