Social change definitions
During a conversation with an ex-pat American here in Paris, we were discussing the very different perspectives on social change in the United States and France. The American perspective is mostly individualistic. Social change is seen as something to be achieved by changing the hearts of individuals, and above all by reforming one’s own life. One can see this tendency in the many hours individuals of the American Left spend practicing vegetarianism, recycling, and a whole host of important but fundamentally personal things. Occasionally, this philosophy reaches the silly level where adherents think their individual small acts will somehow magically change the entire world. In contrast, the French perspective is mostly collective, the critique mostly systemic. One sees this trend most severely in the vestiges of the Communist party, whose members believe that true social change will occur only with a revolution. This too reaches the height of absurdity, as when leftists here in France refuse to participate in current politics, preferring to wait for the promised revolution. In my own politics, I’ve always believed in a position somewhere between the two poles makes the most sense. It’s about building a politics of the actual rather than a politics of the ideal. As was once said, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
