Argument paper: Social Change
It has been very important throughout time to the progression of society and the meaning of change for the individual to get involved and make a difference. The difference is now we understand that the individuals need to stand up and make the difference but constantly with this knowledge we still do not stand up and speak out against what we know is wrong. This aspect of society as a whole is something that needs to change. The individual and society are important to creating social change, this change has lead to a some of the greatest changes in society such as civil rights and suffrage of all people, we need to focus this change to focus on changing the things that are wrong today such as the complete legalization of all same sex-marriage.
Before we can understand what to do for social change we need to what social change is as a concept. Social change is using knowledge of what is right in the world to try to improve the livelihood of society. There are two important ways to do this, through education and hope. If our culture does not learn and figure out what is truly socially correct then we won’t change. We have used education in the past to “grow out” of ridiculous things that we use to believe such as segregation, no suffrage for women, and slavery. All of these where changed by people who realized that what was going on was not right so they need to protest and make a difference. The other thing people need is hope. Cornel West describes hope in Prisoners of Hope as “Hope enacts the stance of the participant who actively struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth inequality, group xenophobia, and personal despair.” (West 296-297) This means that there must be active participation if you want social change. Social change takes work, but if you truly believe in the concept it can truly make a huge difference in a world with many problems that need to be fixed.
People also need to understand the importance of society. Society is the combinations of the people and the ideas that they have and both of those fighting to coexist. Society is usually a peaceful place, but that is just because it covers up all of the problems. Society is constantly changing; there are different fads, different fashions, and different ideas. It also discovers and uncovers different problems. The key is to uncover these problems and bring these problems to the surface of society. If these are uncovered and put into the limelight it is easier to make change. For example the fact that same sex marriage was not even talked about as a problem until the 1980s just shows that it society had pushed the idea of sexual inequality out of the back of there mind. Society is half of what is needed to create social change.
Once you combine those ideas to society and to individuals you can start social change. If individuals realize, through knowledge, that there is a problem or an aspect of the current society that isn’t right, then they should raise awareness to change their ideas. A group of these individuals with the same ideas can change the ideas of society. The relationship between the individual and society is a give and take but if they come together they can change culture as a whole.
The most important thing is the individual. It is important for social change for that individual to understand that he or she is important. There is to many examples across the world that people think that there opinions, principles, or their vote does not matter so they do not do anything about their personal opinions. This is also a part of the reason that there is as much change as there should be. If all the people that thought that they wouldn’t make a difference would become active there would be major change to the bad things that happen. The key to creating change is the youth. The youth through out time has always been the group that created change through out history, the velvet revolution of Czechoslovakia, occupy Wall Street of the US, and Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 of China where all student led. If the youth are always the people that are causing change why is the youth the people the age group that votes the least? In the United States the voting rate for people between the age of 18 and 24 only voted 34 percent of the time. This is about half of the voting rate of those who are 45 and up; who are the people that are not are keeping the world the way it is. This is where the understanding of the individual comes into play. If at the youth could just realized that thyself as an individual are just as important as the group we could make a difference.
There are people across the nation that believe that we have done enough as a nation and we have grown out of the racism and bigotry of our past, but if this nation is truly a free nation America needs to move toward the rights of all. One of the biggest steps is to giving freedom to all is to have the United States Federal Government ratify an act or amendment stating that all marriages are equal. As of right now the US is falls under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was written in 1996 under President Bill Clinton. As of right now there are 30 states out of 50 including Washington DC that have legalized gay marriage, which means that there is 20 states that don’t allow someone to marry their significant other just because they are the same gender. Although the US has made great strides in the past two years, since 2013 twenty-two states legalized gay marriage. It may just be a matter of time before almost all of the states in union have same-sex marriage, but until the US government says that there should be same sex marriage, I don’t believe that it would happen in all 50 states. Legalizing gay marriage is just the moral right thing to do because it just does not make sense to care about what people do in the presence in there own home. The only reason why people do not think it should be legal is because they think its gross or it’s against there religious views. This doesn’t make since because there are plenty of things that are in the bible stated that people do not follow today. We cut our hair, we eat pork, we work on the Sabbath and out lawed slavery, and yet the world is still here. The people that are against the idea of same sex marriage are dying off everyday. It is an old idea, the society are growing out of the old ideas that they had in the past. It may only be a matter of time before there is change but this is not happening fast enough. It may be a states domain to control but so is the drinking age but somehow the United States controlled that. It’s time for the United States to step up and take control.
