Crisis Management

I don't know why I'm posting this here. Perhaps to get it off my chest without throwing it in the faces of the people who read Nobody In Particular or my Google+ posts. Or maybe just because I was careless with a click and ended up here, and found that after all this time, it's still active. And I found myself with an opportunity to vent.

About a year and a half ago, after my father died, I found myself in an online argument with a group of self-described Social Justice Warriors. And one of the more philosophical members of the group made an interesting point.

Being the change is important -- people need intuitive positive role models to look up to.  This is the peace version.

Another way that change happens, a lot, is through social pressure.  This is essentially what you're experiencing right now in this comment thread.  We've gotten far with public shaming -- look at the recent Donald Trump news, to take a completely random example.  This is the war version.

Telling other people what to do and "talking down to them" creates environments in which people are threatened with shame for not doing that.  It's dirty, but it gets the job done.  When they look for alternatives, that's the time they look at people who are being the change they want to see in the world.  But, as a change consultant, I can tell you that people typically don't change without the impetus of a crisis -- Our job as warriors qua warriors is ultimately, in the very long scheme of things, providing that crisis.

And Donald Trump is now President-Elect of the United States of America. So... tell me again how your social pressure, threatening people with public shame and creating crises in people's lives is creating the change you want to see in the world? Tell me again how far you've gotten with those tactics in the past eighteen months. Tell me again, Ms. "Change Consultant," how the crisis you have "provided" has become the impetus to things better for anyone.

Look upon the riots, the smashed storefronts and the damaged cars, and tell me how your war is going.