Making Social Change: Actively Engaging a Desire for Social Change

Three Contrasting Visions

• Modern Times:

  • Characterized by the sense of continuous improvement.
  • Philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries challenged clerical thinking, asserting that humans can improve their condition through reason and inquiry.
  • Progress comes from understanding nature (biology, geology, climate, physics, chemistry) and gaining control over fate through knowledge accumulation.
  • This includes advancements in physical and mental health, politics, economics, psychology, and socially healthy communities.
  • Vision of progress is a guiding notion, though opinions vary on the speed of progress, with some fearing the loss of valuable traditions.
  • Challenges to progress arise after human-caused cataclysms, but the desire for a better life persists, seeking less suffering, injustice, insecurity, and more fulfilling work.

• Postmodern Vision (David Harvey’s Condition of Postmodernity):

  • Questions the link between progress and material abundance (more things, power, speed).
  • Challenges the ideas of time and progress, emphasizing social time over chronological time.
  • Postmodernism views time as “fortuitous and arbitrary.”
  • Suggests we live in a tangle of myths that obscure the powerlessness of the human condition.
  • Modernity is seen as a brief interlude between earlier times and the realities of the 21st century.
  • Questions whether abundance and modern institutions deliver on their promises and whether these promises are worth pursuing.
  • Postmodernism calls for reckoning with our myths to find reference points for an authentic life.
  • References to real things in ads are seen as references to fabrications passing for reality, highlighting a frightening aspect of modern life.

• Cataclysmic Vision (Lester R. Brown):

  • The world is in a mess, and past and present human actions dictate a future with terrible possibilities.
  • Focuses on five major threats: climate change, population growth, water shortages, rising food prices, and failed states.
  • Concerns about materialism and moral decay in affluent societies, where religion is abandoned for pleasure and individualism.
  • Worries about technologies that distance us from our humanity.
  • Ranges from dystopian views (all is lost) to guardedly optimistic (we can do better).
  • Asks if there are ways to organize economic practices for more human value with less environmental damage.
  • Tim Jackson (2009) believes prosperity is possible without growth that depends on nonrenewable resources.
  • Focuses on ways progressive people are solving problems created by “those who make messes.”
  • Some offer hope for surviving and reversing calamities by abandoning destructive ways.
  • Alan Weisman’s World without Us (2007) offers ways to create a “re-equilibriated ecosystem.”
  • Bill McKibben moves from semi-dystopian to semi-optimist, believing a livable future is possible but not easy.
  • Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future aims to shake people into action against global climate change.
  • Technological fixes are seen as an optimistic version of the cataclysmic vision; Jeffrey Sachs proposes technological solutions to alleviate poverty.
  • Regardless of the vision, the chapter assumes commitment to being an agent of social change.

The Future—Predictable and Otherwise

• Predicting the Future:

  • Yogi Berra: “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”
  • Desire to be ahead of time to gain esteem and money.
  • While not everyone has a linear view of time, people speculate on the future.
  • Decisions involve trade-offs, highlighting the desire for certainty.
  • Many people make a living predicting the future, offering advice on various aspects of life.
  • Some predictions are intuitive and subjective.
  • Many predictions are data-based, projecting a picture with a range of uncertainty.

• Examples of Predictions:

  • The World Health Organization predicts a billion tobacco-related deaths by the end of the century.
  • Nissan predicted self-driving cars by 2020.
  • Statistical predictions like the Apgar score for infants and the Dawes formula for marriage longevity can be accurate.
  • George Orwell’s 1984 portrayed a dystopian future.
  • Herman Kahn predicted tremendous technological progress in The Year 2000 (1967), including inexpensive birth control, home computers, and credit cards.
  • Dick Tracy’s creator, Chester Gould, envisioned a two-way wrist TV.

• Big Data and Prediction:

  • Over a billion media posts on the Internet every two to three days, creating a massive amount of data (2–3 exabytes-10^{18}).
  • Capabilities of massive computers and statistical analysis allow for sorting and analyzing this data.
  • Edward Snowden revealed the U.S. government's extensive gathering and analysis of Big Data.
  • Raises questions about predicting terrorist acts, economic recessions, and other events using this data.
  • Corporations like Google, Amazon, and Facebook collect vast amounts of data to predict consumer behavior.
  • Efforts to predict the future often carry a desire for a particular future.

