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The Problem Behind the Problem
In the wake of last week’s riots in London and other cities across the UK, Britain’s politicians, the mainstream media and its pundits, and the public at large are all asking why this has happened, how this could have happened. Attempts to answer to these questions have been submitted in volumes—they range from the vitriolic to the empathic; they originate from points across the the political spectrum; and they hang from nearly every rung on the socioeconomic ladder. All the possible viewpoints you might expect in response to a such a shattering, spectacular event seem to have been expressed. (I even recently read a post discussing the complicity of designers in provoking the rioting and looting with their all-too-seductive shiny branding of consumer goods.)
Whether one believes the riots to be an unfortunate but inevitable expression of pent-up socioeconomic angst or the irresponsible, anti-social actions of a lost generation of urban youth, I speculate that it is possible for people holding such diverse points of view to agree that we would like to live in a world where such instances of violent rage are the rare exception rather than the increasing norm. The tactics that might be recommended across this range of points of view would no doubt reflect the ideology of the respective positions. For example, the administration of David Cameron proposes increased policing verging on martial law and other draconian measures in order to repress the riots, while progressive liberals seek to reinstate the social services safety net in order to prevent such behavior in the first place. But, again, underlying these two examples is a similar objective: create a civil society in which the riots of last week do not occur.
Following the riots via Twitter users who were in its midst (#londonriots) (and, then, on the mainstream media as it slowly deemed the events newsworthy) and then watching the commentary spew forth as the clean-up progressed, I kept pondering the root causes, looking for clues in the reports and reactions from those who are closer to the events. What one finds throughout the media landscape in the immediate aftermath helps to fill in some gaps, and the insight may be more or less, but in the public posturing there often is a dearth of sustained and systematic probing of the underlying factors. The fact is that the root causes for the London riots are incredibly complex because people and societies are complex, because histories and cultures are complex, because we all are complex subjects trying to make sense of things that we can never fully comprehend from any single perspective.
In our work at the Action Mill, we think a lot about root causes, and we’ve articulated this concern as one of our core values: we strive to focus on the problem behind the problem. It extends from our passion for doing work that ultimately moves people and organizations to create a world, a way of being in the world, that they wish to make real. What is implicit here is that defining the problem in an operable way is actually incredibly difficult and therefore requires a rigorous process of personal and collaborative discovery and sensemaking. To place an even finer point on this, by “problem” I really mean “problem set”—which is to say that in the realm of complex social, institutional and organizational structures, the process of defining the problem behind the problem reveals a series of nested questions, factors and perspectives.
So, return to the London riots (or the global debt crisis, or the inaccessibility of affordable health care, or...): what is the problem (set) behind the problem? If British society as a whole (if we as fellow citizens of the world) truly would like to create a world in which such riots do not occur—a world where all members of society feel fully human and where their humanity is embraced and nurtured—then we must undertake a process to collectively and dialogically define the problem behind the problem in all its glorious complexity.
Whether one believes the riots to be an unfortunate but inevitable expression of pent-up socioeconomic angst or the irresponsible, anti-social actions of a lost generation of urban youth, I speculate that it is possible for people holding such diverse points of view to agree that we would like to live in a world where such instances of violent rage are the rare exception rather than the increasing norm. The tactics that might be recommended across this range of points of view would no doubt reflect the ideology of the respective positions. For example, the administration of David Cameron proposes increased policing verging on martial law and other draconian measures in order to repress the riots, while progressive liberals seek to reinstate the social services safety net in order to prevent such behavior in the first place. But, again, underlying these two examples is a similar objective: create a civil society in which the riots of last week do not occur.
Following the riots via Twitter users who were in its midst (#londonriots) (and, then, on the mainstream media as it slowly deemed the events newsworthy) and then watching the commentary spew forth as the clean-up progressed, I kept pondering the root causes, looking for clues in the reports and reactions from those who are closer to the events. What one finds throughout the media landscape in the immediate aftermath helps to fill in some gaps, and the insight may be more or less, but in the public posturing there often is a dearth of sustained and systematic probing of the underlying factors. The fact is that the root causes for the London riots are incredibly complex because people and societies are complex, because histories and cultures are complex, because we all are complex subjects trying to make sense of things that we can never fully comprehend from any single perspective.
In our work at the Action Mill, we think a lot about root causes, and we’ve articulated this concern as one of our core values: we strive to focus on the problem behind the problem. It extends from our passion for doing work that ultimately moves people and organizations to create a world, a way of being in the world, that they wish to make real. What is implicit here is that defining the problem in an operable way is actually incredibly difficult and therefore requires a rigorous process of personal and collaborative discovery and sensemaking. To place an even finer point on this, by “problem” I really mean “problem set”—which is to say that in the realm of complex social, institutional and organizational structures, the process of defining the problem behind the problem reveals a series of nested questions, factors and perspectives.
So, return to the London riots (or the global debt crisis, or the inaccessibility of affordable health care, or...): what is the problem (set) behind the problem? If British society as a whole (if we as fellow citizens of the world) truly would like to create a world in which such riots do not occur—a world where all members of society feel fully human and where their humanity is embraced and nurtured—then we must undertake a process to collectively and dialogically define the problem behind the problem in all its glorious complexity.
