C. West Churchman-75 years

If the systems movement is alive and thriving today, it is due in part to a few scholars who, at a time when general systems theory, managerial cybernetics, systems engineering, and RAND systems analysis carried the day, were stubborn enough to insist that the systems idea represents a fundamental challenge to reason--a challenge that goes beyond the functional or instrumental rationality of the tools of "systems science" and encompasses ethical reasoning with respect to the whole-systems implications of systems designs. To me C. West Churchman has been and remains the foremost of these stubborn systems approachers. He represents the rare case of a pioneer who never allowed himself to become adsorbed by the mainstream of his field. His work has always been different--not for the sake of difference but, rather, because of two outstanding qualities that distinguish his academic life: intellectual honesty and moral outrage.