BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

FEASIBILITY (Cultural) 4)

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The effective possibility (or impossibility) to implement some economic, social or political change in a specific cultural setting.

Many projects, under others so-called development projects, are elaborated by members of one culture for implementation in another culture. In numerous cases, this kind of planning is done without any serious research and understanding of the cultural (or even environmental) conditions of the recipient human groups. This includes for ex. values and norms, beliefs, traditional ways, etc…, including the deep reasons which explain and, in many cases, justify the former.

Frequently, the results are dreary.

This is a typical systemic problem whose root is the ignorance of deep differences between the mental frames of the proposers and the real stakeholders.

The main responsibility belongs however to the proposers, who are frequently themselves unaware of the limits of their own mental frames of interpretation

Such situation is a very general recipe for disaster, sometimes even in the long run for the counsellors themselves.

R. RODRIGUEZ ULLOA, who introduces this concept (1994) explains: "This implies that it is the culture of a specific society, as a whole, that must be able to accept, as significant and possible, some sequence of changes (p. 139)

It becomes indeed ever clearer that many societies reject plans of change, mainly introduced by international organizations because they are unable to understand them or to accept the disruptions that the projects provoke in their way of living or Weltanschauung

→ CATWOE;Rejection reaction;Soft Systems Methodology

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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