• The Futurists:

  • Filippo Marinetti’s “The Futurist’s Manifesto” extolled industrialization, commerce, speed, and “creative destruction.”
  • Called for purging Italian literature and culture of the past.
  • Celebrated war as a path to rejuvenation and national greatness.

Using Your Human Agency

• The Problem of Knowing:

  • Ira Glass’s story about Grandma Frieda meeting Adolf Hitler highlights the difficulty of knowing what to do in crucial moments.
  • Social change is an ongoing, contested process.
  • Thinking intelligently about social change helps modulate between hopes and realities.

• Understanding Social Change:

  • Social change requires recognizing the dynamic confluence of personal efforts and the social milieu.
  • Offers an opportunity to see how one can be involved as an agent of social change.

• Sociology Majors and Social Change:

  • A 2012 survey showed sociology majors value “interesting concepts” and “individuals within social forces” as top reasons for their major.
  • “Change society” ranked high and outpolled “job preparation.”

• Getting Involved:

  • Some are already activists, while others may want to start.
  • Involvement can be through existing organizations or ad hoc actions, often aided by the Internet.
  • Involvement in social change can be hard but rewarding.
  • It can divide friends and family, challenge communities, and create fissures.
  • Deliberate actions to affect social change may have unintended consequences.

• Responsibility in a Democratic Society:

  • Citizens bear the burden of knowing what is going on, contributing to dialogue, and weighing possibilities.
  • Engagement can start in various settings (kitchen table, meetings, conventions).
  • Can be done face-to-face or through technology (phone, email, Skype).
  • Personal engagement is key to directing social change.

• The Role of Individuals:

  • Technology, social movements, war, corporations, and the state are major forces of social change.
  • These forces exist through individuals and groups working together.
  • People act within networks of roles, norms, and laws but are capable of original ideas and initiatives.
  • Modern social life offers opportunities to become involved and use human agency.

Vocations of Social Change

• Recognizing Social Change in Various Occupations:

  • Professionals in different fields see where their work is going.
  • Chemists recognize nanotechnology, writers deal with declining readership, and factory workers face obsolete skills.

• Globalization:

  • Jobs and investment capital flow globally at an accelerating rate.
  • Markets shift, expand, and contract, and centers of research emerge.
  • International migration follows new opportunities.

• Private Sector:

  • Many avenues for social change agents exist in the private sector.
  • Corporate power and new technologies are significant factors.
  • Large corporations often prioritize profits over social change considerations.

• Corporate Social Responsibility:

  • Effort to balance profits with citizenship, especially regarding the environment.
  • Involves decisions to use less energy, recycle, reduce pollution, and use sustainable materials.

• Natural Capitalism:

  • Paul Hawken and colleagues outline four principles:
    • Maximizing efficient use of resources.
    • Practicing continuous cycles that mimic biological systems.
    • Elevating the value of quality and service.
    • Investing in restoration of natural capital.
  • Corporations' power is enormous, and their future depends on new ways of working.

• Military Action:

  • The nature of war is changing in the 21st century, involving rebuilding as much as destroying.
  • Skills in community building and strengthening civil society are needed.
  • Those managing violence have opportunities to be social change agents with less destructive outcomes.

• The State as a Change Agent:

  • Public service and leadership are both admired and distrusted in democracies.
  • Public service is the main reason young people pursue political office.
  • People in government often initiate solutions to problems.
  • State efforts can be progressive or aim to prevent things from falling apart.
  • Democracies are more cumbersome than authoritarian governments.
  • Those who see the state as a driver for change accept the responsibility of involvement.

• Teaching:

  • Social activists often teach to further their agenda.
  • Teachers inspire students to pursue careers.
  • Success is measured by making a positive contribution through working with young people.

• Teach for America:

  • Dominique Lee began teaching at Brick Avon Academy, founded by Teach for America volunteers.
  • Challenges individuals to solve problems and engage in social change.
  • Federal-state partnerships (No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top) aim to address crises in American education.
  • Various approaches include Teach for America, charter schools, and vouchers.
  • Hundreds of districts innovate with their teaching models.
  • John Dewey promoted experiential learning.
  • Dominique Lee and colleagues are advancing an agenda for social change.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Gap Year Experiences

• Federal Programs:

  • Teach for America, AmeriCorps, VISTA, and the Peace Corps challenge individuals to solve problems.
  • Paul Blackhurst’s Alternatives to the Peace Corps lists similar organizations.

• Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs):

  • The proliferation of NGOs has shifted international relations.
  • NGOs raise money, employ staff, and address issues of every shape and size.
  • Numerous NGOs work in various sectors to solve problems and initiate change.

• Student Involvement with NGOs:

  • Students engage in internships, gaining experience and testing enthusiasm.
  • Rothenberg’s sampling of NGOs includes:
    • Basel Action Network: prevents toxic chemical crises.
    • Public Services International: promotes gender equality and workers’ rights.
    • Refugee Women in Development: improves lives of refugees.
  • NGOs may offer limited commitments to interns, with little or no pay.

• Internship Advice:

  • Work with an advisor to assess internship opportunities.
  • Internships should have significant training components.
  • Cities, states, and foundations offer various possibilities.

• Gap Year Experiences:

  • Taking time off can be beneficial and life-changing.
  • Helps in deciding career goals and using resources effectively.

Agency and Ethical Responsibility

• Ethical Dilemmas in Social Change:

  • Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for work in cellular biology, leading to cloning and stem cell discoveries.
  • Raises ethical questions about new life and the end of aging.
  • Hiding responsibility in large organizations is common (“just doing my job”).

• Tenets of Ethical Behavior:

  • Take responsibility for what you do.
  • Social change activities can deliberately change lives without affecting the person’s own life.

• International Development Projects:

  • Poor peasants possess local knowledge and make complex calculations.
  • Affluent nations aim to solve problems in poor countries through international development.
  • The ethical problem: change agents bear none of the costs of failure.
  • Participatory action research or community participation research addresses this by adopting a bottom-up approach.
  • Social change is guided by understanding the situation from the perspective of those with problems.
  • Adjustments are made collaboratively by experts and those intended to benefit.

• Application to Other Activities:

  • The illustration is applicable whenever a powerful entity works on behalf of social change for others.
  • Those helping should proceed ethically.

• Urban Renewal Example:

  • Replacing poverty-ridden neighborhoods with mixed-income housing.
  • Involve the people living there in the process.
  • Give them the power to direct changes.

• Responsible Social Change:

  • Involves participation from the outset of those affected.
  • Takes their concerns seriously.
  • Enlists them in practices that will change their lives.
  • Offers options, including doing nothing.

Activism as a Part of Life

• Life as a Balance:

  • Iris Summers made small donations to causes she cared about.
  • Some live life day to day, while others are absorbed in their work.
  • Many balance meaningful work with fulfilling lives away from work.

• Episodic Participation:

  • Social movement participation can be episodic and unexpected.
  • Can grow out of affiliations with employers or groups.
  • Levels of participation vary greatly.

• Ways to Participate:

  • Signing a petition, donating money, opening houses for events.
  • Tolerance and thoughtfulness are important.
  • Informed involvement leads to greater credibility.

Social Change Happens

• Young People and Alternative Lifestyles:

  • Iris Summers’ granddaughter, Amelia, lives an alternative lifestyle.
  • Finds joy and community in activities like bicycle festivals.
  • Not everyone who makes social change does it through politics.
  • Artists, athletes, and others can be agents of social change.

• Urban Pickers Example:

  • Young people decided to harvest unused fruit for food pantries.
  • Formed an organization, the Willing Gleaners.
  • Expanded their efforts by applying for grants and teaming up for events.

• Conclusion:

  • The world could go on without us, but it won’t.
  • You are here and have consequences.
  • There are many ways social change comes about.
  • Life offers new avenues of change.

Topics for Discussion and Activities for Further Study

• Topics for Discussion

  1. Predict the future: Even if we can’t predict the future, why think about it?
  2. Schools and social change: Can schools be more effective agents of social change? Should they be?
  3. Experiences: Have they been agents of social change?
  4. Address Change: invites a top-down approach that was criticized in this chapter? How could this be avoided or mitigated?
  5. Digital technology: Do you think digital technology, and especially the Internet, is fundamentally changing the way we live, work, relate to one another, and see ourselves and the world?

• Activities for Further Study

  1. Social Change Interview: Interview someone who has devoted his or her career to making social change.
  2. Changing the economy: Do some research on the changing economy, changing population dynamics, and changes in what people want out of life.
  3. Research: Gather some experiences. To get started, divide the class into two research groups.
  4. Go online: Go online and find an NGO, foundation, public agency, or private firm that is offering an internship.