Rasanya penat juga badan follow class selama 5 hari tanpa henti. Selain drp kelas, kena plak settlekan urusan pendaftaran dsbnya. Anyway nasib baik lecturer semua power. My second subject dgn Dr Sulaiman memang best, rasa macam dengar dokumentari sejarah. Kisah sejarah malaysia plus cerita silam Dr memang real.....tak mengantuk coz selit dgn cerita lawak sana-sini.
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Principles of Social Transformation
ReplyDeleteSome unorganized thoughts about the process of social transformation.
The world today is in the midst of a planetary crisis. This is a historical transition from one stage of social evolution to the next, in which fundamental change is needed in all areas of society. Paradoxically, this crisis was brought about by the successes of the current stage of social evolution, especially those that have increased dramatically the power of our technology and the size of our population.
The current crisis is related to a dissociation between what I call ground qualities (natural living, participant consciousness, community, and equality) and emergent qualities of (technology, reflexive consciousness, and social structure); the emergent qualities have suppressed the ground qualities. To move to the next stage of social evolution, we need to reclaim the ground qualities and integrate them with the emergent qualities.
In this crisis, it is not in the interests of the current ruling class to maintain the status quo, even though many of them may think so. It is everyone’s interests to transform society and resolve the crisis. Otherwise the consequences will be severe for almost everyone (though of course, not the same for all). Therefore we don’t have to fight them but just help them to see their own best interest.
Since fundamental change is needed, social change activities must go far beyond traditional political activism.
A spectrum of social change activities are needed, including confrontation of destructive policies, personal growth, public education, community organizing, reform, creating alternative institutions and technologies, and much more. It is important to appreciate what others are doing even if it is very different from what you believe is most important.
While it is valuable to fight against the worst abuses of our current society, social transformation requires that we be proactive in creating bits and pieces of the new society, in our personal, activist, and professional lives.
Cooperation, dialogue, and participation from everyone are probably the most effective means of achieving social transformation in today’s world. Therefore creating social structures that involve these is an important social change activity.
Small, personal changes can contribute to large-scale social transformation. On the other hand, some social change work (whether personal or large scale) only ameliorates current suffering and does not help to make fundamental change. It is important to distinguish work that really leads toward social transformation, even if in small ways, so we can put our priorities there.
It is not enough to convince other people of the need for social transformation. Even with the right values and priorities, we don’t yet know enough to create a healthy society in a world of 6 billion people. Despite all we do know about what is needed, we must also continue to experiment with creating healthy alternatives that truly work.
One way to foster social transformation is to create healthy alternatives to the current society—in consciousness, social structures, or technology. These should be tried out with other social change agents and continually improved in actual application in our lives. Then they can be promoted to others. They should especially be made available for people to use or participate in when they are having difficulties and need solutions. That is when most people are open to new ways of doing things.
Particularly when a personal or societal crisis happens, we should be ready to offer these alternatives as a solution to the crisis or its personal ramifications. The alternatives will be more effective than status quo solutions, and people are more likely to embrace them in their time of need.
A social movement that is spiritually based has the best chance of being effective and successful. By this I mean one that is informed by love, inclusiveness, compassion, interconnectedness, humility, and deeper meaning.
To build a healthy society we need change at both the personal and societal levels. Without personal growth, we won’t have enough citizens who have the consciousness required to co-create a healthy society. However, some of our social structures, especially our current global corporate economy, are not only destructive to our society but also tend to constrain our consciousness and drive it into certain narrow ways. Therefore we need to work for change at all levels simultaneously.
When confronted with people or institutions that are contributing to the destructive activities of our current society, it is helpful to look for ways to engage them synergistically rather than trying to fight them. We can try to understand the world from their point of view rather than dismissing them as bad; it helps if we recognize the part of us that is like them, in thought or feeling if not action. We can look for ways to work with them on projects that they perceive as in their interests but also promote social transformation. With some creativity, these are not as hard to find as you might think. We can find ways to dialogue with them that may open them up to seeing more of what is really going on in society, and may also open us up to seeing something new as well. Perhaps we can find a way to see them as opportunities or resources rather than problems.
