What you describe in your alternatives is what I define as systems thinking. Your initial definition of system thinking may have relevance for complicated systems but definitely not for complex systems and wicked problems.
We live within an infinite set of infinite relationships. Definitely beyond control, linear logic and maybe at times beyond the logic embedded in language. The “mystery” holds many things. In many ways I think biology is both the method and metaphor for guiding the quality of our “participation” within in systems.
I appreciate your thoughts about humility. That really is ground zero for the quality of our participation.
I think the issue is really what you define as Systems Thinking, is not necessarily what many practitioners would. This is a large subject, and there are different approaches, including some earlier versions which reflect many of the points you make. I agree with your diagnosis of issues and general recommended approach. The difficulty I have, is that my understanding of Systems Thinking, which I have been studying and applying since my MSc in 2002, is not the Systems Thinking you describe, but is much more reflective of your recommend approach.
I think we are in agreement Richard. But collusion between managers and some systems practitioners leads to a widespread corruption of it. If systems thinking is about exploring how we stay in the mystery rather than understand it…
Well, obviously I do think you are 'being a bit hard on systems thinking', because any decent systems practitioner would agree that 'The idea that we can understand, control, and optimise complex systems is an illusion born of hubris.'
And yet, we don't have better tools to try to navigate the world in which we find ourselves, and achieve purposes that seem important to us, than from the systems | complexity | cybernetics field - intensely practical stuff - like the viable systems model, which helps you to balance control and decentralisation, adaptation and stability, like soft systems methodology, which brings in and illustrates multiple worldviews, like the dynamics found in 'the grammar of systems' which absolutely acknowledge structural, dynamic, and epistemic complexity. The field does take in your four points, which of course - like any exhortation in the space - are excellent as recommendations, dangerous as prescriptions.
"We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them."
Donella Meadows.
To think in systems is to respect the interdependence and uncertainty of phenomena. I don't believe a system thinker would purport to be able to control them.
Or intervene in a way that makes them function ‘better’? Or would that be still too strong a position. In my experience the best we can do is spot a pattern and try to disrupt it, while paying attention to the conditions that may allow a new pattern, perhaps better, for now, to emerge…
I think I like the idea of finding a balance between the two. We engage in systems thinking while paying attention to what happens next, using our intuitive and empathetic abilities alongside our need to intervene and organize things. Like to use the case study you included, alongside climate solutions is an iterative approach based on human stories - is it working for local communities and do they have enough voice in an evolving situation etc. I used to talk a lot about systems thinking particularly in the realm of education for peacebuilding to build awareness of diverse histories and narratives leading to the ‘where we are today’, but now I’m also much more aware that things are never black and white and with uncertainty there always needs to be ongoing attention in case new patterns of human behavior and conflict emerge
If there has to he an intervention then mightn't it be best to consider the system you are intervening, and the cascade of effects that might be set off if you intervene? If you don't think in systems then might you remain blissfully ignorant of the potential side effects of any action? I mean, the alternative is to take action (which everyone does every second) without considering the flow on effects.
The question you pose always challenged me when I studied ecology (I studied environmental engineering). A bleeding heart environmentalist, I was thrown by the seeming futility of intervening in an ecosystem what with the unknowability of side effects any intervention could make and humans' hubris (as you put it) at intervening in the first place. But of course we must intervene because humans are part of the system of life too.
‘Consider the system you are intervening’ in. Consider does a lot of heavy lifting here! Consider how limited and partial our understanding of the system and our role as part of it is?
‘Potential side effects’ too. Essentially we don’t understand and often don’t notice the ‘unintended consequences’ of our actions. We literally don’t know what we are doing!
You have a very limited perspective on systems thinking. Your solutions far dealing with complexity are right, but a boarder view of systems thinking would show you that those solutions are aided by it.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.
You are completely right. It has taken me 40 years in the field to really understand just how limited my perspective is. To really appreciate the value of epistemic humility and the grave perils of epistemic over-reach.
I’m not sure complexity can be ‘dealt with’. But it must be lived with. And I don’t think solutions exist! Just responses…
I agree with your least sentence. It explains perfectly what the value of systems thinking is. Systems thinking helps us make progress iteratively. Not if you are talking only about systems thinking from a mecahnistic perspective, obviously. But many of the appraoches to systems thinking are very helpful, and each can help see a challenge form a different perspective. I like to think of them as lenses that each add another layer of clarity in trying to find better ways. For these reasons I favoir the Critical Systems Thinking and Practice approaches that Michael C Jackson writes about in his book Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity (though I don't like the "Management of Complexity" part in the title. Complexisty cannot be managed in my view.
