Ok. (I really want to think about this a while -- and I will -- meanwhile....) If "WE" is Society, then how does a segment of society change society as a whole? Is the Tea Party an example of that? Can it only be a political answer? What does the majority do when the tyranny of the minority is under way? And, also, is this unique to American society? Perhaps because we're a melting pot? Or because we have a mythical view of ourselves?
I take your excellent points about education. And about society, for that matter. So how is societal change effected? (I would argue that the social contract has completely broken down in the past 6-10 years; how is it glued together?) Because it certainly looks like a minority has broken the whole.
I saw earlier someone on tv saying it is the fault or result of the past decade of social media, the FBs of the world. If that is true or if it is more complex as you say or both, it seems humans are more like lemmings than individuals.
Society changes in a variety of ways. The most recent example is the effects of the introduction of web-based social media on society--the ultimate effects of which are not clear at this point... but they do not look good.
Given the complexity of society and its nature, pretty much ALL societal change is in essence, an unintended consequence (not the right phrase but I can't come up with the right phrase at the moment).
What do I mean by that?
X has a plan to change society (X can be an individual or a corporate entity--when I say corporate entity I mean a group, not necessarily a business entity). That plan has a particular end in mind. They utilize a variety of methodologies, rhetorical and material (ad campaigns, political lobbying, altering/creating institutions and policies, and so on). Their methodology is based upon the latest research and methodologies.
It is HIGHLY unlikely that they will achieve their end. They WILL change society--the problem is that society is, in a sense, alive. It will resist change or twist/alter it. The number of variables is simply too high as are the range of potential responses and (thrown in on top) the accidents of history.. a plague, a war. an economic collapse.
Remember also that there are a lot of actors with THEIR own plans--so you are actually engaged in something more akin to war--because there WILL be opposition.
And then someone invents a widget that puts 10% of the population out of work--which has its own knock on change effects.
Do you begin to see how complex all of this actually is?
People try and change society all of the time--and they always succeed (if change = success).. what that change is, however, is unlikely to be what they were planning on.
There will always be some form of a tyranny of a minority--often less blatant than what we have, but sometimes moreso. The vast sweep of recorded history is far more often an example of the tyranny of minorities than of majorities.
Usually the majority sucks it up and accepts it unless or until it becomes too objectionable or burdensome--then the revolution comes and guess what you get--a new tyranny of the minority (just a different minority).
It is VERY far from unique--it is almost a norm.
It is not that humans are lemmings it is more that they lack the drive or attention or energy (or all three) to exercise larger scale, substantive agency except in rare cases. It is easier to go along to get along, so long as things do not get too bad. There ARE limits, but those limits are far broader than most people think or even suspect.
I think there are unintended consequences to almost every action. Unanticipated results. "Pluck a flower, kill a star." Social media may yet destroy Western society. J. Haidt has an interesting piece in The Atlantic. Yet Russia's hackers seem to have been very successful in achieving their ends of disrupting Western society in general and our 2016 election in particular, and to sew deep division overall, via social media. They seem to be achieving their goal. But perhaps we cannot see the end since we are still in the middle. Maybe the better example of unintended consequences is Putin's war against the West and in Ukraine, at least for the moment. He must be very surprised if he is aware of what he has caused.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify. I sometimes am foiled by assumptions I have held without noticing and it is always good to be nudged out of them.
Russia did not change our society--IOW, that was not their goal. They took advantage of what our society IS.
Creating chaos, distrust, and division is easy... and democracies are weak in that they can only tolerate so much division and distrust before they collapse. If you want to destroy a society, the reality is that you do not have to do much--it will tend to fall apart by itself over time as the various groups separate themselves from each other (a natural tendency) and each pursues what it perceives to be their own interests.
It takes a LOT of work to maintain a society and you can't ever stop working on maintaining it.
None of this happens fast (we have been working our way to where we are basically since the 60s, in terms of proximate causes).
What I present here is a particular narrative, based upon MY reading, observation, and thought over the last 30 years or so. There are biases in it and blind spots--I don't pretend to fully understand any of this. I don't think anyone fully understands all of this.