It isn’t helpful to worry about what chance we have to turn things around before it is too late to avoid environmental or other destruction. Rather than an attitude of optimism (which might be unfounded and naïve) or one of pessimism (which destroys good energy), it is more useful to have an attitude of hope, where we envision the society we want to build and work for that.
Too many progressive organizations have been rendered less than effective by internal power struggles, unresolved personal conflicts, and poor understanding of organizational process. We must take the time and energy to pay attention to our process and work through problems.
Joanna Macy’s categories of social action:
1. Holding actions in defense of life. These are not exactly social transformation, but rather aim to minimize destruction until we can change society.
2. Creating new social structures or technology, or changing existing ones.
3. Changing consciousness, world view, and values
The current way of doing something isn’t working, and when this becomes apparent to enough people, alternatives will be sought and taken seriously. This can happen in any area—social structure, technology, or consciousness. This is especially likely to occur in a crisis. People may choose an alternative simply because it offers a better way for them personally or for their business, or they may also realize that it is necessary for societal reasons.
Change is most likely to start with a small group of people doing something in a new way, and then gradually spread to other groups and then hopefully to the whole society. This usually happens through a social movement, though the movement may not be explicitly related to social change. Examples are holistic health, simple living, civil rights, environmental movement, feminism, personal growth. How do these small groups succeed? How does the innovation spread? What tends to block this from happening? How does current society try to protect the status quo?
Another means of change is that a new technology is adopted because we now how the technical ability and it confers obvious advantage. Or a new social structure develops because of the evolution of technology and social conditions. The new technology or social structure has many unintended and unforeseen side effects for good and ill. These can promote or impede social transformation. Examples are TV, the internet, globalization.
Outline of ways that social transformation happens
1. Developing consciousness (person)
2. Raising awareness about social issues (person)
3. Changing actions (person)
4. Changing policy (government or organization)
5. Changing cultural attitudes
6. Changing social structures or creating new
7. Changing material practices or creating new
Cultural Attitudes
1. Values
2. Customs
3. Beliefs
4. Religion
Material Practices
1. Technology
2. Material customs (e.g. farming, transportation)
3. Built environment (architecture, city planning)
Social Structure
1. Family
2. Community
3. Government (from local to global)
4. Corporations
5. Non-profit and non-governmental organizations
6. Education and knowledge
7. Professions
8. The economy
9. Activist and political organizations
10. Media, arts, entertainment
What You Can Do
Work on waking up from the cultural trance. We tend to see the world through the viewpoint of our society, even those of us who are critical of it. We need to learn to see these conditioned ways of understanding reality and our choices about how to live, so that we can make choices that will better serve the creation of a healthy society.
Work on integrating ground and emergent qualities in your life. Don’t throw out your intellect as you develop your emotions, intuition, and spiritual life. Don’t throw out technology in connecting to the earth. Organization is as important as spontaneity. Don’t throw out the positive aspects of our current society even though it must change radically. There are many advantages to a market economy even though our current one needs drastic alterations.
Make your personal life an expression of your political and spiritual views. Notice the ways that our society makes it difficult to do this. Engage with others to help support you in this.
You can make the most useful contribution to social transformation if it comes from a deep sense of life purpose. Pursue what you are most passionate about and work where your greatest talent is. Look for guidance from spirit.
Work with others, in groups, pairs, or organizations. Network and collaborate. Share your struggles, ideas, hopes, dreams, and fears with others. Bring up and work through difficulties with interpersonal and group process.
Work on yourself psychologically and spiritually and bring the fruits of this growth to your social change work. It is not so much what you do or what you know that makes you effective in the world but who you are.
Engage in connecting with nature and recognizing our interconnectedness with all of life.
Engage in social change activities that are personally satisfying and enriching and build community in your life, as well as contributing to the world.
Break down the artificial compartments we often have between personal and political, political and spiritual, personal and professional, theory and action, friendship and work relationships, and so on.
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