I’d rather not go into detail about all the ways I may or may not have changed, in some ways I have not at all and only become more cemented in my beliefs and opinions.
But one thing I’m certainly more aware of in my old age is how all of us, young or old, we’re little microbes inside of system after system after system. We all have lived and will continue to live in these concentric circles of systems, which were created by people we do not usually know, and as the saying goes,
“It’s THEIR world and I’m just trying to live in it."
I found the name of this theory: Bronfenbrenner’s Systems Theory.
Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory
"Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory views child development as a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, from immediate family and school settings to broad cultural values, laws, and customs."
I know why and how I have come to this pondering. I learned all about Family Systems from John Bradshaw’s books and that helped me a lot. Then I learned a little bit about how different cultures interpret life and relationships, collectivist culture vs. individualistic culture, for example. That helped me understand why I just don’t fit in at certain places. I was raised highly individualistic and when I have worked for a collectivist culture, they do not comprehend me (nor do they usually try to) and I sure do not understand them, but I have tried to.
THEN I learned about the *&^%$% mass media, especially the god forsaken Internet and social media. Oh My God.
Darn, they have to start teaching all about the 'net and what it can do to kids’ brains in middle school. Teach the kids - they’ll be able to comprehend it.
Tech leaders are quite naked about it, calling the leaders online “influencers”. If your child cannot live without a Nike logo on their clothing, LOOK at your Exosystem that we allow in our homes, online, 24/7.
Then the Great Recession, which was really a Mini-Depression but Depression was too scary a word, so the press called it a Recession, taught me all about how we can indeed be victims to the Macrosystem
and there ain’t NOTHING we can do about it.
My late brother’s death at a sub-standard hospital in 2020, when I could not walk into that place and see him or meet his doctors in person, was also another work of the Exo and Macrosystems. I was just a little, tiny individual in the center of these nooses of systems, and no one cared what I thought. They didn’t care about him either. I told him to go to a different hospital. He did not listen to me.
If we look at Civil Rights and the lack of equality for Black people in many states from 1865 to about 1965 (a century), that was a solidly constructed Exosystem in some states that kept them trapped. That is one way to view it.
Oh, and the other thing so horrid about systems, if they are bad, unjust or illogical, is that the creators can die, and the systems will LIVE! The writers of the Jim Crow laws in the South all died, but the unjust, illogical, immoral system they built lived on and on.
Same with women not getting the vote until 1920. Who and what are women? Well, the Macro, Exo system and even the Microsystem said what women were capable of and so, they were trapped in that for so many hundreds of years.
The opposite: look at the success of the Black Lives Matter movement - that was at least three of these systems working in coordination to update the systems.
When you see this chart and start to perceive society this way, it helps you see how attitudes can be changed (for better or worse), using this theory. Because social media is not just a tool for good - it's a tool for evil too. (Read
“Nobody’s Victim” by Carrie Goldberg if you don’t believe the Internet is a tool for evil.)
When I was younger, oh I thought I had so much power! I saw my friends get jobs they wanted, so of course, I would too. I saw friends get into the colleges they wanted, so of course, I would too. I know of people who managed to keep their homes through the Mini-Depression so of course, I would be able to also. But damn, these systems, they have just beaten me down.
I think for sure if I had moved out of state in about 1997, my life would be better professionally and financially. There is no way to prove that of course.
The GOOD thing about being aware of the concentric circles now is that now, when I make my plans to do anything, I THINK about these systems and I ponder how or if I can harness them to help me in life. That is a big IF.
An example we all face is Medicare. It is a macrosystem & exosystem. It was created years ago and its creators have died. When you join it, you are presented with options, and so we have to learn about the options as best we can to make it work the best for our individual needs. OR, if you don’t, if you didn't get that memo (as I have not received “memos" about other systems), then you end up maybe having to pay a lot for co-pays, or you’re locked into a bad doctor’s office.
The great thing is that Medicare, unlike other systems (like colleges, for example) will let you change your mind easily in a year (but there’s rules about that too.)
ANYWAY, long explainer, but that’s one major way in which I have changed. I see myself as quite powerless now surrounded by all these systems in my area. When I was young, I thought the systems were all there to help us all, equally. Ha!
I have learned that much of the Macrosystem has been designed to help the wealthy
first. They are #1; numero uno to the Macrosystem. In fact, it’s usually the wealthy who are the creators and revisers of the Macrosystem in America.
I also think if I were to tell young people anything today, I would teach this theory and say,
“Know your systems.” Whether it’s the legal, school, college or so-called social services systems, KNOW your systems. Know where they will help you and where they might just get in your way (like the Jim Crow laws did for generations of Black folks).
Learning about Bronfenbrenner’s is also one of the
reasons why I don’t get mad at homeless people, even if they are addicts. I see that the Social Norm in some states has become to let them die in the streets.
That has become a Social Norm set up and influenced by the Macrosystem. In Dicken’s time, London had workhouses. They were not pleasant, not at all, but they were a roof. In my parents’ time, they had Poor Houses and Insane Asylums - also pure hellholes, but at least society saw a need for a roof from bad weather and that perhaps the chronically, incurably mentally ill should not be wandering on the freeways to get hit by cars.
But
now our Macrosystem doesn’t even want to give them roofs. We call ourselves so progressive, so liberated, so much better than Southerners who wrote oppressive laws, so CARING about -
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Bull-oney. The Macrosystem doesn’t want foreign homeless or local homeless. THAT is the system they have built and if we are unschooled enough to endorse that system, well, we just need some educating.
This theory, which rings mighty true to me, is why I do think the homeless are, in large part, a Macrosystem problem.
(Don’t you love my short answers?
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