How to Change the World

A Lifestyle Oriented to the Advancement of Values

As we've noted elsewhere on this site, among the life goals of Progressives and Humanists will be commitment to improving the quality of life of humanity as a whole—and that implies bringing about change in the world. As with any other activity, there are more and less effective ways of causing change; and since all societies resist change, it is essential that progressives be as effective as possible.

Mostly as a way of selling services to corporations, the government, and the military, a variety of useful techniques for problem analysis, goal setting, prioritization, forecasting, and planning have evolved over the last thirty years, and they can and should be appropriated by every change agent.

The basic steps entailed in any agenda for social and economic change are as follows:

1. Determining what should be changed.
2. Determining what to change to.
3. Deciding how to bring about the desired change.

Let's now elaborate upon each step, and consider in greater depth the principles, disciplines and methodologies relevant to each of them.

1: Determining what should be changed

There are several related aspects to this step. First, one must be clear about one's basic values. Unless one has a firm grasp of what is most important in a life well lived, nothing else can be achieved. Philosophy is of the greatest importance here, as a central task of ethical philosophy is to systematically work out a rational foundation for values, and hence for life. (The best foundation for values yet developed, in our view, is that found in the work of Thomas Hurka and Brand Blanshard.) Ideally, once these foundations have been established and some consensus developed, it then falls to religion to create a living community of values through the establishment of such institutions as schools, churches, and values-friendly media.

Once optimal values have been identified, a general principle of social justice and social reform comes into play: wherever social or economic institutions seriously undermine our fundamental values, reform of those insitutions becomes a priority.

The next step is to identify those social and economic institutions that most seriously undermine or fail to advance our values. That is, we begin to diagnose the gaps between the real and the ideal. Two tools of value in this diagnostic process are the Ishikawa Diagram and the Pareto Chart, explained in depth elsewhere at this site. Briefly, the aim of the Ishikawa Diagram is to help us to identify the underlying causes of problems, while the aim of the Pareto Chart is to help us to identify the most important of those underlying causes. Thus, when used in conjunction, these tools tend to promote advancement to one of the next stages of social reform: identification and prioritization of goals. However, we aren't quite ready for that step yet.

Part of the process of determining what should be changed should include some investigation of probable and possible futures, no matter how clouded or uncertain those futures may be. Why? Because to some extent, the agent of change will always be aiming at a moving target; as well, the humanist will always have a concern for the well-being of generations yet to come, and thus the long-term impact of current trends. Therefore, our diagnosis of the gap between the real and ideal should incorporate to some degree a forecast of anticipated as well as actual gaps between the world we have and the world we want. It is also essential, in determining what to change, to be as certain as possible that it won't be change for the worse. Impractical schemes, far from being helpful, may make matters worse, perhaps much worse. Moreover, since much of the change advocated by progressives is anathema to powerful, entrenched interests, almost any proposed change is likely to be attacked as "utopian", "impractical", "unrealistic", "radical", or "too costly", making it especially important that any proposed changes be workable. One way charges of this kind of charge can be deflected is to explore some of the consequences of prospective change using the tools of the futurist, such as the cross-impact matrix. This can provide us with both greater confidence in their feasibility and greater ideological support in putting forward the value of such changes.

2: Determining what to change to

Generally, it's more difficult to develop solutions to problems than it is to identify their causes. Many of the books recommended on this site do a good job of identifying the causes of problems, but are notably weaker when it comes to suggesting solutions.

In attempting to formulate goals one must keep constantly in mind the values for which we are attempting to optimize; and as it may not be possible to optimize for all values, we must once again develop some sense of priorities. Once such priorities have been set, we enter into the stage of change management that perhaps most demands creativity. An extremely important tool to make use of in preliminary brainstorming has no name at present, so we'll invent one: let's call it "parametric analysis." Parametric analysis involves identifying, and perhaps classifying, all of the parameters relevant to the preferred future we are crafting. An example of this as applied to politics is available elsewhere on this site. Often a parameter will suggest a continuum of possibilities; and often, too, a continuum of this kind can be indexed against a related continuum to create a two-dimensional table (mutiple dimensions are also possible). In the example at hand, Butcher suggests, following Nader, that political systems can be thought of in terms of (at least) two continua: ownership of wealth and control of wealth. By indexing one continuum against the other, Butcher generates a table of nine basic political alternatives. Creating tables of this nature can assist the creative imagination tremendously. (Procedures helpful for carrying out parametric analysis were developed by philosopher Edmund Husserl in another context, and are described in the final chapter of Volume II of H. Spiegelberg's "The Phenomenological Movement"—"The Essentials of the Method.") Related methodologies that are useful in generating possibilities are relevance trees and morphological analysis (the link here is to a .pdf document that opens very slowly).

As the most difficult part of parametric analysis is perhaps identifying all of the relevant parameters, or continua, it can be helpful, when dealing with social or economic phenomena, to investigate historical periods of excellence and/or periods of failure, and especially illuminating to compare and contrast the two.

One outcome, then, of parametric analysis would be one or more "possibilities" tables; and the cells of each table can be evaluated for implications in terms of the values for which we are optimizing. For example, if we believe a political system that aims at the greatest good for the greatest number is superior to a political system that aims at maximal good for a few and misery for most, then at a minumum we will want to reject authoritarian, totalitarian, and plutocratic systems of governance.We could therefore narrow our search for optimal systems of governance to the remaining six cells of the possibility table.

Thus our task of determing what to change to can be greatly facilitated.

3: Deciding how to bring about the desired change

Deciding how to bring about desired change involves reconciling somewhat conflicting demands:

• We want to bring the change about as quickly as possible.
• We want to bring about the change as completely as possible.
• We want to bring the change about with minimal disruption.
• We want to bring the change about with minimal cost.

So, once again, what we need to do is generate possibilities, in this case alternative strategies and tactics; and we'll then want to examine each possibility in light of its implications for speed, completeness, disruption, and cost.

Decision analysis is a relatively new discipline which includes among its goals the making of effective decisions in the face of uncertainty, as well as in light of conflicting optimization criteria (values). An extremely interesting, if still immature subdiscipline of decision analysis is known as multiple criteria decision making (also known as multiple attribute decision making, where attributes are features of the situation decisions are being made about). While a discussion of MCDM is beyond the scope of this essay, an introduction may be found here.

[Essay to be continued.]

• See what kind of reforms Progressives have made historically
• See what kinds of economic change are most needed
• See some important political changes to consider
• Go to the futures map
• Go to the Progressive Living site map
• Go to the Progressive Living preamble
• Go to the Progressive Living welcome page
• Search the site