I have been working with value-based organisations (advocacy and campaigning, sustainability and/or international development) for a few years now. During this time, when discussing social issues, I often found the following 2 attitudes in people:
- People blame and want to fight and/or get rid of other people that are seen as being opposed to the progressive ideas we are trying to make happen.
- People blame and want to change and/or get rid of the socio-political-economic structures that enable the issue to exist and/or prevent a better structure from instantiating.
The first is the one I have come across most often. It seems that this attitude is related to the individual and/or collective trauma that issues cause in other individuals. People are angry, hurt, disappointed and disheartened, rightfully so, with cruelty and injustices that have been perpetrated against them and/or their perceived group for generations and with the hegemonic and normalised structural violence that continue to enable this brutality. Thus, it is probably impossible to move forward with the business of changing society without those who are still suffering healing on individual and social levels and those inflicting the suffering recognising and making amends, if such a thing is even possible (I am in no place to comment on how a victim minority should deal with their trauma and grief).
The second is about the reform of institutions, behaviours and cultures that enable and maintain such injustices. Here, the social and environmental scientists, economists, politicians and all others who are needed to create a society come together and theorise and practice what is necessary for its creation. Thus, it is crucial that such theorists continue to think about the best possible way to do so, but that we don’t ignore the very real damage that has been made to people.
While I am aware that it is not my place to decide/propose a course of action to deal with many issues that affect many minorities in the world (again, I am in no place to comment on how a victim minority should deal with their trauma and grief), and I love to learn from what individuals that are affected by specific issues think about the way of understanding this phenomenon I am presenting here, I offer a brief analysis of the value of each attitude in our path towards social change.
The first approach seems to be primarily concerned with the process of healing that must take place. It could help us heal if victims are heard and perpetrators – or those correctly or otherwise perceived as such – listen, and both sides then move on to the next phase of healing whatever that may be. Once this extremely difficult and long task is achieved – indeed, if such a task is achievable (last time, I promise; I am in no place to comment on how a victim minority should deal with their trauma and grief), we may be able to start working on changing the structures that allowed for this to take place.
This brings us to the second approach, which is about us collaborating from a place of love and respect toward the creation of socio-political-economic structures that work for all. This is where the reform that will be necessary can be born, and thus where the harmful and unjust structures of society may give way to new ones based on new and better values which, in turn, help us birth a new culture.
I believe that for some people, the second approach may be part of the first, or vice versa. Whatever way they choose to see it, I think it is important to see when each approach is present, as this will allow people who disagree on the path to take and who are talking past each other to come to an understanding.