Forces that Influence Social Change

There are many factors that can affect what causes a society to change, and why it causes this change. The change can occur differently for each society. One of the most important components to social change was the emergence of the charismatic leader. These leaders would have different types of visions and styles that they believed would make the society perfect to their terms. I do not like the idea of this because what one leader wants may not be the best for the rest of the people. For example Hitler and his beliefs that the world could not have any Jewish people, and that people with blue eyes and brown hair were considered to be perfect. This however was not what the people needed. Instead of wasting time and money trying to make this so called ‘perfect’ community, there could have been a more important leader who was trying to provide food and shelter to those without homes, education for those who could not afford it, and jobs for everyone that was without one. This would have made a far more better, and advanced community that would probably have turned out very successful. With the termination of many people, there population greatly decreased, along with the respect to every human that should be equal.

Changes to the society are not only caused by the leader, but they can also be caused by the people of the society. If a culture has very little money, and is almost to the point of ‘powerless’, the population can slow the change of the society if they do not agree to their leaders’ views. This is good for the people of the society because it gives them a chance to resist against the leader if they feel he is not doing something right or a good enough of a job.

Another factor that affects a society is the ‘disenfranchised’ groups of people. These groups of people include people who do not adopt to change easily, also known as ‘alienation’. Also, the unemployed people are included in this ‘alienation’ group of people. They are considered in this group because they are not living up to their full potential as human beings, and are not making the change happen, as it should. I think that every person should try there hardest to work, and there should be no need for the homeless people. I believe that it is all choice, and for example in Canada right now there are many people in Toronto that are currently struggling to live. If they would just get a job, even working minimum wage then they could manage to survive much better than they are now.

Discrimination can play a huge part in the change of a society. There are many minorities, which do not seem to get the full privileges that everyone else does. However this is starting to occur less in modern times, as we now have a new president of African American descent. However it still must be improved because we still refer to him as an African American, although as Mike was saying in class, why not see him as the better of two people running for president. I believe that we still have some time to go before we start saying this and treat everyone as an equal.

Change will always continue to happen, and societies and leaders will always change, whether there views or their beliefs, and it will most likely never be a perfect society.