The How of Change
There are all sorts of wonderful ideas, but unless translated into practice, they remain just that – wonderful ideas and nothing more. So, we feel it is necessary to discuss not only what changes to make, but also how to make them.
Social change is not a simple endeavour. It can be seen as a dialectic process that consists of three steps: The first is the engagement, the appetite for a change, but this is not enough. Many people sympathise with, support and are vocal about worthwhile causes. However, very few go further because of various challenges along the way. The next step, forging change, addresses these challenges. The third, implementing change, is to make it happen. We address these three steps separately for clarity, but in reality, they are not neatly demarcated and may overlap.
Each of these steps also has personal and interpersonal sides. The sections on the personal side discuss attitudes and strategies that can optimise our own contributions. In the section on the interpersonal side, we discuss how to engage, collaborate with and encourage others to implement constructive changes. In practice, the process, of course, oscillates between them.
Finally, we need to prepare for the fact that the emergence of the new social order will not happen without resistance. Some elements of the crumbling system will oppose the change. What we have in mind is a political, corporate and populist fightback. This model represents all these components visually:
Engaging With Change
The first step in making a change is engaging with it. There are many ways of doing so, some of which are productive, some don’t get us very far, and some are outright unhelpful. In this part, we will first offer some suggestions on how we, ourselves, can engage constructively. This may go a long way, but it is almost never enough. We need to engage others, too, so we will discuss some effective ways to do so.
Forging Change
This stage is the journey in which change is forged. It can sometimes be a long process with many challenges, which we will address here. As the previous one, this stage also has two parts: one on personal (idleness, indulgence, self-neglect, fear and anxiety, anger, love, ego trips, failures) and one on interpersonal challenges (righteousness, revolutionary zeal, power, debating, disagreements, disunity, isolationism, excessive optimism).
Applying Change
Once again, this stage is divided into two parts: suggestions that can facilitate the process when we ourselves are making a change, and suggestions that may encourage others to contribute by engaging five motivational drives (extrinsic, values, meaning, self-efficacy, and intrinsic).
Dealing with Resistance
In this part, we identify three main avenues through which the system fights back: political/state agencies, the corporate and financial sector, and system-generated populism. We also discuss pressure tactics, including online harassment, verbal abuse and physical violence or threats.