I like that thinking very much. I don't see that it undermines the argument for systems thinking however. Poems are systems, language is a system. Almonst anything we can conceive of is related to a system. And we perceive them through a systems, the brain.
How can we be sure that we dont have better tools Benjamin? It seems to me that any tools derived from an essentially consequentialist/causal ethic are likely to be fundamentally characterised by a kind of epistemic over reach. Perhaps if we derived tools from an ethic of care, one that acknowledged that the best we can do is to deepen understanding without ever understanding we might find urselves doing a little less damage to the ecosystem that sustains us all?
I think you are right it is too strong a claim. It might be more accurate to say that consequentialism is a dominant interpretation within a broader spectrum of ethical possibilities. I shall think some more…
I don’t believe this is a correct observation of systems thinking: “The idea that we can understand, control, and optimise complex systems is an illusion born of hubris.” Systems thinking does not in fact set out to ‘control or optimise’ a system though it does seek to make sense of dynamics with the aim of understanding the volatility and complexity more. The principles you propose - of care for example - are not at odds of systems thinking. I dare say that systems thinking is about stewardship and not control and a means to try and find a sensible and sensitive path through complexity while being mindful of emergence and uncertainty.
The idea of controlling and optimising a system is a conventional approach to leadership and not representative of later stages leadership maturity who consider complexity, interconnectedness, leverage in systems, thresholds, and possible tipping points and emergence. I think perhaps it’s not systems thinking you have a bone to pick with but those leaders who are tempted to reduce complexity to a problem to be solved, a beast to tame, a process to optimise. These leaders will find their efforts falling flat or worse accelerating calamity as you have described.
I think you might be right! Although in trying to ‘make sense’ I think we are overstepping too! I think it is the way the practice has too often allowed itself to be put in service of these ‘solutioneers’ that has led to many of the problems it faces today. I’m interested in the ‘later stages of leadership maturity’ idea. Can you say more? Or point me in a helpful direction?
Many thanks! I’m familiar with spiral dynamics… I have a concern that approaching this through analysis might be the wrong path. The concepts may get in the way… so I will read with caution…
This highlights a parallel issue that’s been on my mind. Computerizing everything introduces additional rigidity into any system, making it harder for people of good will to work together to effectively respond to the situations they find themselves in. For example, during Covid we had margaritas delivered with our dinner order. The driver had to ask for ID to demonstrate that the recipient was over 21. My 75 year old husband is quite visibly over 21; he has a state ID because he can’t drive anymore. Illinois state IDs have a 99/99/9999 expiration date; they do not expire. The delivery driver could not give the order to my husband because his software rejected the “invalid expiration date”. A small matter, but any human cashier in any retail store is empowered to take a look at an ID and respond appropriately to an anomalous situation.
I would contend that the computerisation of absolutely everything is designed to do exactly that. It deliberately drives rigidity (read control), addiction, dependence and lack of choice and makes collaboration, care, human decency, sensibleness, freedom to decide whats right in a given context almost impossible. It is an insane, cold and deeply limiting world we are hurtling towards.
"The idea that we can understand, control, and optimise complex systems is an illusion born of hubris" With all do respect that is an absurd conclusion based a reductionist take on what system thinking actually entails. We can understand system without being able to fully predict their behaviour because of non-linear dependencies but that is not mutually exclusive. This article doesn't provide an objective summary of the topic and misunderstands it in critical aspects.
I feel that what this is pointing to is less a critique of systems thinking and more about the danger of turning systems thinking into a managerial project. I share your sense that something essential gets lost when systems thinking is reduced to models, metrics, and control.
At the same time, I want to offer that what you’re describing as the alternative (humility, interdependence, participation) is, for many of us, the very essence of true systems thinking. Which for me, is always rooted in living systems.