The American that understated that the fact that there is sexual inequality need to realize that isn’t enough to realize that there is something wrong. We have seen through out history that you must not just understated that there is something wrong with society, for true social change you must have active change. There must be conflict, there must be activism, and there must be protest because in you believe in something and does nothing about it, then there will be not any change. Martin Luther King touched on this in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he speaks on the fact that bystanders will mean nothing and if you are someone who thinks that they don’t want to do anything because they believe that is creates tension. “Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out to the open where it can be seen and dealt with.” (King 283) What King is stating in this quote is that if you think protesting is creating tension and conflict then you are wrong, it only brings out the tension that was already there. King also stated “I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace,” (King 283) King wants people to know that he doesn’t just expect protest out of the African American community, he also expects it out of the white Americans that understand that what was happening in the south is wrong. This can apply today, just because you do not fall into social change areas doesn’t mean that you should speak out against what you believe.
These ideas apply to protesting to obtain same-sex marriage in every state. Go to gay pride parades, sign petitions, and if you are in a state that does have same-sex marriage write your congressmen. It doesn’t mean that you are done if your state has same-sex marriage laws already. The job is not done until the whole of the United States is equal. Some of the most important people to have speaking out against the unjust marriage laws isn’t just the people that are homosexual, it is very important to have the loudest voice possible so people who understand that marriage should be equal and someone is heterosexual should be just important to the cause of change as someone who is a homosexual speaking out. It is important that everyone that believes that there is nothing wrong with same sex marriage that they help try to make a difference. The more people being active will create a larger difference.
These ideas don’t just have to apply to same sex marriage, there are so many different things out in the world that need change, not just the United States. The world is far from a perfect place. There is women’s rights in the Middle East, improvement in the education system, and dealing with the homeless and hungry. The lists go on forever, which is why we need to realize as individuals that it is a constant battle to be active in trying to change society because it is not going to change over night. It may never change to being perfect but that is something that needs to be done, and something that our future generations will thank us for doing. Chang is our way forward in to making the future world a better place for all of the future individuals.
The relationship between the individual and society create a certain aspect of social change that is very important. When these Individuals become active with society it creates the opportunity for social change and making difference in the world, as we know it today. Social change is a very important aspect of growth in the world’s culture as a whole. With out it we would go stagnant which creates an unbalanced society of hate and oppression, which leads to backwards thinking and bigotry. In the modern world there are many things that need social change for in society, for example sex marriage. We need everyone to get together to be active in trying to make a difference for the world a better place for the future generations of people.
Bibliogrophy
"27 States with Legal Gay Marriage and 23 States with Same-Sex Marriage Bans - Gay Marriage - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.
"Get the Facts on the Defense of Marriage Act." Human Rights Campaign. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.
Loeb, Paul Rogat. The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear. New York: Basic, 2004. Print.
Bureau, U.s. Census. Young-Adult Voting: An Analysis of Presidential Elections, 1964-2012 (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
King, Martin Luther. Letter from Birmingham Jail. Stamford, CT: Overbrook, 1968. Print.
West, Cornel, and Kelvin Shawn. Sealey. Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America. Boston, MA: Beacon, 1997. Print
Reflection
I connected really hard to the ideas of the paper but I felt distracted by my ideas of which I was writing. I think I wasn’t focus on what I was writing. What really helped where the other people’s reflections on what I was weighting. It helped me out with focusing and making my paper longer. I also felt like the paper didn’t need to be as long as I made it. I would have been better if it was about 2 pages shorter. I feel like there is some fluff that I added that doesn’t need to be there.
In writing my paper doing a lay out before hand made me focus and know what I was writing. I also liked adding the reflection at the end of the paper because it helps me focus on what I’m trying to say. Also the drafts we wrote to prepare helped me create a better paper. Also reviewing my paper made it a better paper
Over all this was a enjoyable paper to write, I think the reading that we read to prepare us to write this really helped. It really helped me think about the world as a whole.
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