No "One" of Us is Strong Alone
Relationships are the root of everything we know. Everything belongs, and belonging is everything.
Today's social dysfunction grows from the loss of being well-connected to neighborhoods where people know each other deeply, share bread, and belong to something bigger than their individualistic desires. Without real connection, loneliness and anger have lead to broken homes, unemployment, addiction, crime, and suicide.
As a medical physician, I worked to restore the biological health of patients. However, social health is a wholly different paradigm outside the medical scope.
“Fixing the person” doesn't tackle the underlying problem. Instead, we need to help rebuild their networks. That means improving individual skills and capacity and, more importantly, reconnecting them into productive relationships within the larger community.
One example of growing relationships is when schools work to ensure students' sense of belonging. This work aligns with nature's most fundamental reality.
Belonging is more important than individuality because it comes first. We do not create the networks of life into which we are born.
The cost of dysfunction is high, and it spreads like a contagion. Community networks form feedback loops that amplify the cost. In some California counties, the unmanaged cost of chronic homelessness was $64,000 annually per person on the street - and this only included medical costs.
Understanding how life works is critical to solving today's problems.
We need to take advantage of current scientific knowledge. As Derek Cabrera advises, today's “most wicked problems arise from the mismatch between how real-world systems work and how we think they work¹.” Too often, things go sideways because we don't understand the true nature of what we are trying to do.
17th-century thinking doesn't work in 21st-century America.
Albert-László Barabási is an American physicist whose research and leadership have revolutionized our understanding of networks. This knowledge directly applies to the complex social networks that govern our lives.
What we learn is that social networks grow from preferential attachment.
Success requires wanting to connect and having something to offer.
Having many connections adds to the attractiveness.
Freedom requires options. Our individualistic idea that freedom is independence from other people is wrong. Without real possibilities, there is no freedom.
Our strength as individuals grows from connection. Connection supports our needs, whether they be social, financial, or informational. Our capability as individuals and as a people depends on networks of mutual support. Ultimately, our moral fiber depends on the interconnected social responsibility of our actions. It comes down to what we do and those we serve.
Curandi's purpose is to grow robust networks of support for community success.
Adaptive information infrastructure is needed to connect local human and social services. This infrastructure helps us understand our social problems and is a vehicle for implementing change.
Curandi's infrastructure is already running in Oregon's Marion and Polk counties.
We can do much more and better. But only if we do it together.
¹ Cabrera, Derek; Cabrera, Laura. Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems