- Alexander Fraser Tytler (also attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville)

Your point regarding Gay and Lesbians affecting social change while being less than 10% of the population illustrates the exception process quite well. But you should recall the “exception” they demanded has been roundly rejected by the general populace, twice in California alone. Those with institutional power have forced the exception through in some locales and, as you noted, Federal and State judges combined with sitting Congressmen constitute less than 1% of the populace. So, is gay marriage an actual exception demanded by “the People”, or is it an exception forced through by those with institutional power?

And if Obama does change the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy within our military to a position favorable to the Gay community, does that mean the majority of service people, their families and our many living veterans demanded it? Or, does Obama use his institutional authority as commander in chief to mandate it?

Does it matter how the exception comes about, grass roots or being imposed from the judiciary or the politicians? I think it does matter to the process, legalized abortion has been imposed for 36 years but it still generates bitter controversy – the widespread social acceptance characteristic of Stage #3 hasn’t been clearly reached within this area in contrast to racial non-discrimination in voting rights and other areas of our society which I believe has reached Stage 3. Recall that legal and non-legal racial discrimination was not beyond the pale at one time in this country.

Nor was the Civil Rights movement lacking in popular grass roots support, I’m old enough to have witnessed the practice of legal racial discrimination in Mississippi first hand as a young man – I thought it was obscenely wrong long before the Civil Rights legislation reached its nadir. Were we ready as a people to overturn this wrong – or was it forced down our throats and we simply got used to it? Depends on who you listen to and whether history has been re-written for self-serving reasons by certain politicians and social activists. But, personally, I believe many Americans had moved to the present position long before the politicians claimed it for their own.

Are vast numbers of Americans demanding the government find some means to restore jobs and alleviate mortgage defaults? I believe they are, even when they don’t write letters. Politicians also study opinion polls, put a wet finger in the wind, examine the entrails of the sacrificial goat as well as analyzing arithmetic voting trends prepared by their clerks – at least the good ones do, the inept ones are back home working in private industry.

What does it all mean – confess I’m not sure in every instance for every issue, but I agree with you on your conclusion; if escalating misery occurs, we’ll need folks who question the status quo in more areas of society than just the political arena. You’ve written about the rampant irresponsibility and future perils inherent in massive federal borrowing and escalating debt ceilings – but I’d recommend you also consider the synergies inherent in accumulating “exceptions” broadly across the social spectrum. We have no reliable mathematics to predict how these exceptions interact and what the cumulative result could be in terms of “things are really getting better” or “we’re about to step off the cliff”.

By the way, good luck on your political efforts, we need honest and decent men and women striving to influence our politics, we already have a 50 year supply of the other varieties.

Agree the media and the academy are leading “playahs” when it comes to influencing social change, but they also lack institutional power and can’t actually affect social change. And I believe your point regarding the status quo as being defined by the media/universities is quite valid. But, I also think the 3 Step process operates independently and, in a manner very similar to the political arena, when you consider areas the media/universities generally ignore.

A recent article in the religious journal “First Things” caught my eye relative to social change. The gist of the article was the decline of Mainstream Protestantism, an area of little ongoing interest to the popular media and universities. The article claims the status quo is seeing a reversal of the 3 Step exception process, the historical “exceptions” have culminated into a new status quo which is being rejected by their former church members through a shift back to “old style religion”.

The Anglicans in particular, but also the Lutherans and Presbyterians, have been in this “exception” process of change for decades, the Anglicans since the Lambeth Conference of 1930, well before our modern media practice of publishing partisan political and cultural positions as “facts”. Lambeth started the exceptions in the area of sexual morality by allowing contraception for married folks only and only under “certain conditions”, which were both rare and specific, contraception in general for married couples followed later, contraception for unmarried couples was added, abortion was later “allowed”, ending finally with practicing homosexuals as ordained clerics. The current “status quo” among the Anglicans sees these collective changes as “desirable” and “normal” as per the Step #3 stage of converting the previous exceptions into a new baseline.

But the result has been a movement away from this new baseline and back to more fundamentalist religious teaching adhering to traditional disciplines. The Anglicans have gravitated towards a “if it feels good, do it, God won’t mind” position that is dropping their membership like a hot rock, not to mention being disavowed by the international Anglican community, particularly in Africa.

Members are deserting the Anglicans for other more traditional Protestant sects (the media calls them fundamentalists) and the Roman Catholic Church in a search for a theology that aligns more closely with traditional Christian values. To add to their woes, replacement members aren’t being raised within the faith, parishioners who are mentally comfortable with abortion as just another form of contraception won’t be raising large families, so the average age of the dwindling congregation members is rising significantly. The same phenomena can be seen in Judaism, Orthodox Jews are experiencing membership growth and thriving, Reform Judaism is in decline.

And while these demographic changes in religion may not catch the eye of the mainstream media and the academics, they are real nonetheless. What “First Things” asserts is that this example illustrates the initial “exception”, followed by more “exceptions”, with a new social baseline established and then a retreat back to original values process. And that would make it contra to an assumption we move in lockstep with the media, the politicians and the Ivy League academics on all social positions – which is a good thing in my mind – there’s hope for us yet.

Not sure I gave your comments justice, but I think “the People” at times demand exceptions – at other times they go along with proposed exceptions in the hope the exceptions will address their specific concerns – or, with the thought (or hope) the exceptions won’t impact their specific individual interests. And I don’t believe “the People” react differently to political vs. non-political issues as noted in the religious example above. I’ll close by noting that most but not all issues have become “political” due to government activism, but I’m not convinced Americans without institutional power follow a different sociological exception process dependent on whether it’s political or non-political.

I tend to agree with your statement regarding a person’s ability to affect social change; particularly with your assessment of the ‘lack’ of institutionalized power. I recently came to exactly the same conclusion and, as a result committed myself to run for political office this election cycle. Here’s what I’m testing:

Politicians are not making decisions in accordance with my established ideological priorities; and I believe those priorities to be correct. As you you pointed out; I possess a set of ideological and philosophical principles developed over my lifetime of experience. My question: Will my campaign demonstrate that a voting majority of others share my values.

An ideological difference with one’s party must be solved from the inside out. Just as my faith (I’m Catholic) requires that I maintain my life-long relationship with my religious denomination and repair its faults from within as opposed to abandoning my faith for a new set of dictums and blaming my defection on their shortcomings. I strongly believe the same regarding political party.

The government that affects the people most directly is the government closest to those same people. So, wanting to test the popularity of my viewpoint, and test the theory of the effectiveness of ‘locality’; I’m campaigning for Justice of the Peace here in Arkansas this year. (In any other state a JP would be called a County Supervisor.) I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is in order to discover if it is possible for one person to spearhead social change on a local scale.

Further along in your post you state; “At this moment, there are many Americans engaged in exactly that activity – they want jobs, they demand their government do something to create jobs, or keep them from losing their jobs, or save them from defaulting on their mortgages and losing their homes.” I must confess that I’m slightly confused as to where the ‘institutional’ power of these people comes from. The letters they author or the calls they place to government officials are summarized just like your or mine. They possess no more ‘access’ to their representatives than you or I. What means are they using to affect a politician’s behavior that we lack? They are no more likely to be polled than I am, and maybe less so as I’ve personally participated in every election ever held in my precinct since I first reached the age of eligibility.

You say that there are ‘vast’ numbers that demand ‘exceptions’ to existing rules. Yet the examples I can think of do not include such enormous populations. Gay and lesbian activists are waging a campaign across the country for gay marriage. They number, at best, between 5% and 7% of the entire population. Illegal immigrants and their advocates are demanding civil rights for ‘undocumented workers’ yet 13 million of them doesn’t amount to 4% of the citizenry. In example after example; my experience tells me that these groups of activists are miniscule in number as compared to the resident population.

When it comes to politicians, that number is even smaller. 535 Congressmen and Senators have spent most of the last year designing legislation to revamp the nation’s health care system. That number is negligible as compared to the 304 million Americans that will have to live with their decision.

