I had written this originally off-forum. but decided to post it here because I feel it is quite relevant with this site's overall theme
All,
I would like to bring to highlight an issue I feel has been going on far too long, an issue that asks the question in the thread subject line:
How do we (as a society) set aside the process for people?
At the moment and over the past many decades exponentially, I feel that there is an unruly runaway process of process that has become unstoppable. That process is often highlighted with words like "bureaucracy", "paperwork" and so forth, but those are simply front-ends to the true issue and are often used as cop-outs: "Oh, bureaucracy is just how things are done". The true issue that as a global society we have accumulated so much in terms of laws, processes, procedures, tradition and so forth that I feel in the name of tradition, we often dispose of our fellow man.
Often times those processes/procedures/traditions ("The Process") are created and then exercised and then over time nobody knows why something is done, simply that it must be done because it's part of some tradition or part of some obscure procedure or law. While there are indeed parts of social structures that need to exist to maintain law and order, I feel that most of those structures I feel exist to just service the process, not people.
Now that the foundation of my argument has been laid, I would like to further illustrate that there's no single group at fault for this, it's a social cancer that has been spreading through society, replicating rapidly and infecting more and more aspects of how we live. We as a society effectively no longer really live for each other or ourselves even.
It doesn't matter if you're homeless or a CEO, or a celebrity, or a politician, or a working classman or an investor or a stock floor trader or a banker or a social assistance recipient — Everyone's a victim of this at the end of the day.
Look at how many non-profit agencies and programmes have had to scale back time they work with clients and replaced that time with paperwork and bureaucracy. While it may be argued that that is done for accountability and ability to track client activity or agency effectiveness, when the paperwork over-rules the clients — more to the point — the people that is where the organization has started serving the process, not the mandate.
Look at how many employers have implemented truly abrasive processes in the name of "streamlining" the process that not even hiring managers have power to hire applicants directly anymore, where everything has to be through HR processes, where the process often filters out highly qualified people simply because they did not use a specific keyword on their resumes or didn't have a specific degree.
Look at the government/CEO/investors trio, in how the process demands that investors make CEOs make their companies make as much money as possible without any regard for concequences, so the corporates lobby government to make laws that "stimulate the economy" (loosen regulation) where the investors are pushed themselves by the process to make as much money as possible due to taxation and fear the process will take it all away.
Look at how difficult it is to be proactive against harmful changes in society — many of which are by-products of process. Often times many people are so busy with work, with obligations that one cannot realistically give a time of day beyond switching on the news and cursing at the television about how politicians are failing the country, often these working class individuals are worked 50-80 hour weeks in fear that a process will see their work as unsatisfactory and have them losing their livelihood.
At the end of the day, all of this superfluous structure, process, laws, so on and so forth is a patchwork that truly is damaging society, it's creating an environment where innovation is stifled, it's creating an environment where society is spinning its collective wheels, unable to move forward because everyone is trying to satisfy an eternal engine that can never receive enough fuel (that is — attention, time and effort) to move one inch — doesn't matter who you are, everyone is subject to this.
The problem is simple in principle — complicated in the practical, but the solution is complicated. How would you suggest we proceed to escape what is essentially a catch-22 — to as said — set aside that process for the sake of our fellow people?
