Abstract
Social change describes the transformations of a society in terms of values systems, social organization, and practices. What may appear a radical idea at one moment in history can become a taken-for-granted norm at another. Woman’s suffrage, civil rights, and environmental concern are all powerful twentieth-century examples of this. The same might be said for the normalization of new technologies, such as the Internet, smart phones, and AI. The prototype of dramatic social change is the French revolution, which aimed to create a sharp break with traditional society and socially engineered a new one based on the enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Yet its ultimate failure to uphold its values and achieve the strived for society demonstrates some of the inherent limitations to radical social change. Social change often coincides with, and is driven by the idea of, a possible future society different from the current one – in other words, an awareness of the difference between the actual and the possible opens up. This can happen when we are confronted with other societies’ ways of doing things, a minority that persistently communicates an alternative view of reality, and more specifically social movements’ imaginations of alternative futures and motivation to actualize them. Whether efforts to bring about social change are successful depends on both power and moral vision – if it is effectively communicated and connects up with the public’s values.
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Wagoner, B., Power, S.A. (2022). Social Change. In: Glăveanu, V.P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90913-0_143
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