Thread by @_awbery_

Thread: difference between ‘outside’ and ‘meta’:

Recently I’m noticing systems shopping conflated with being meta to systems.

This is how I see the difference:

‘Systems shopping’ is my term for picking and choosing, mixing and matching, from different systems.
1/11

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche coined the term ‘spiritual materialism’ for shopping around spiritual systems, pulling out the bits that appeal, adopting different parts from different systems into one’s repertoire; a limited approach in some ways, but useful and serves a function. 2/11

My term ‘systems shopping’ means the same, applied to any type of system. Like walking through a mall, browsing different shops, buying a couple of things here and there. That’s shopping according to one’s preferences. We do this all the time. There’s nothing wrong with it.
3/11

When I walk through a mall as a consumer I’m not meta to the different outlets or to their context, I’m a piece of the picture, I have a function in it, I’m mostly ‘outside’ the shops, until I’m inside one while I browse.

Not a great analogy. I hope the point is clear. 4/11

Being meta to a system is not defined by seeing the system from the outside. This is a necessary step in order to be meta, but not enough on its own.

To be meta to a system, I have to fully understand how it works or fails.
5/11

Seeing how a system works and where it falls short means understanding the principles on which it is built, and the functions of the different parts, in context.

This is often hard work, it takes time and effort. It requires involvement, connectedness and engagement.
6/11

I can pick parts from a system & remain outside with no connection. I can systems shop, even with contempt for the systems I’m taking from, using the bits and pieces to make a tapestry of coolness. But I cannot simultaneously be meta to a system and wholly disconnected from it. 7

Being meta to a system is an act of interrelatedness. There’s usually some respect involved – because if there is no appreciation of the way a system tries to work or worked in its original context, why bother being meta to it? Better start somewhere else.
8/11

Being meta to a system involves creativity, but it doesn’t necessarily involve any of the pieces of the original system. This is an important distinction between systems shopping and meta-systematicity. Systems shopping, by definition, gathers parts and pieces.
9/11

Systems shopping is an act of collection and comparison, often collective and collaborative. The pieces acquired are definitional, sometimes deterministic.

Meta-systematicity may, or may not, retain parts of the original system. It does not rely on them.
10/11

The meta-systemic focus is application in context. Congruent application often requires starting from first principles, understanding partial contributions and functionality, re-working from scratch in a new context.

It is paradigmatically different from systems shopping. 11/11