Word cluster images try to plot the frequency of the associations to concepts. like the one above (there are many variants) for the term ‘social change’. It is clear that the associations show no consensus about the nature of social change, its incidence – is a one-off event or constant, the methods of its occurrence or its desirability. The appearance of two references to Heraclitus (presumably to the supposed maxim of his that ‘you cannot step into the same river twice’, show that, for some social change is a matter of the dynamics of nature (or of that popular concept whose use is so notoriously ambiguous politically – population) rather than human agency, especially an individual’s human agency. Many associations suggest that many have a relationship themselves with social change only when it is represented as a mental event: a paradigm, concept, model or theory, or associated with a closed set of theories (Heraclitus, Marxism, Hegel).
Yet social change brought about by human agency is, if it is anything, not a matter of simple decision to change, and this is as true of revolutions as of societies that rigorously police their stability from the effects of any change. The numerous authors of the infographic below look for instance at how social change in order to mitigate the effects of climate change might occur using systems theory. It attempts to show the expected pace in systematic changes across very different systems and may apply even to changes brought about autocratically like those by which Donald Trump is now seeking to regulate world trade in the interests of one economy only.
A set of social changes proposed for climate change mitigation
By Ilona M. Otto, Jonathan F. Donges, Roger Cremades, Avit Bhowmik, Richard J. Hewitt, Wolfgang Lucht, Johan Rockström, Franziska Allerberger, Mark McCaffrey, Sylvanus S. P. Doe, Alex Lenferna, Nerea Morán, Detlef P. van Vuuren, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber – Ilona M. Otto, Jonathan F. Donges, Roger Cremades, Avit Bhowmik, Richard J. Hewitt, Wolfgang Lucht, Johan Rockström, Franziska Allerberger, Mark McCaffrey, Sylvanus S. P. Doe, Alex Lenferna, Nerea Morán, Detlef P. van Vuuren, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (2020). Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050. PNAS 117 (5) 2354-2365. doi:10.1073/pnas.1900577117, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87320451
Largely the authors suggest that human systems based on social norms are more likely to be stabilisers that inhibit change, except in the long term (they predict a potential to change, other things remaining the same, of 30 years or more (perhaps their accounting for generational change in part).And yet the most rapid sources of change (change of the financial markets that allocate and exchange differential energy resources) are only influence by changes in that very slowest system.
That is a depressing idea, for the main lever to initiating change is the role of governmental and policy changes at a national and global level , as well as transparency about the facts about fossil fuel inefficiency in bringing about social change any other than way than supplying immediate energy to a hungry economy. But these change potentials are themselves often held in hock by the slow-moving system of human value and norm changes: think then of the corner into which a reforming Minister in an Environment system will be pushed back by their own party’s need to secure a popular vote or public acceptance (often by the Prime Minister using his own power over them).
So I can’t say WHAT I would change in ‘modern society’. The thing is, if we tale our infographic seriously, the change is best handled at the level of Education, the only system to stand in the threshold of both policy and human social value systems. And Education is not currently favoured as a means to change of values away from naked capitalist growth economics at the moment – the reverse being true. Education is a squeezable asset when your obsession is allowing the present distribution of capital’s leader the priority, even in organising social change. And there in a nutshell is why the present Labour Government will go down in history as wasted opportunity for social change – for the ONLY change it prioritises is economic growth within the present distribution of economic assets, nationally and globally.
All my love
Steven xxxxxxx
Steve_Bamlett_blog 
One thought on “Change isn’t that easy or that quick. Let’s start by realising that.”