Wednesday, January 30, 2013
You can't change the system from within, the system changes you!
This point addressed in class on Tuesday stuck with me. It seems that if one wishes to change a system (at least radically) then one must create a whole new system. This is only because if one tries to change a system from within, then they start to adapt to the system and then won't be making change. The banker example that professor Silliman used to show how one must adapt to survive seems to be a good example, for if you don't make decisions like a banker you won't be one for very long. Does this mean that change is impossible? For instance, it surely seems like any way of trying to change capitalism will not come about by the way of the people, but only if society completely fails as a whole. This happened to the Romans; they got too big and then collapsed. Will it happen to the good old USA? Probably, and not just the U.S. but the world over. The only way to make change seems to focus on an individual that can create a new system that people would follow (and relatively quickly at the way the world's environment seems to be degrading). Perhaps this is where technology can save us. The internet seems to be a tool that could connect millions, even billions, of people instantaneously. Do you think it is possible to change a system then or will it always stay in a relatively similar parameters with rather miniscule fluctuations in terms of its mechanics?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Unfortunately in many ways I do agree with you that it may require an entirely new system in order to bring real change. Marx believed that the capitalist regime would run its course and eventually fail which would lead to a new social order, but so far we have little reason to believe that the regime is falling. Despite the large scale inequalities produced by capitalism, it is still an economic system which many businesses and specific institutions are reluctant to let go of due to how much it provides for a select group of people.
ReplyDeleteIf we are measuring it outside of equality it isn't failing, but I think if we're measuring it in terms large inequities, then yes it is failing. I think the measurement for this system needs to be established.
ReplyDeleteI agree that if you try to beat or change the system by becoming apart of the system itself, it will most likely not work because the system will change you. However, it seems nearly impossible for someone to change the system single-handedly from the outside. If the system here is going to change, and I do agree as well that one day it will, it will have to be agreed collectively many in power who are ready for change. This is one of those questions that seems nearly impossible to come up with a clear cut answer to. How can we change the system? There may never be a clear answer, but the system is bound to change over time, for better or for worse.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we, as a society, have constructed so many myriad systems within systems that 'outside the system' might exist only as an abstraction. It seems we have to work within any current infrastructure to affect change.
ReplyDelete