In this case people applied the theory of the ‘angry mob’. TEA parties overflowing with people led up to, and unruly townhall meetings were a staple of, the recent Congressional summer recess. They outnumbered the population of the legislative branch of the federal government by 10,000:1. Not that all that activity seemed to make any significant difference in the manner in which Congressional and Senatorial liberals conducted themselves while in session. Rather, I believe, the elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts had more effect. But even the total amount of voters in all those elections were a wispy percentage when compared to this country’s population.

But society is more than elections. There are social constructs within this country that have little to do with the voting booth. By what method do the ‘majorities’ make themselves heard in these areas? Are they even majorities? Is it all activism?

Activism would go quite a ways in explaining how we arrive at certain social/moral codes. My Brother-in-Law was a member of the UAW for over thirty years. He once related a story to me about his factory in Wisconsin. He said that even though there were several hundred employees and all belonged to the union; there were only seventy or so that were interested enough to actually participate by attending all the union meetings. These seventy employees ultimately set the work and grievance policies for every employee in the plant.

If social change is merely a matter of ‘the squeaky wheel getting the grease’; I guess that may explain your three steps. Under those conditions, a small vocal minority has the ability to ‘readjust’ the social norms for an entire society.

If my assumptions are correct (and yes, I do realize the ramifications of the word ‘assume’!) Then your three-step process is circular. Exceptions are ‘demanded’ by a vocal minority, a majority judges the exception to be innocuous, and we proceed to step two. As the exceptions become more prevalent, this same ‘silent’ majority doesn’t protest. There may be some who sound alarm, but for the most part it is a less than noteworthy quantity. Once step three occurs and the societal alteration is accepted it becomes the new starting point for step one all over again. The only possible means available to ‘short circuit’ the process is for that ‘silent’ majority to awaken from its lethargy, rise up, and say “Stop!”

If that’s the case, then vigilance is the price the majority must pay, as a group, if they want any measure of control over social change. Individual attention does no good; a clear majority must be involved.

I’d add one more component to your analysis.

Social change begins with an understanding of the status quo. This understanding is partially the result of personal experiences, but it is also heavily influenced by the popular perception of current reality.

This perception (in the US) has traditionally been driven by two main sources: a national media, and leading universities. To this end, the Vietnam war was winnable until Walter Cronkite said it wasn’t. And, FDR’s New Deal helped end the Great Depression because this is what is taught at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.

In this regard, the actual “facts” of the matter are not as important as the official public version of reality. This is the starting point for social change — whether that starting point is an accurate reflection of objective reality or not. Certain things may in fact not change much over the years, but if the media and universities say that conditions have changed, then perception becomes reality. [A great example of this is the modern day epidemic of child abductions. It’s not at all clear that this “danger” is greater today than in the 1950s, but the perception today is that a child molester lurks behind every corner, where in the 50’s you could leave your child’s bedroom window opened without concern].

The interesting thing about these two variables (media and university) is that up until a decade or two ago, the “media” consisted of a few TV companies and newspapers, and the only legitimate source of academic evaluation were from Ivy League universities. Today, thanks to the internet and independent media like Fox News, the monopoly of public information has been broken. We don’t need to rely on ABC/NBC/CBS or the New York Times to tell us about the world today, we can easily consult other sources of information to get a different version of reality from the ones they offer Moreover, with the spread of influence of niche colleges (Christian universities, university of Pheonix-type schools, websites/blogs in lieu of universities, the debate spurred by Sarah Palin’s educational background, etc.), Harvard, Yale et.al. have lost their singular prominence. Look at the way the alternative media has re-defined the “climate change” issue in ways the elite never tolerated.

So, in evaluating the issue of social change, unlike the past where there was a fairly well understood ‘starting point’ for comparison (even if that starting point was not completely accurate), today there are several starting points. Some sectors of the country see great change because their starting point is different from others on a particular matter, just as the opposite is true.

It makes political analysis more difficult, but explains a lot about the passion some people bring to a discussion of issues that others see as non-issues, or issues of limited value/change to begin with.

I should have elaborated on my “theories” rather than just making a generalized statement. And, keep in mind, these are purely personal observations gleaned from general reading, I’m not entirely sure how well they fit the real world, but I think they may describe an alternate way of looking at the issue of social change and the dynamics which drive it.

