A discussion regarding the difference between complex-systems-ecosystem approach and 'other' approaches

what is the difference??...

Most recent substantive changes:
March 13, 2000

This brief note is written to put form to a question that has been on my mind of late: what is the difference between 'our' approach and the 'conventional' approach? This is not intended as a rhetorical question - asking for a list of all the 'bad' characteristics of the 'other' approach - but as a very serious question. Perhaps it should be prefaced by another question: Is there a difference between 'our' approach and the 'conventional' approach?

When I consider these questions for myself, I keep coming back to a belief that the significant differences reside in the underlying principles and philosophical assumptions we adhere to. It seems to me that if a different set of assumptions and principles were the basis for interpretation, many of the heuristics and approaches we develop and discuss could fit within or be interpreted as rational-comprehensive processes or hard-systems analysis. [Although I do agree that this would happen with greater and lesser degrees of difficulty...]
This leads me to think that as I develop heuristics, methods, and methodologies I must attempt to embed an emphasis on these underlying differences within them - and/or within the accompanying discussion (but preferably the foremer). The heuristics must incorporate epistemological-political-ethical dimensions in order to point to a 'difference' between 'my' approach and the 'conventional' approach.

'Our' approach, refers to the post-normal, complex-systems, ecosystem-type approach based on a somewhat diverse but constrained set of ethical, political, epistemological, and other basic principles that is tacitly agreed to and/or discussed by a loose collaboration of students and faculty primarily based at the University of Waterloo and informally instigated and nurtured by James Kay. 'Conventional approach' refers to the amorphous 'other' that is primarily defined by contrast but which is predominantly taken as the so-called-reductionist, positivist, rational-comprehensive kind of approach.

For me, these notions lead to a number of questions:

One is simply: What are the differences? Which, of course, must be recast as: What do we perceive to be the differences? This leads to two supplementary questions:

Regarding 'our' view of 'their' work: How generous an interpretation can be made of the issues, approaches and heuristics 'they' describe? Is it possible to see in 'their' work something akin to 'ours'?
Secondly, regarding 'their' view of 'our' work: How might others be able to interpret what we have to offer and describe? Is it possible for others to see in 'our' work, the very thing that would augment and support a world view we might oppose?...

Perhaps jodi dean's notion of the situated hypothetical third can be of use here: How would somebody else interpret the differences? Would somebody, applying the same worldview to both 'our' approach and 'their' approach, note differences or similarities?

These questions lead me to consider a distinction between critique and criticism. The following indicate my sense of the terms:

Critique has a more positive connotation: it's about constructive criticism. This means questioning assumptions; questioning whether claims are valid within the bounds of what is being argued and assumed. This does not mean agreeing or acquiescing with whatever is being presented. It does mean pointing to disagreement, contradiction, discord in a respectful manner and with an honest attempt at recognizing the possibility of a contradictory-but-still-valid perspective. Critique is mindful reading, perhaps.
Criticism has a degree of closedness to it: critique with blinders on. It means taking something apart based on unexamined assumptions. It refers to a starting point that assumes whatever is being presented is 'wrong' rather than questioning whether there is wrongness, what that wrongness might be, where it might come from, why there is a sense of wrongness and where that might come from.
These points indicate a key question I can use to reflect on what I am doing in any particular case: What/which of my own assumptions are making me sense wrongness in whatever I am reading? If I am asking this question of myself, perhaps I am critiquing - if not, I am criticizing...

These comments lead me to form a few questions to hold in mind as I read/critique:

What assumptions underlie this paper? Are they described and defended? How do they help me to identify and understand my own? If they seem to be different, do they seem mutually exclusive? On what grounds? How would I situate myself if I were to defend their assumptions?
What is there about this paper that is good? What can I take from it to inform my own approach and understanding? What themes and descriptions cohere with mine? How? How do they differ?
Can I interpret this work - through my own worldview - and develop a different response or conclusion? How? What does that mean for what is written and the 'conclusions' that are reached? Does this reinforce my own work and/or theirs? How? If I do not come up with a different response/conclusion, what does that mean for my own work and/or theirs?

I hear people state ideas and positions that seem non-sensible, bizarre, inappropriate - ideas and positions that I just don't understand. Does this speak to their ignorance, or to mine?

Learning is a cooperative, collaborative process. To me, this does not mean warm fuzzy facile agreement with whatever is presented, but it does mean reflexive consideration of ideas, positions, and assumptions offered by others, even (and perhaps especially) those that contradict my own.

Respectful interaction and exchange seem fundamental.