One thread that often gets overlooked is the connection between systems thinking and cybernetics—not the mechanistic version often associated with computers, but the original, more organic vision. Norbert Wiener, who helped establish the field, was deeply influenced by what was understood at time about physiology especially Walter Cannon’s Wisdom of the Body which focused on self-regulation via the autonomic nervous system. Early cybernetics looked at communication, feedback, and balance in living systems, and then applied those principles to the development of computer systems. That lineage helped shape early ecosystem science, deeply influenced Gregory Bateson and everyone within the Lindisfarne Association, which ultimately helped to inform the Gaia hypothesis.
But of course there’s also a branch of the field that followed the machine metaphor and left life behind. And when systems thinking becomes a tool for managing rather than relating, we end up with something partial which, embedded within and seeking to optimize harmful institutions, of course will have many of the issues you're bringing forward here.
Perhaps what you’re pointing to here is not that systems thinking itself has failed, but that we’re still in a deep deficit of lived, embodied models of what true systems-based leadership can look like. That's very real and true from my perspective.
I believe we can develop that further, and it's what a lot of my own work is focused on. But we also have models we can already learn from: the Regenesis Group’s Regenerative Practitioner work and Nora Bateson’s Warm Data Labs come to mind, the practice of Open Space Technology, and most importantly, generations of Indigenous leadership that model relationality, reciprocity, and stewardship in ways we would do well to learn from—if we can do so with humility and reciprocity.
I am new here and just come across your post. I am a coach and train coaches in so-called systems coaching, I know by experience that systems thinking and practice in coaching and leadership where practioners act out mechanical age thinking masks in systems language is where everything fails.
Appreciate the provocation, but I think this falls into a common trap: conflating systems thinking with system dynamics. System dynamics is just one method, mainly focused on dynamic complexity through modelling. Systems thinking is far broader. It’s about making sense of interconnectedness, feedback, and perspective, especially in social systems where ambiguity and multiple worldviews dominate. To dismiss the whole field because one method has limits is like rejecting engineering because you dislike CAD software.
I’m not sure I dismiss the whole field. It offers insight and clues. It can help us in the process. But it is too often packaged as a solution. Like CAD software…
Just to throw in a different perspective... I would argue that the case studies you mention as evidence of failure, delivered exactly what their architects intended them to. They just lied about their intent.
When all we are dealing with are 'purported' unintended consequences and 'apparent' failures which all somehow deliver the same outcomes... The rich and powerful getting more rich and powerful while the earth and rest of humanity pay the price... It's time to consider whether perhaps these outcomes ARE the exact intent of those in power, rather than unfortunate miss steps, incompetence and poor models.
The real question is whether there are enough of us awake to this manipulation to consciously disrupt it and create an alternative path that disintermediates them from their power base, namely money. It is entirely possible we are the unwitting subjects of a global, complex and audacious integrated programme plan with malevolent intent, which I believe was designed and is being managed by an AI.
Consider the amount of data it has access to, the amount of knowledge about human psychology and biology it has access to, the amount of control it has over media and all electronic information, which is the only way we know anything about anything anymore.
And yet... it won't ever be able to fully predict and manipulate the ingenuity of the human spirit, of that I am sure 😊🙏🌟
I appreciate your points but you’re not describing systems thinking as many know and practice. The presumption to be able to completely know and model a complete system I would attribute more to hubris, arrogance, and a surface level understanding of systems thinking rather than an inherent issue in the field. You are absolutely right to call these practices out but I have to disagree with some of your labelling.
What you describe in your alternatives is what I define as systems thinking. Your initial definition of system thinking may have relevance for complicated systems but definitely not for complex systems and wicked problems.
We live within an infinite set of infinite relationships. Definitely beyond control, linear logic and maybe at times beyond the logic embedded in language. The “mystery” holds many things. In many ways I think biology is both the method and metaphor for guiding the quality of our “participation” within in systems.
I appreciate your thoughts about humility. That really is ground zero for the quality of our participation.
Thank you.
Many thanks for reading and commenting… participation with coherence and attunement is perhaps all that is required?
I think the issue is really what you define as Systems Thinking, is not necessarily what many practitioners would. This is a large subject, and there are different approaches, including some earlier versions which reflect many of the points you make. I agree with your diagnosis of issues and general recommended approach. The difficulty I have, is that my understanding of Systems Thinking, which I have been studying and applying since my MSc in 2002, is not the Systems Thinking you describe, but is much more reflective of your recommend approach.
I think we are in agreement Richard. But collusion between managers and some systems practitioners leads to a widespread corruption of it. If systems thinking is about exploring how we stay in the mystery rather than understand it…
Nora Bateson is exploring this within the context of what she defines as “warm data”, and in her recent book,”Combining”.
I dont see that youre being hard on systems thinking, you are being hard on systems dynamics And rightly so.
Systems thinking is a far wider group of thinking that encompasses complexity, iterative design and uncertainty.
Well, obviously I do think you are 'being a bit hard on systems thinking', because any decent systems practitioner would agree that 'The idea that we can understand, control, and optimise complex systems is an illusion born of hubris.'
And yet, we don't have better tools to try to navigate the world in which we find ourselves, and achieve purposes that seem important to us, than from the systems | complexity | cybernetics field - intensely practical stuff - like the viable systems model, which helps you to balance control and decentralisation, adaptation and stability, like soft systems methodology, which brings in and illustrates multiple worldviews, like the dynamics found in 'the grammar of systems' which absolutely acknowledge structural, dynamic, and epistemic complexity. The field does take in your four points, which of course - like any exhortation in the space - are excellent as recommendations, dangerous as prescriptions.
"We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them."
Donella Meadows.
To think in systems is to respect the interdependence and uncertainty of phenomena. I don't believe a system thinker would purport to be able to control them.
Or intervene in a way that makes them function ‘better’? Or would that be still too strong a position. In my experience the best we can do is spot a pattern and try to disrupt it, while paying attention to the conditions that may allow a new pattern, perhaps better, for now, to emerge…
I think I like the idea of finding a balance between the two. We engage in systems thinking while paying attention to what happens next, using our intuitive and empathetic abilities alongside our need to intervene and organize things. Like to use the case study you included, alongside climate solutions is an iterative approach based on human stories - is it working for local communities and do they have enough voice in an evolving situation etc. I used to talk a lot about systems thinking particularly in the realm of education for peacebuilding to build awareness of diverse histories and narratives leading to the ‘where we are today’, but now I’m also much more aware that things are never black and white and with uncertainty there always needs to be ongoing attention in case new patterns of human behavior and conflict emerge
If there has to he an intervention then mightn't it be best to consider the system you are intervening, and the cascade of effects that might be set off if you intervene? If you don't think in systems then might you remain blissfully ignorant of the potential side effects of any action? I mean, the alternative is to take action (which everyone does every second) without considering the flow on effects.
The question you pose always challenged me when I studied ecology (I studied environmental engineering). A bleeding heart environmentalist, I was thrown by the seeming futility of intervening in an ecosystem what with the unknowability of side effects any intervention could make and humans' hubris (as you put it) at intervening in the first place. But of course we must intervene because humans are part of the system of life too.
‘Consider the system you are intervening’ in. Consider does a lot of heavy lifting here! Consider how limited and partial our understanding of the system and our role as part of it is?
‘Potential side effects’ too. Essentially we don’t understand and often don’t notice the ‘unintended consequences’ of our actions. We literally don’t know what we are doing!
This why the ethics of care, and knowing differently are so important… we can’t help but intervene. We are the system. It is us…https://open.substack.com/pub/freshthinking/p/exploring-ethics-understanding-the?r=l2zy3&utm_medium=ios
In many ways, permaculture is close to what you are advocating.
I think so...
You have a very limited perspective on systems thinking. Your solutions far dealing with complexity are right, but a boarder view of systems thinking would show you that those solutions are aided by it.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.
You are completely right. It has taken me 40 years in the field to really understand just how limited my perspective is. To really appreciate the value of epistemic humility and the grave perils of epistemic over-reach.
I’m not sure complexity can be ‘dealt with’. But it must be lived with. And I don’t think solutions exist! Just responses…
I agree with your least sentence. It explains perfectly what the value of systems thinking is. Systems thinking helps us make progress iteratively. Not if you are talking only about systems thinking from a mecahnistic perspective, obviously. But many of the appraoches to systems thinking are very helpful, and each can help see a challenge form a different perspective. I like to think of them as lenses that each add another layer of clarity in trying to find better ways. For these reasons I favoir the Critical Systems Thinking and Practice approaches that Michael C Jackson writes about in his book Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity (though I don't like the "Management of Complexity" part in the title. Complexisty cannot be managed in my view.
https://open.substack.com/pub/freshthinking/p/leading-beyond-metrics-and-mandates?r=l2zy3&utm_medium=ios
I like that thinking very much. I don't see that it undermines the argument for systems thinking however. Poems are systems, language is a system. Almonst anything we can conceive of is related to a system. And we perceive them through a systems, the brain.
