swfchan: The_Venus_Project_Essays_-_New_Frontiers_of_Social_Change_(Part

Text

The following is a
audio reading of one of
Jacque Fresco’s Essays.
New Frontiers of Social Change
(Part 2 of 3)

Many people throughout history have taken
politicians to task for actions that have not
been entirely in society’s best interest. The
reasons for this become clearer when one
realizes that even in modern democracies,
these leaders do not benefit the lives of the
average person. Rather, they maintain the
preferential positions of much of the
established order. There are growing
indications of awareness on the part of people
in many areas of the world that events have
gone beyond the control of their political
leaders. Everywhere we see political figures
and parties come and go, political strategies
adopted and discarded for their inability to
satisfy the demands of one faction or another.

The reason that we do not suggest writing your
congressman, or any number of
governmental agencies, is that they lack the
necessary knowledge to deal with our
problems. Their focus is to preserve existing
systems, not to change them. It appears that
there are few within present-day societies who
want to phase themselves out. In modern
industrial societies the cause of inaction lies
within the cumbersome political process
itself, an anachronism in an era when most
decisions can be made on any important issue
in a split second by the objective entry of
relevant data into computers.

The prime conditions that would really effect
social change will come about when
conditions have deteriorated to such an extent
that governments, politicians, and social
institutions no longer have the support and
confidence of the people. What once worked
is acknowledged to be no longer relevant. If
the public were better informed, only then
would it be possible to introduce a new and
improved social arrangement. Unfortunately,
today the majority of people respond to
simplistic answers, which tend to repeat the
cycle of events. When faced with intolerable
social conditions, many of the older patterns
will emerge again as people attempt to find
someone or something to blame for the
conditions, e.g. minorities, immigrants,
negligence in adhering to religious principles
or family values, and the influences of some
inexplicable supernatural forces.

True social change is not brought about by
men and women of reason and good will on a
personal level. The notion that one can sit and
talk to individuals and alter their values is
highly improbable. If the person one is talking
to does not have the fundamental knowledge
of the operation of scientific principles and the
processes of natural laws, it is difficult for
them to understand how the pieces fit together
on a holistic level.

The solutions to our problems will not come
about through the application of reason or
logic. Unfortunately, at present we do not live
in a reasonable or logical world. There appears
to be no historical record of any established
society’s leader who deliberately and
comprehensively redesigned a culture to fit the
changing times. While there is no question that
political leaders, to a limited extent, modify
some modes of behavior, the real factors
responsible for social change are brought
about by bio-social pressures, which are
inherent in all social systems. Change is
brought about by natural or economic
occurrences that adversely affect the
immediate circumstances of large numbers of
people.

Some bio-social pressures responsible for
social change are limited resources, war,
overpopulation, epidemics, natural disasters,
economic recession, downsizing on a mass
scale, technological displacement of people by
machines, and the failure of elected
officials to overcome such problems. The
introduction of the medium of money to the
exchange process brought about a significant
change in society, as did the introduction of
mechanized agriculture and the Industrial
Revolution.

Unfortunately, the world’s outmoded social,
political, and international order is no longer
appropriate to these times. These obsolete
social institutions are unable to grasp the
significance of innovative technology to
achieve the greatest good for all people, and to
overcome the inequities forced upon so many.
Competition and scarcity have caused an
atmosphere of jealousy and mistrust to
develop between individuals and nations. The
concepts of proprietary rights, intellectual
property, copyrights, and patents manifested in
corporate entities and in the sovereignty of
nations, preclude the free exchange of
information that is necessary to meet global
challenges. The European Union represents
an attempt to bridge the present with the
future, but it falls far short in that it relies on
the crutch of the monetary system.

To be continued on
The Venus Project Essays -
New Frontiers of Social
Change (Part 3 of 3)
For more information visit
www.thevenusproject.com
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

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