First, I think there may be completely different processes going on simultaneously when we analyze what drives social change – at least 3 in fact. One process would describe folks such as yourself – serious adults who have thought long and deeply about our society from a political and philosophical perspective. You have ideas you’ve tested over the years, viewpoints along the same lines and are willing to debate those who have different ideas and viewpoints in a sincere attempt to benefit and ultimately strengthen our society. Your constituency is the folks your ideas reach within forums like Intellectual Conservative.

But, relative to social change, you possess intellectual power but lack institutional power – in other words, you, Phil Jackson, sedonaman and others like you don’t hold high political or judicial office – and, consequently, your ability to affect social change rather than influence it is quite limited and narrowly focused. When you think about how the process functions in actual practice, one common vehicle for exerting your influence is writing a 3 page letter to your elected officials, say to both of your state’s senators for example, describing in a logical fashion your specific objections to Obamacare. I, on the other hand, could write a similar message to these same senators saying simply: “Vote against Obama’s Health Care bill, thanks”. We may both receive a polite, form letter acknowledgment complete with senatorial weasel words. But, behind the scenes, some clerk will tabulate our letters under “Opposed” and hand the Senator a summary, our words will never be read by the addressee. Your robust ideas and concerns vs. my simple demand receive equal weight relative to influencing social change.

Then, as a separate process, there are those childlike adult who are simply looking for a verbal fist fight, the foot soldiers within our “inwardly antagonistic” society. You see them everywhere, or rather hear their voices and they fall into the familiar Liberal/Conservative categories. Like the callicebus monkeys, they rush to the territorial boundaries on the web and hurl insults, issue provocations and make threat displays. At times, on Intellectual Conservative, you’ll witness one of their boundary disputes, the reader comments can reach over 200 in number before they lose interest and energy, with the gist of the comments eventually devolving into “Oh yeah”, “sez who” and “you’re an idiot”. Tomorrow, they’ll wake up, rush to their territorial boundaries and start the process yet again with a different subject. Are these folks sincere in trying to influence social change or, more accurately, simply hoping to pick a fight to relieve their boredom? Do they actually influence social change and to what degree? Or, is their primary effect promoting antagonism, with influencing social change a remote second?

But I think the most important and the primary process which influences social change is initiated by those folks who may never write an essay on Conservative or Progressive principles. And such folks, in their vast numbers, are the ones who demand the “exceptions” to the existing rule and therefore drive social change within the 3 Step process. At this moment, there are many Americans engaged in exactly that activity – they want jobs, they demand their government do something to create jobs, or keep them from losing their jobs, or save them from defaulting on their mortgages and losing their homes.

Self-interest ignites passion, seeks allies and calls previously unrelated individuals into formidable groups through a little understood sociological process. And demands for “exceptions” come boiling out of self-interest with a force abstract philosophical discussions can never provide. Consequently, self-interest doesn’t require an understanding of philosophical nuances to function, it’s quite effective on its own. But, though it may be indifferent to deep thinking, it won’t reject an ally from either the deep thinker or the inwardly antagonistic groups.

Politicians can read opinion poll results better than most and understand what the citizens want, even if their constituents’ need doesn’t reconcile with what they personally want. So, as politicians, their goal is to find the right “exception” to convince the voters they alone provided the needed solution. The exception here is more government meddling in the marketplace – but – and it’s an important but – if the economy improves, whether entirely on its own or through help from the government, the exception the politicians introduced is not forgotten. What happens next time the economy falters? Do citizens remember the “exception” from last time, the one that “worked”? Do they demand the same exception next time around? Is the “exception” now enshrined as a solution that worked and therefore will become a relatively permanent change to the status quo of accepted “societal rules”?

Meanwhile, the latest, popular “exception” is being considered within Congress and the media, you may legitimately object to its enactment based on established Conservative principles and also point out that, pragmatically, the exception won’t really work – giving Nancy Pelosi more money in a second Stimulus Plan to distribute among her friends and political supporters within the Bay Area doesn’t create jobs. Your opponents will argue the exact opposite citing their Liberal principles and pragmatically insisting the high-fat content pork, earmarks and grants actually do create more jobs. Simultaneously, the usual bar fights will start over this particular exception among the foot soldiers within the Army of Antagonism, threat displays, insults and provocations – not much intellectual meat will be served at their party but a good time will be had by all.

