What Do People Want, and How do We Get It?
Created | Updated Jun 7, 2020
What Do People Want, and How do We Get It?
I work hard to buy a nice car. But my neighbors look at me like I stole it. I drive to work on the freeway and local cops routinely pull behind me to run my plates. All I want to come out of this (Floyd) is to feel safe in more places than just my home.
Anonymous San Francisco resident, speaking to a senior police official, reported by Representative Eric Swalwell on Twitter
Back in 1776, some nuts visionary people in Philadelphia started what one observer recently called a 'social experiment'. Eighty-seven years later, Abraham Lincoln called it 'a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.' He noted that it was being tested, not for the first or last time.
The social experiment of republican government, or what Lincoln called 'government of the people, by the people, for the people', was an idea that had been brewing in the human collective mind for a long time. It differed from other forms of government in that it chose its leaders by the 'consent of the governed.' The social contract was more upfront that usual. If the leaders didn't respond to the people's needs, they could be replaced. It also differed from older systems in regarding the rights and needs of the people Jesus called 'the least of these, my brethren' as just as important as the needs of the richest and most powerful in the land. That was heady stuff.
But, but, but… people said. This is tricky. Yes, it is. If government depends on elections, and elections depend on popular vote, how do we keep the malevolent from swamping the reasonable people at the polls? Good question. Worse, how to we keep mischievous conmen from tricking naïve voters into choosing to their own disadvantage? Also a good question. The price of all this is eternal vigilance, plus lots of reading, writing, and arguing. It can be tiresome.
It has been pointed out, quite accurately, that the Founders (in this country, they get a capital F, and we've only just got people to stop calling them the Founding Fathers, like the women didn't do anything) didn't really have everybody in mind when they built this society. They didn't propose giving equal rights to people who didn't look like them, or talk like them, or act like them, or believe what they did. Of course they didn't, they weren't angels (as George Mason pointed out). But it was a start. The test of that start was how it went on.
An awful lot of revolutionaries are purists. They have Revolutionary OCD1. They don't want to start a social experiment without completely rewriting reality. They hate the old order so much they want to tear it all down, burn it down, heck, nuke it from orbit and start over. I understand this feeling completely. But this attitude, like war, is bad for children and other living things. People need a place to sleep. They need safety, and health care, and a corner grocery. You can't take all those things away and then demand that everyone get on board with your utopian theory. Only a nitwit political scientist would think you could.
What you do is start somewhere. Then you push at the boundaries of mess, muddle, and injustice until things get better. That way, you avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Modern people know this. That's why they eye civil unrest uneasily. While many, if not most of them want the social change called for, they're also concerned that things don't stalemate and tip over into civil war. And that's always a danger.
How come? It works like this: society hobbles along for a while until it becomes obvious to enough people that something is wrong with it. People are making children work 12 hours a day: they shouldn't work, they should be in school, learning and growing. When women get married, their husbands get all their money: hey, wait a darned minute! That's unfair! Minority people can't vote. Women can't vote. People without property can't vote…
Once the problem is identified, the activists go to work. It's a hard slog. It requires time, and patience, and patient yelling. Usually, pamphlets are involved. And meetings, lots of meetings. And marching around with signs. Maybe a boycott or three. Eventually, the majority of people realise that, yes, changing this or that thing would be a really good idea.
(Every once in a while, they bring in change by adopting a really bad idea, like Prohibition or Eugenics. Then it takes more time to straighten out the mess.)
The most dangerous part of the social change process is the time when an idea for improvement has finally reached the tipping point from minority to majority opinion. That's the time you've got to watch. That's when you get something called 'backlash'. And this backlash can give you whiplash.
There will be a certain percentage of people in any group who recognise the rightness of a coming social change, but resist it with everything they've got. These people may try to justify their opposition with claims of reasonableness, or concerns about peripheral issues, or just a desire to go back to the old days. But make no mistake: the reason they're digging in their heels is that they know what they should do, but they don't wanna. Instead of repenting of their past misdeeds, they double down and try to keep the world they live in from changing.
That's the key: The world they live in. Remember what I said about not burning the place down? This is the price you pay. If you don't burn down the house, you've got to share it. So you have to get a supermajority on board before you can sweep the diehards along. It's not like you can throw them out. And once they realise they're completely outnumbered, they will get in line with the change.
Oh, yeah, they'll turn into the kind of old people who go around muttering inanities like 'Fifty-four-forty or fight!' and confusing the grandkids. You may have to hide their photo albums, lest those same grandkids discover the Hitler Youth photos, or the KKK picnics. But
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust…
and bad public policies, like all bad ideas, can end up on the scrap heap of history, much to our glee, if we handle the transition right. Talking is right. Reaching out to others is right. Being relentlessly peaceful is right. Doing our best, one on one, to spread justice and kindness in the world is right. Allowing the recalcitrant to set the agenda would be wrong.
Remember that you have to balance two considerations: the retrograde element doesn't want to burn down the house, any more than you do. However, unlike you, they can't change their minds, and will lash out when cornered. While lashing out, they may turn over that oil lamp and ignite the curtains. So give them an exit strategy. Don't pander to prejudice, but leave them an out with dignity. You can find ways.
And keep moving in the right direction.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9, NIV