How can we be sure that we dont have better tools Benjamin? It seems to me that any tools derived from an essentially consequentialist/causal ethic are likely to be fundamentally characterised by a kind of epistemic over reach. Perhaps if we derived tools from an ethic of care, one that acknowledged that the best we can do is to deepen understanding without ever understanding we might find urselves doing a little less damage to the ecosystem that sustains us all?
I think you are right it is too strong a claim. It might be more accurate to say that consequentialism is a dominant interpretation within a broader spectrum of ethical possibilities. I shall think some more…
I’m wondering if systems thinking can be rooted in different ethical frameworks and how its practice might change…
I don't think the charge that 'systems thinking' in its vast sweep is 'derived from an ethic of consequentialism' sticks.
I don’t believe this is a correct observation of systems thinking: “The idea that we can understand, control, and optimise complex systems is an illusion born of hubris.” Systems thinking does not in fact set out to ‘control or optimise’ a system though it does seek to make sense of dynamics with the aim of understanding the volatility and complexity more. The principles you propose - of care for example - are not at odds of systems thinking. I dare say that systems thinking is about stewardship and not control and a means to try and find a sensible and sensitive path through complexity while being mindful of emergence and uncertainty.
The idea of controlling and optimising a system is a conventional approach to leadership and not representative of later stages leadership maturity who consider complexity, interconnectedness, leverage in systems, thresholds, and possible tipping points and emergence. I think perhaps it’s not systems thinking you have a bone to pick with but those leaders who are tempted to reduce complexity to a problem to be solved, a beast to tame, a process to optimise. These leaders will find their efforts falling flat or worse accelerating calamity as you have described.
I think you might be right! Although in trying to ‘make sense’ I think we are overstepping too! I think it is the way the practice has too often allowed itself to be put in service of these ‘solutioneers’ that has led to many of the problems it faces today. I’m interested in the ‘later stages of leadership maturity’ idea. Can you say more? Or point me in a helpful direction?
Integral leadership theory is a developmental approach to adult learning and growth. It has several strands. There is Susanne Cook-Greuter's work on ego leadership maturity: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356357233_Ego_Development_A_Full-Spectrum_Theory_Of_Vertical_Growth_And_Meaning_Making
There is Beck and Cowan's work on Spiral Dynamics that looks at vertical growth in societies:https://www.amazon.com.au/Spiral-Dynamics-Mastering-Values-Leadership/dp/1405133562
There is Complete Coherence that iterates on the values piece: https://complete-coherence.com/assessments/values-profile/your-values-profile/
Many thanks! I’m familiar with spiral dynamics… I have a concern that approaching this through analysis might be the wrong path. The concepts may get in the way… so I will read with caution…
This highlights a parallel issue that’s been on my mind. Computerizing everything introduces additional rigidity into any system, making it harder for people of good will to work together to effectively respond to the situations they find themselves in. For example, during Covid we had margaritas delivered with our dinner order. The driver had to ask for ID to demonstrate that the recipient was over 21. My 75 year old husband is quite visibly over 21; he has a state ID because he can’t drive anymore. Illinois state IDs have a 99/99/9999 expiration date; they do not expire. The delivery driver could not give the order to my husband because his software rejected the “invalid expiration date”. A small matter, but any human cashier in any retail store is empowered to take a look at an ID and respond appropriately to an anomalous situation.
I would contend that the computerisation of absolutely everything is designed to do exactly that. It deliberately drives rigidity (read control), addiction, dependence and lack of choice and makes collaboration, care, human decency, sensibleness, freedom to decide whats right in a given context almost impossible. It is an insane, cold and deeply limiting world we are hurtling towards.
"The idea that we can understand, control, and optimise complex systems is an illusion born of hubris" With all do respect that is an absurd conclusion based a reductionist take on what system thinking actually entails. We can understand system without being able to fully predict their behaviour because of non-linear dependencies but that is not mutually exclusive. This article doesn't provide an objective summary of the topic and misunderstands it in critical aspects.
