We all want a better world. But as Pres. Clinton might say "depends on what you mean by better"
As far as values go, our culture contains within it a set of values. We are socialized into those values and really reject them at our peril. Speak out against continued economic growth as a sustainable solution, suggest restructuring of the economy, etc., and see how long you remain employed in any sort of "responsible" job. The only way in which I see change happening is to appeal to the "enlightened" self interest of the major power brokers. "Better solve the jobs/income distribution problem soon, or the unemployed are likely to storm your gated communities." Hmmm. Sort of brings the jobs income situation close to home, puts things in sharp perpective. Or you can point out that if the jobs situation is not solved, the "mighty consumer" will stop spending. Then what happens to stock values, to the GDP. Power brokers will not act unless there is something in it for them, that's how they got to be power brokers. arthur -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 9:45 AM To: Selma Singer; Ray Evans Harrell; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Harry Pollard Cc: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; Brad McCormick, Ed.D.; Charles Brass Subject: Re: [Futurework] The world of work > The problem I have with most of the conversations about the future of > society is that, as I have said before, they have no direction. Whatever > suggestions people may make for change are made in some kind of vacuum; that > is, there is no value context for the changes suggested. There is just > short-term thinking that this or that may be an improvement on what we have > but we have no- maybe it's vision (you know, the 'vision thing' that the > Bush family has such a problem with). > > Selma Selma, just a few points. One is that suggestions for change are not made in a vacuum. In any stable society, they are made within a context of codes, laws, property rights, etc., that has been built up over many generations. New suggestions for change will be accepted as plausible only if they don't seriously conflict with this context. Another is that people will accept new values only when it is clearly demonstrated to them that the old ones are no longer working. A third is that, depending on their circumstances and capacities, people vary greatly in their ability to accept new ways of valuing. Rural people are more likely to hang onto their traditions than people living in the more fluid environment of cities. We all want a better world. But I would suggest there are two steps in building it. One is, as you point out, imagining what it could be - the vision thing. The other is the hard, step by step, practical process of moving toward that vision. In Canada, people were forced into imagining a better world during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Out of that came universal health care, unemployment insurance, and a variety of other programs that made Canada a better place to live, though still far from ideal for many people. I think this about all I can usefully contribute to the discussion, except to suggest that for every vision there is a countervision. We've now had universal, publicly operated health care in Canada for several decades. There is now a lot of discussion about how much of a good thing we need, and whether much of it couldn't be done better by the private sector. Universal public education, a thing which we should all value because it involves our children and our future, has been underfunded to the extent that schools find it difficult to operate. Among some of our politicians and publics, there is a countervision that education would operate "more efficiently" (= better) if it were privatized. I'm not saying that our values should not be improved. Of course they should, because the quality of our society depends on them. Yet, as I'm sure you recognize, making society meet even the values we profess to hold is a very hard slog. Best regards, Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
