“The system does not strive for equilibrium by eliminating tensions. The system persists through their reproduction.”
This thought by Jadwiga Staniszkis, recalled by Krzysztof Katkowski during a seminar at Łukasiewicz – ITECH on “A new development model for Poland for the second quarter of the 21st century – Jadwiga Staniszkis’ perspective,” stays in the mind for a long time. Krzysztof Katkowski is a humanist, translator, essayist and poet, associated with “Kultura Liberalna”, OKO.press and “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”, among others.
Suddenly, what we usually treat as a problem begins to look different. Tensions, contradictions and even “pathologies” are not just disruptions to an organization. They can be written into its logic. The system does not so much remove them as produce and transform them.
Staniszkis looked at reality in a way that today we would call interdisciplinary. She combined different traditions of thought, from Marxism to American functionalism, building her own conceptual apparatus. Sometimes to circumvent the limitations of the system, and sometimes to maintain full intellectual independence. There is also more than analysis in this approach. There is the imagination to see complexity without the temptation to simplify it.
Karl Polanyi had a similar intuition when describing the “Great Transformation.” The market, which was supposed to order reality, itself began to generate social tensions, to which the system responded with further protective mechanisms. Movement and counter-movement.
At Lukasiewicz – ITECH we work at the intersection of technology, society and strategy. We see that tensions do not disappear with the next regulation or improvement. Often that’s when new ones emerge.
Returning to Staniszkis is therefore not just a return to an important figure. It is an attempt to build an analytical apparatus that allows us to better understand contemporary organizations and transformation processes. Maybe instead of asking how to “fix” the system, it is worth asking what tensions we are just reproducing and what they say about us.
