The Roots of Social Change
So I had an interesting conversation last night on the nature of social change. We were lamenting how so much of the injustices in the world are perpetrated and sustained by untouchable major corporations – systems that control our society so subtly that most of us aren’t even aware of their influence on our lives. It is easy to despair in light of such systems – they have the money to control the opinions of the world and the power to sue you into oblivion if you stand up against them.
It was brought up that often for real social change to occur a dramatic and generally violent event must take place. A bomb must be dropped, the nation decimated by war, a terrorist must strike, a president assassinated, a space shuttle explode… Events that shock us enough to make changes. That change may be immediate – slavery will end, a nation gains independence, people relinquish their civil liberties. Or that change may just subtly change the outlook of a generation – we lose our faith in science to dominate the world. Even the “non-violent” revolutions are long drawn out ordeals that capture the attention of the nation/world before they affect change. Gandhi’s hunger strikes or march to the sea, Rosa Parks on the bus, the “I have a Dream” speech in Washington, or even the decades of marches by women seeking the right to vote. Big events capture attention and our collective imaginations. We are then shocked or scared or passionately motivated into change.
But what is so disturbing about most systems of injustice is that they aren’t dramatic. Take the issues with the environment. There was never any big campaign where the world decided to start destroying the environment. No tragic event that left us convinced we need to trash the earth. But even so, our ancestors of just 100-150 years ago would be horrified at the wasteful and disrespectful habits of our disposable culture. So what happened? One answer is to point to the 100+ years of advertising (by the major corporations) bent on convincing us to adapt a lifestyle most people don’t believe in or need. We were told that if we wanted to be sanitary we needed to buy paper towels, if we wanted to appear educated and upper-class we women needed to use disposable sanitary pads, and if we wanted to be modern and not confined to our grandmother’s kitchen we needed to use foil and plastic wrap. And of course we agreed and bought into the lifestyle of “use it once then throw it away” with little regard to what that would do to our world. We didn’t think about where all that trash would go, the forests that would be destroyed and the dioxins produced to make the paper towels, the diseases the sanitary pads would cause, the oil used for the plastics, and the strip mining for the foil. We just choose step by step, product by product to adopt a disposable lifestyle. Today such philosophy is so ingrained in our cultural psyche that most respond “gross” to the idea that the parchment paper wrapping butter originally had to be marketed as “re-usable” because consumers thought it was wasteful and expensive to throw away perfectly good parchment paper.
The messages we have been fed over the last century or so have done more to completely alter the social habits of our world than any drastic or violent event. There is no date one can point to, or singular event to be blamed, or even a particular person who can be held accountable. We let ourselves walk down the very path – often going quite willingly – that many of now are attempting to change. So while some are asking what sort of drastic event will force us to change our wasteful ways – (the melting ice caps, the extinction of polar bears, $6 a gallon gas prices???), others are simply trying to undo slowly the monster that was slowly created. Sure my decision to alter my shopping habits, or to recycle, or reduce my carbon footprint may not make a huge dent in the problem, but I am taking steps toward change and sending subversive messages. I am letting forces and ideas bigger than major corporations desperate for profit no matter the cost shape who I am. And I believe that a culture that has been shaped to believe in the message of destruction has the potential to be shaped into conscientious stewards as well. Sure those of us who care for creation and its inhabitants don’t have the money or the power to reach masses, but that should never stop us from sending out alternative messages. We may be labeled as extreme or ridiculed, but I take heart in the fact that the first public paper cup drinking fountain was attacked by a group of soldiers convinced that it represented a threat to society. Swaying popular opinion takes time, but lies can be unravelled and better choices can be made.
Social change can take many forms. Dramatic events make the history books, but the slow subtle capturing of the cultural imagination may have the most profound long term effects. The real question is – how can we be agents of this sort of change?
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
Ironic that this post, which is about significant real world issues gets no comments, while your post about relatively trivial theological issues gets dozens. Straining at gnats, eh?
Though of course I’m sure part of that is my fault.
This is so well done, so carefully thought out. Thank you for this. I’m running right over to my html editor to redo the CCblogs.com page and feature this.
peace,
gordon
A couple of random thoughts:
How has the ethic of recycling caught on? There is much more progress that can be made on that front, but things are a lot different in that regard than when I was a kid, and in some parts of the country (like the Pacific Northwese) it’s even farther along than where I live. What caused it to happen? Whatever it was, it wasn’t a violent or dramatic event, but more of a slow shift in awareness.
A bit of a tangent, but what about people in developing nations who want a better standard of living and who think that part of what that entails is being able to opt into the “disposable society” that makes life more convenient in the short term? How do emerging church thinkers wrestle through the issues of helping people out of poverty, and then seeing them want to use their new, relative prosperity, to adopt some of what we see as the “ills” of western materialistic society?
Gordon – thanks!
Karl – you’re right – the whole recycling this was a slow movement. It took a long time for it to move into mainstream culture and it still has a long way to go (and many kinks to work out…)
The developing nations thing is a touchy issue. I’ve brought it up before at conference that focus on third world development and the general response I get is offense. People are appalled that I an American who causes so many of the world problems would ever think that a poor small country would ever do as much damage to the world as we do. I think that response misses the point. Yes it may cost more upfront to put environmentally friendly practices in place from the beginning and when there are hardly any resources available that can seem near impossible, but it is long term vision that is needed. Sure no country will ever destroy the earth like the US, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do their part to help (perhaps with the US helping them along!). These things need serious consideration. Laws that protect the environment need to be put in place around the world to protect the environment and it’s people. Recycling here or anywhere doesn’t help if the stuff goes to a plant in some country without EPA standards. Recycling plants in places like China and Peru are the most toxic polluters out there.
okay I’m rambling here. but the bottom line is a holistic message that addresses needs not wants, rethinks materialism, and is proactive about change. I’m not hearing that preach many places.
