The Greatest Force for Social Change in the World

I like the grandeur of the title of this post.  Sometimes I delight in pomposity, a word that has a music of its own.  Still, I think I'm on to something here.

OK, we'll start with the idea that there is something we wish to change about society.  The elimination of racism is a good example.  what is the best method of going about it?  What really works to change the opinion of society?

I think the answer is shame.

I have already talked about a number of things to do with human motivation.  I have spoken that, in the case of most people, putting forward a rational argument for your position based on evidence and logic does not work.  In fact, it often strengthens the beliefs of the other person because they feel under attack.  People tell themselves stories, and those stories strengthen group cohesion, self-esteem, and definition of the inferiority of the other. 

If you told white people in the 1850's that back people were fully human, with less hereditary differences (if you count DNA, not morphology) between the "races" than between a troop of chimpanzees on one hill in Africa (this is true) and that the difference in intelligence between white and black people was less than the average difference between white people, they would have dismissed your claims.  Why?  Because it would require them to change a belief held by everyone within their group, it would have raised the qualities of those thought of as "other," and it would have meant that they had been awful people.

However, the majority of people in the USA believe all of that today, or something close to it.  How did things change?

I think the method is that there are two groups of people who are very important.  There is a group in which the defining in-group characteristic is making rational decisions based on evidence.  These are scientists/intellectuals.  They may not be that good at making these decisions, but they identify with making these decisions.  They also are required to find out or think up new stuff. Those who don't do so are expelled with shame from the group.  Being a disgraced scientist makes you an outcast, and would be very high on the list of concerns for such a person.  The other group are young people who haven't made their minds up yet.  Young people identify with their peers while growing up, not with their parents.  To identify with a group you need to have characteristics which are different.  It is not hard to see this in the interactions between teenagers and their parents.

So, we have a group of people who find out what is true, and find out new things.  They then tell each other this information, and as many other people as possible.  There aren't many scientists or intellectuals who find out something new and amazing who then don't bother telling as many people about it as possible.  It is, after all, how such people achieve status.  We then have another group of people who don't have fixed opinions and want to define themselves in opposition to established beliefs (to some extent).  If those who find or think of something new can get the information to young people, there is a decent chance that young people will believe it as a group defining belief.  Most of the time this won't happen. 

In groups with a defining belief you can either believe that belief or be shunned, disgraced, expelled.  The shame of being different is an extremely powerful force in the lives of young people.  Just remember high school for about thirty seconds and you will remember this.  We then get groups across the country who shame others for their stupid belief.  This is why new social movements happen in geographically centered locations (women's rights groups didn't spontaneously appear simultaneously in Bombay, Johannesburg, and San Francisco) and in the areas with the greatest concentrations of differing groups with the greatest amounts of information (cities).

Over time, given enough groups of young people and the right idea, this idea will spread until it reaches a point where the majority of people in a culture believe something to be right.  In the 1950's old people thought big band jazz was great and rock and roll was simply noise.  By the 1980's most people couldn't name a big band jazz musician and the idea that rock and roll wasn't the greatest genre of music ever would have been laughed at.  It's simply happening again with hip-hop.

Why do people change their minds?  It's because young people want new ideas.  There are people who are paid to produce new ideas (fashion, music, science, authors, entertainment).  Young people want to define themselves in a new way, and they want that way to be smart, cool, new, but mostly in a way that makes them look good to other people.  Those who don't conform are shunned, meaning that those who care less about opinions than being part of a group (almost everybody) will go along with having that opinion.

The fear of shame, of being different, of being laughed at and sneered at is the greatest force for social change.  Try being against racism in the 1850's and you would be laughed out of society.  Try being racist today and the disgrace will be unrelenting.  Given the right ideas in the beginning shame can be just about the greatest force for good on the planet.