REFLECTIONS: EDUCATE DON’T FORCE

 

We are complicit with the creation of our surroundings. We shape our social environment through the content of our interactions with others.

We constantly read sentences like these above but never believe they are really relating to our life. We mostly believe, in the back of our minds, that we are a social product and must operate within the confines of our current society. We accept that if society is X then X is just the way things are, and that will not change.

When criticizing a social condition what we are really doing is criticizing our way of thinking which makes that condition possible.

In a free society individual’s buying patters indicate their preferences of goods. In a tyrannical society the choices of masters decide what someone can and cannot purchase. Our current society fluctuates between these two poles.

When attempting to rectify social conditions there are two general means of achieving goals. (1) Spread education to other members of society to encourage a revaluation of values or (2) lobby our masters and ask them to forcibly change the behavior of other people in our society hoping to alter conditions which makeup society.

While this broad description does not fit perfectly within the context of our mini-society of UH it offers some interesting insights that can be helpful. Even if the correlation is rough at places, the way we view our interaction with each other at UH shapes our larger views of politics and how to achieve goals within larger society.

When an individual purchases a cup of coffee from Starbucks or a T-shirt from the book store that person indicates they value the product received more or equal value to the money they exchange.

Unfortunately, as some social groups have correctly pointed out, many UH students do not take into account to the fullest extent the social conditions in which their buying patters make possible.

Here is what should be the main purpose of social groups: to educate, to promote awareness, and to encourage members of society to change their way of thinking. When the boundaries of our way of thinking have been pushed to the point where the old ways of evaluation become impossible change is inevitable.

Why not use the force of government, the institutionalized mechanism of coercion, to pursue social goals? The accomplishments are hollow. Let’s say Starbucks coffee disappears but the bulk of the majority never knows why or cares. They were never brought to understand how their actions create social conditions for thousands of others. Social ignorance still flourishes, laying the bed rock for further social contamination.

Moral justice through coercion, the forcible intervention of government to prevent the buying or selling of certain products, is no moral victory. Moral value is achieved through moral understanding, not forced results.

Moreover, we should keep in mind that people are free, autonomous agents. When we use the paternalistic fist of the government to force people to act a certain way, we strip people of their freedom. If we can use the government to coerce people into agreeing with us, the road to serfdom has been paved.

Actions aimed at governments or administrations, a convenient scapegoat, miss an opportunity to address a larger issue that it is us, UH students, who are to blame. The administration sets the contracts in which goods will be provided but we rubber stamp those policy through our willingness to purchase.

The lines are still long at Starbucks and it is still cool to where UH red clothes in their current condition. Until these facts change nothing should change. Until these facts change, we can not escape the fact, UH students don’t want change.

Spread education, boycott, provide alternatives, rally, but do not attack, shift blame, or scapegoat. Society can change only when we are willing to accept our connection to society and then it is only a matter of changing our methods of evaluation.

As Butler Shaffer, said best in his article On-reclaiming Self-Ownership, “To change the content of our thinking is not simply one of a number of strategies available to us if we wish to salvage society, it is the only means of doing so.”