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March 14, 2013 - ambition chance difference ethical relativism goal inspiration motivation pragmatics semantics wording
The sentiment behind “changing the world,” and “making a difference,” is very attractive and appeals to many driven people. While a loose interpretation of either phrase may make them synonymous, they can engender a unique set of attitudes and outcomes. The first phrase suggests a goal of change, while the second appeals to the desire to have an impact. I want to explore the subtleties that lie between a healthy and unhealthy ambition. Effectively doing this can help minimize a false sense of failure, and expectation of success.
The two phrases can have varying connotations depending on context, so for simplicity I’m only going to analyze the impact of the key word in each: change and difference. For something to change it usually has to be preferred to the situation that preceded it; it often has to be better than its predecessor. However, unlike “change,” making a difference can be making a contribution to existing systems. A person building homes is making a difference, but may not be changing the world.
Changing something is not simple. It is often hard to tell whether something is inefficient or improper because of a yet understood or utilized truth, or because it is inefficient by a fact of nature. In order to knowingly change something, you have to know which you’re dealing with. To me, the best way to do that is by starting with the way things are. A builder of 100 homes, who has been making a difference for decades, may come across an improvement in method, a change, but it’s not guaranteed.
The change *statement often can inspire defiance to status-quo, especially if it is wrong, such as creating more effective permit restrictions/permissions for builders. In some cases, the *change we’re talking about may be more centrally social than others, such as the difference Martin Luther King Jr. made. The idea of being the change encourages one to be willing to rise against the intuition to remain comfortable with the way things are, the threat of social conformity, or the explicit threat of a power. Whether or not Dr. King wanted change at the outset, he got there by making a difference: by putting the time into understanding the system of discrimination and the psychology behind it, and how to effectively rally against it. Only in hindsight do we understand that the newly different, would effectively become a change in social convention.
Change in Darwin’s Natural Selection has a built-in fail: bad change dies off. Change in capitalism does too: bad business models go bankrupt. But ethically-based change tends to pit one against the other, and can result in violent acts, and wars. This sounds like bad taste in the light of Dr. King’s positive ethical change, but we have to consider all the violent motives that have been born of the inspiration to change* (Nazism, terrorism). No doubt, many of these agents of *difference operated on the assumption that *change *would follow, that their proposed social order would be adopted by the world. As institutions are erected to prevent repeated instances, we have learned bitterly through these attempts at change, inviolable parts of social law.
I’m being dramatic for effect (I’m not directly concerned with analyzing social change). Big or little, the way to effective, informed change is by perfecting and understanding an existing system. By assigning your motivation directly to work, rather than outcome, you reduce the risk of making poor, value-focused choices. We are better served to “imitate the world” if we hope to effectively change it.