I thought conservatives would know some history.

[catsittingstill]

I've been staying at my Dad's house over the holidays.  This exposes me to reading material I wouldn't ordinarily see, like the Wall Street Journal.  Reading the Wall Street Journal is a valuable reminder of why I generally don't.  For example there is this piece by David Horowitz.

The part that caught my eye was this:

"My life experience had led me to conclude that not only was changing the world an impossible dream,..."

Changing the world is an impossible dream.  This is apparently so well accepted by his conservative audience he doesn't even need to mention why he thinks so, he just tosses it off on the way to something else. 

Changing the world is an impossible dream.

Thomas Jefferson, Fredrick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King will be devastated to hear that.  John Snow, Louis Pasteur, Edwin Chadwick and Margaret Sanger will grieve over their wasted lives.  Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase; John Dalton and Antoine Lavoisier; Wilhelm Rontgen and Marie Curie, have not advanced human understanding one iota.  Henry Ford, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Bill Gates have not changed one single thing about the world we live in.

Except, there was a time, not that long ago, actually, when slavery was an accepted fact, women were effectively owned by their male relatives, more than half of all people died before they turned ten, and nobody had the faintest idea why the sun came back in the morning. 

Changing the world is not just possible; changing the world is inevitable.

Comments

[bobg58.livejournal.com]

Actually.... I can't change the world... and you can't change the world. It's just too big.

But we can, through whatever means we have at our disposal, reach other people and convince them of our thoughts and ideas.... Then together, we can change the world.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I have already helped change the world in small but effective ways. I anticipate a few more opportunities to do so to come my way in the coming years.

& I don't just mean the "pass it on" type of change. I don't intend the "every child is a hope for the future" sort of change, though goodness knows I've done those too. No I mean the "everybody's life is better for my having been there & done what I've done" type of change. & you can do it too.

Sometimes it happens because you just happened to be in the right place & know the right people, & sometimes it happens because it's an integral step towards a larger goal that you are part of a larger group working for an ideal. Either way, we can all do something to make the world a better place or we can fight the inevitable.

Just take a look at the world & say: "What does the world need, & what can I do about it?" and get busy.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

My apologies to Bobg58. I meant this to be part of the larger discussion.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I think change is inevitable. That doesn't mean it will be *good* change--indeed if it is made without careful thought it's pretty likely to be bad change. Which is part of why I advocate working for change deliberately--changing stuff accidentally is generally unlikely to improve anything.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

The world is big and we are small. But Fredrick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were small too. We may not live to see the changes we work to bring about, but our work matters. Convincing other people to help change the world is a big part of how we change the world--it counts.