Julie, you say “no country will ever destroy the earth like the US.”
But I think the former USSR, and currently China and perhaps India, have all outstripped us in that category. Not that the US is without a significant amount of guilt.
I think the third world issue is not only touchy, but explosive. And a likely barrier to first-world countries doing more self-restriction, unless third world countries do the same. Not that it should have to be that way but pragmatically speaking I don’t think it’s likely to be otherwise.
Karl – of I don’t deny that other countries are making an impact, just that the US uses an insane amount of the worlds resources in comparison to our size…
I don’t know if I’m the only one who’s bugged by this, but one thing that blows my mind is how much of our lifestyle is subsidized by feeding the corrupt Chinese regime. They have a HORRIBLE human rights record, yet because we want cheap, disposable consumer goods in mass quantities, we’ve made ourselves subservient to a government that kills and tortures people of religion as well as political dissenters.
I do not agree that the U.S. is automatically the country to be blamed for wreaking environmental havoc, although we have done our share for sure. We DO waste a lot. But I also think we have made progress in how we handle our waste which, when compared with the practices of other countries, suggests that they ought to look to themselves instead of pointing fingers and doing nothing. We should ALL–and I include the U.S., AND every other country–clean up our own backyards before pointing the finger at anybody else.
The real question is – how can we be agents of this sort of change?
How about widening out the reason for wanting change to ‘improved quality of life’? Not everyone thinks it is evil for corporations to make a profit or to market their products. Not everyone believes it is wrong to use, or even use up natural resources. But just about everyone world wide would rather have fewer respiratory problems, have more clean water, have more money available, and work less. All those things can happen through conservation efforts. If you want lots of people from all kinds of backgrounds and belief systems to conserve, present it as a way to make their lives better. If you want a “holy” few who are willing to put their convenience on the alter in front of mother earth, present conservation as a “sacrifice” we SHOULD be willing to make.
Julie, I agree the US uses an insane amount of the worlds resources in comparison to our size No arguments there, and we need to do better. I also agree that it’s better to mostly focus on getting our own house in order before pointing the finger at others. But I don’t agree that “no country will ever destroy the environment like the US.” The environmental devastation wreaked by the USSR and its total ignoring of all such concerns, for example dumping raw nuclear waste in the ocean, and the industrial waste disposal practices in China (with far more people and land mass than the US) that have led to environmental crises of monumental proportions in that country – demonstrate that it’s a human and global problem, not a “the USA is so terrible” problem.
Good points in #’s 8 and 9 above.
Julie – this is a great post! You cover a lot of issues, but I’m just going to comment on one: the issue of sudden, dramatic events needed to evoke change.
I don’t disagree that it’s the past 100 years of incremental change that have gotten us to where we are. Nor do I disagree that a sudden, dramatic change could spur people to action. I do, however, disaree that a suddent, dramatic – even violent – change is necessary. I’ve been reading a book by Steven Kelman called “Organizational Change.” The book is a case study of something totally unrelated (procurement policy in the USA), but directly addresses the issue of whether sudden change / “shock and awe” is better able to create, sustain and consolidate organizational chnage. Kelman ends up NOT being in favour of shock and awe because of the damage it can do to relationships, to structures, etc. Instead he’s in favour of the slow and steady approach, in which a “change vanguard” (and a few leaders) slowly gains recruits until change is accomplished.
Now that’s a vision of change we can all buy into, eh? What I like so much about it, is that it means that your actions – and the actions of every other – to change shopping habits, etc. MATTER.
Ericka – I fully agree. I think so many of us are used to the dramatic events that we see them as necessary. Perhaps sometimes to end injustices they may be (more benefit than damage done), but slow steady change would seem to reduce damages the most.
I like what Martin Luther King had to say about this– “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.”
it is also interesting that you mention the “shock and awe” theory of social change. naomi klein’s relatively new book THE SHOCK DOCTORINE talks about this–but in ways that are quite scary (the use of disasters–like Katrina, the tsunami, the war in Iraq, to destroy the social fabric–and replace with corporate capitalism.)
ultimately in a world so large with such comlex problems perhaps it is Jesus who said it best with all of his talk about the Kingdom of God. We don’t have to wait, the better world is already here. we just have to build it through our community.
Julie–
Thanks for this. I think you’re right that our unexamined underpinnings often lead us in destructive directions. Now many folks will say that it’s too late, or that nothing can be done. But on Easter, I’m leaning in the direction of hope.
Blessings–
Greg
Kester Brewin’s “Signs of Emergence” speaks of change in evolutionary terms, and offers a compelling argument for incremental change. While he’s speaking mostly of change in our approach to faith and faith communities, much of what he has to say applies to social change, as well. While some change does happen in response to catastrophes or dramatic events, Brewin also points out, “…it is abundantly clear that materially, politically, psychologically, and spiritually, violent change tends to shear, to break the whole as one surface part moves and leaves the rest of the body behind unaltered.”