Ok. (I really want to think about this a while -- and I will -- meanwhile....) If "WE" is Society, then how does a segment of society change society as a whole? Is the Tea Party an example of that? Can it only be a political answer? What does the majority do when the tyranny of the minority is under way? And, also, is this unique to American society? Perhaps because we're a melting pot? Or because we have a mythical view of ourselves?
I take your excellent points about education. And about society, for that matter. So how is societal change effected? (I would argue that the social contract has completely broken down in the past 6-10 years; how is it glued together?) Because it certainly looks like a minority has broken the whole.
I saw earlier someone on tv saying it is the fault or result of the past decade of social media, the FBs of the world. If that is true or if it is more complex as you say or both, it seems humans are more like lemmings than individuals.
Society changes in a variety of ways. The most recent example is the effects of the introduction of web-based social media on society--the ultimate effects of which are not clear at this point... but they do not look good.
Given the complexity of society and its nature, pretty much ALL societal change is in essence, an unintended consequence (not the right phrase but I can't come up with the right phrase at the moment).
What do I mean by that?
X has a plan to change society (X can be an individual or a corporate entity--when I say corporate entity I mean a group, not necessarily a business entity). That plan has a particular end in mind. They utilize a variety of methodologies, rhetorical and material (ad campaigns, political lobbying, altering/creating institutions and policies, and so on). Their methodology is based upon the latest research and methodologies.
It is HIGHLY unlikely that they will achieve their end. They WILL change society--the problem is that society is, in a sense, alive. It will resist change or twist/alter it. The number of variables is simply too high as are the range of potential responses and (thrown in on top) the accidents of history.. a plague, a war. an economic collapse.
Remember also that there are a lot of actors with THEIR own plans--so you are actually engaged in something more akin to war--because there WILL be opposition.
And then someone invents a widget that puts 10% of the population out of work--which has its own knock on change effects.
Do you begin to see how complex all of this actually is?
People try and change society all of the time--and they always succeed (if change = success).. what that change is, however, is unlikely to be what they were planning on.
There will always be some form of a tyranny of a minority--often less blatant than what we have, but sometimes moreso. The vast sweep of recorded history is far more often an example of the tyranny of minorities than of majorities.
Usually the majority sucks it up and accepts it unless or until it becomes too objectionable or burdensome--then the revolution comes and guess what you get--a new tyranny of the minority (just a different minority).
It is VERY far from unique--it is almost a norm.
It is not that humans are lemmings it is more that they lack the drive or attention or energy (or all three) to exercise larger scale, substantive agency except in rare cases. It is easier to go along to get along, so long as things do not get too bad. There ARE limits, but those limits are far broader than most people think or even suspect.
I think there are unintended consequences to almost every action. Unanticipated results. "Pluck a flower, kill a star." Social media may yet destroy Western society. J. Haidt has an interesting piece in The Atlantic. Yet Russia's hackers seem to have been very successful in achieving their ends of disrupting Western society in general and our 2016 election in particular, and to sew deep division overall, via social media. They seem to be achieving their goal. But perhaps we cannot see the end since we are still in the middle. Maybe the better example of unintended consequences is Putin's war against the West and in Ukraine, at least for the moment. He must be very surprised if he is aware of what he has caused.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify. I sometimes am foiled by assumptions I have held without noticing and it is always good to be nudged out of them.
Russia did not change our society--IOW, that was not their goal. They took advantage of what our society IS.
Creating chaos, distrust, and division is easy... and democracies are weak in that they can only tolerate so much division and distrust before they collapse. If you want to destroy a society, the reality is that you do not have to do much--it will tend to fall apart by itself over time as the various groups separate themselves from each other (a natural tendency) and each pursues what it perceives to be their own interests.
It takes a LOT of work to maintain a society and you can't ever stop working on maintaining it.
None of this happens fast (we have been working our way to where we are basically since the 60s, in terms of proximate causes).
What I present here is a particular narrative, based upon MY reading, observation, and thought over the last 30 years or so. There are biases in it and blind spots--I don't pretend to fully understand any of this. I don't think anyone fully understands all of this.
:)