Belief Matters
If we want to improve our community and the lives of its people, we must align our efforts with a better understanding of social system behavior. Curandi’s work helps make this possible because, at its foundation, it seeks to align its activity to the community's needs.
When what we believe as a society matches the lived reality, it shapes how our social systems behave and how we understand and experience the world. Too often, those with an agenda can manipulate our beliefs using social media. These social platforms have a unique grasp of human society and behavior that has never existed before. Their social power far exceeds anything the nation's founders could have imagined.
Below are two examples of how widely held ideas change our lives.
Scott Galloway's book Adrift: America in 100 Charts explains how “Following World War II, a broad, inclusive, and prosperous middle class provided capitalism with the ballast it needed to deliver growth and stability.”
In WWII, the entire population responded to the needs of the nation. Ten percent of the population served in the military, and even more supported the industries at home. Those industries would create the military materiel and logistics necessary to dominate the enemy into submission.
A side effect of so many serving the nation was that most Americans were acutely aware of the importance of working together and the value of the communities connecting them. This fertile soil is the foundation of social stability and productivity.
Our shared beliefs and aspirations are more than personal; they profoundly impact the behavior of the social system around us. The post-WWII era was a time of belief and faith in America and what it stood for, however imperfect it was and still is. It was a testament to the positive influence of shared experience and understanding. Most Americans believed in social responsibility to each other and the country — in the beginning.
However, in 1970, Milton Friedman's editorial in the NY Times provided intellectual justification for a radical shift in thinking that would undermine the status quo. Our belief in each other, our shared faith in the nation, and the behavior of our social systems changed course.
Friedman argued that businesses must be free of social responsibility. Instead, everyone had a new kind of freedom—independence from each other replaced shared responsibility. Everyone had a new freedom to succeed or fail in pursuing wealth and power. In his view, personal and collective greed would unlock still more of America’s potential.
He believed a renewed focus on market competition free of constraint would create greater prosperity for corporations and shareholders. These were the engines of wealth and financial power, creating new products, opportunities, and broad prosperity. He was far from alone in this view.
As we have seen in prior blogs, there are often unintended consequences in social systems that are unexpected and even derail the original intent. A change in belief and aspiration alters the population's mindset, and the system’s behavior changes to reinforce the new belief. Friedman's justification would lead to the growth of toxic individualism, overstated grievances, and today's volatile and dangerous social instability.
American legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein explains all this in his book On Rumors. What we believe is the lens through which we interpret what we see and hear.
America became the greatest nation in history because of a shared belief in its potential. This was possible because we had faith in a shared vision.
Curandi works to regrow that success. It operates from the perspective of applied opportunity and hope driven by small individual achievements. Local implementations connect people and independent organizations with focused expertise. It uses shared infrastructure and services to deliver shared resources, responsibility, and mutual success.
Real change is possible if we believe in a shared vision. Curandi’s work aligns the vision and activities of local human and social services to achieve shared success in the living system we call community.