I feel that what this is pointing to is less a critique of systems thinking and more about the danger of turning systems thinking into a managerial project. I share your sense that something essential gets lost when systems thinking is reduced to models, metrics, and control.
At the same time, I want to offer that what you’re describing as the alternative (humility, interdependence, participation) is, for many of us, the very essence of true systems thinking. Which for me, is always rooted in living systems.
One thread that often gets overlooked is the connection between systems thinking and cybernetics—not the mechanistic version often associated with computers, but the original, more organic vision. Norbert Wiener, who helped establish the field, was deeply influenced by what was understood at time about physiology especially Walter Cannon’s Wisdom of the Body which focused on self-regulation via the autonomic nervous system. Early cybernetics looked at communication, feedback, and balance in living systems, and then applied those principles to the development of computer systems. That lineage helped shape early ecosystem science, deeply influenced Gregory Bateson and everyone within the Lindisfarne Association, which ultimately helped to inform the Gaia hypothesis.
But of course there’s also a branch of the field that followed the machine metaphor and left life behind. And when systems thinking becomes a tool for managing rather than relating, we end up with something partial which, embedded within and seeking to optimize harmful institutions, of course will have many of the issues you're bringing forward here.
Perhaps what you’re pointing to here is not that systems thinking itself has failed, but that we’re still in a deep deficit of lived, embodied models of what true systems-based leadership can look like. That's very real and true from my perspective.
I believe we can develop that further, and it's what a lot of my own work is focused on. But we also have models we can already learn from: the Regenesis Group’s Regenerative Practitioner work and Nora Bateson’s Warm Data Labs come to mind, the practice of Open Space Technology, and most importantly, generations of Indigenous leadership that model relationality, reciprocity, and stewardship in ways we would do well to learn from—if we can do so with humility and reciprocity.
Thank you again for sparking this reflection.
I am new here and just come across your post. I am a coach and train coaches in so-called systems coaching, I know by experience that systems thinking and practice in coaching and leadership where practioners act out mechanical age thinking masks in systems language is where everything fails.
All of these systems failures seem to stem from complete ignorance of entropy as a guiding principle in this universe.
Life seems to be an ultimately losing battle against it!
Appreciate the provocation, but I think this falls into a common trap: conflating systems thinking with system dynamics. System dynamics is just one method, mainly focused on dynamic complexity through modelling. Systems thinking is far broader. It’s about making sense of interconnectedness, feedback, and perspective, especially in social systems where ambiguity and multiple worldviews dominate. To dismiss the whole field because one method has limits is like rejecting engineering because you dislike CAD software.
I’m not sure I dismiss the whole field. It offers insight and clues. It can help us in the process. But it is too often packaged as a solution. Like CAD software…
Just to throw in a different perspective... I would argue that the case studies you mention as evidence of failure, delivered exactly what their architects intended them to. They just lied about their intent.
When all we are dealing with are 'purported' unintended consequences and 'apparent' failures which all somehow deliver the same outcomes... The rich and powerful getting more rich and powerful while the earth and rest of humanity pay the price... It's time to consider whether perhaps these outcomes ARE the exact intent of those in power, rather than unfortunate miss steps, incompetence and poor models.
The real question is whether there are enough of us awake to this manipulation to consciously disrupt it and create an alternative path that disintermediates them from their power base, namely money. It is entirely possible we are the unwitting subjects of a global, complex and audacious integrated programme plan with malevolent intent, which I believe was designed and is being managed by an AI.
Consider the amount of data it has access to, the amount of knowledge about human psychology and biology it has access to, the amount of control it has over media and all electronic information, which is the only way we know anything about anything anymore.
And yet... it won't ever be able to fully predict and manipulate the ingenuity of the human spirit, of that I am sure 😊🙏🌟
I appreciate your points but you’re not describing systems thinking as many know and practice. The presumption to be able to completely know and model a complete system I would attribute more to hubris, arrogance, and a surface level understanding of systems thinking rather than an inherent issue in the field. You are absolutely right to call these practices out but I have to disagree with some of your labelling.
Labels and categorical thinking are always faulty. Specifically which labels do you disagree with? How might I improve things?
So flicking through the comments above is a lesson in why you should read the comments before posting your own. Others have made my point.