So, three separate processes in a complex stew that I probably oversimplified for brevity’s sake. And whether it’s religious theology within the Anglican church concerning homosexual clerics or the legality of late term abortion among women voters, I think these processes work exactly the same way as they do when considering government meddling within the economy. The issues change, the “exceptions” affect diverse social institutions and address different social problems, but we as citizens never change, we’ll follow this 3 Step process until disaster topples our shaky edifice, then we’ll return to Original Principles as a result and the exception process will start once again.

I’m positive I’m entering mucky ground here. To revamp an old and often used phrase; “Dammit Pat; I’m an engineer, not a doctor!” but I’m going to attempt to slog through this anyway.

In your posting you say; “In fact, an enduring pattern of collective social behavior probably has little to do with abstract thinking surrounding any current political issue.” I think that the ‘collective’ pattern of engagement IS the driver of change; in both social and political issues.

I currently have several postings under another composition entitled; “Have Liberals Lost Faith in the Anointed One?”; where I originally hypothesized that we, as conservatives, make an error when we interchange the terms democrat, liberal, and progressive without regard as to what those terms might actually represent. In posting #1 to that article I defined those groups and attempted to demonstrate how each of those groups may see a political issue from a different perspective. (We were dealing with health care. Gee, what a surprise!)

In subsequent postings to this essay I endeavored to define terms for the opposing party as well and attempted, in my own ham-handed way, to describe how my experience has taught me how these groups interact. Portions of Post #7 follow;

” If we were to employ set theory to the two institutionalized parties the set of republicans and conservatives, and also the set of democrats and liberals, would be best represented by intersecting circles. However both the circle of supremacists and progressives would be represented by self-contained, non-intersecting circles.” And ” The two intersecting sets of each party debate each other for short term ideological control of the party, with members of these two groups crossing from one side to the other depending on issue. It is important to note that no one group has a sufficient percentage to exert control for the long term. I would submit that once one group does exert long term control over the others, that that entire party is approaching an ‘Ideological Precipice’.”

Here the intention was to describe, based upon my own limited experience, how these groups interacted with each other in order to make ‘issue’ decisions. These two intersecting sets have cross-over with each other as well. This would normally be defined as ideological debate. I would hazard that this ‘ideological’ give-and-take is the basis for adjustment in social normative behavior as well. The debate is constantly engaged by society. That fundamentalist 20% that make up the fringes succeed, once in a while, in moving the line of demarcation between acceptable and unacceptable social behavior. This results in your three step pattern approach to social change.

I realize that you’ve offered statements from professional therapists regarding “…a multi-stage pattern regarding the human grieving process…” and evidence from zoologists and sociologists regarding the behavioral patterns of small bands of apes. I must confess that I’m way out of my depth here (that ground I spoke of before is getting softer by the minute). But one would think that as the group under scrutiny increased in population, that one could predict the pattern of progression form step to step with a greater degree of certainty. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m completely ignorant about this aspect of social science, but a Google search of ‘Predictive Behavior Modeling’ yields over 1.5 million hits.

As society evolves, social normative behavior will be constantly redefined. As ever larger portions of the necessities of survival are guaranteed, social behavior will gravitate further toward the satiation of ‘socially’ coveted indulgence.

Name your poison; war, poverty, liberty; climate change, social justice, equity of resource distribution; abortion, homosexuality, religion; and a plethora of other social issues I’ve not taken the time to mention. All these are proceeding, each at their own pace, down the path of your three step process. At some point there is an intersection, a crossroads. Society is constantly deciding, en mass, whether we continue down the path or change direction. If we’ve been sufficiently desensitized, we continue. If we’ve finally reached the point where this ‘satiation’ has reached the point of such a grotesque manifestation of the behavior that it slams into taboo, we alter ‘societal’ course.

Your thoughts?