Читать книгу The Nature of College - James J. Farrell - Страница 11

Americans focus so much on individuals and “individual choice” that we sometimes forget the ways that systems structure choices for us. Even though we live in a world of systems—social, economic, political, intellectual, and natural—we often only respond to their symptoms. The price of gas, for example, is a symptom of overlapping economic, political, international, military, intellectual, and natural systems, but we usually only pay attention to the numbers on the pump. In a system that encourages externalities—the natural and social costs of production and distribution that aren’t factored into the price tag—the bill for our fuel obscures deep flaws in the system that creates it.²

Systems structure our choices, but institutions structure our systems. Institutions are communities defined by hope and habit, stories and symbols, patterns and privileges, rules and regulations. A community—or an institution—is a way of saying “we, the people” in different settings. The family is one example of “we, the people.” A church is another example, but so are colleges, corporations, media companies, and government bureaucracies. When it comes to environmentalism, college students and other Americans think that individual people choose to live “environmentally” or not. What they often forget is that institutions structure all of their individual choices. When values are institutionalized, they show up as habits, routines, peer pressure, and “common sense”—the standard operating procedures of everyday life. To most Americans, institutions are almost invisible, but their effects are profound.³

No matter how powerful institutions might seem, exploring their effects, including the influence they have over our hearts, can be empowering. In the 1930s, social activist Peter Maurin contended that institutions should be designed to make it easier for people to be good, and as American history repeatedly has shown, institutions can be changed. In this book, then, we’ll consider how human systems and institutions change natural systems, and how we might change them for the better. To that end, we’ ll examine the inputs and outputs of natural and cultural systems and examine feedback loops in nature and culture. In the process, we can study the science and art of ecological design—the alignment of human systems and institutions with the cycles of nature—and think about perspectives and practices that make it easier for people to be good.