What is social change?

This parable with roots in African folklore helps explain...

A swiftly running river is an asset to the village, which sets itself up near the river's banks. However, from time to time, babies get swept away by the river, and the entire village must work together to rescue the baby.

Over time, the villagers may become well organized at undertaking such rescues, and they may even decide to post a lookout to watch the river and to alert the villagers when a rescue effort is needed. Clearly, such a coordinated rescue effort is needed, and no one would disagree that saving babies from drowning is a most valuable use of the village's resources. However, if the villagers pursue no further actions and believe that they have solved the baby-drowning problem, they are not only mistaken, but they have doomed themselves to forever having to rescue babies.

What they need to do in addition to organizing well their baby-rescuing efforts is to determine how it is that the babies are getting into the river in the first place and take steps to prevent it from happening. But if they believe that they have solved the problem or if they have expended as many of their available resources as they can afford in organizing the rescue activities, then they will never address the ultimate causes. Babies will forever be at risk, and although a good number of them might be saved by the village's efficient rescue efforts, future babies will continue to be at risk of drowning and some number of rescues will fail.

The social change approach dictates that we expend some of our resources on determining the causes (finding out how the babies are getting or being thrown in the river in the first place) and how to change these causes. One of the ironies of the United States being such a rich nation is that we have come to believe that we can afford to undertake such individual rescue efforts and ignore the prior question of causality. Obviously, this is less cost-effective in the long run; however, than if we altered the problem at its roots, thereby preventing people from being placed in crisis situations in the first place.

Source: American Behavioral Scientist, Feb2000, Vol. 43 Issue 5, p895 Sam Marullo & Bob Edwards