Change Is a Choice
Personal change can only come from within, from the desire of an individual.
I say this because there seems to be some confusion about it. There are a lot of people who think you can decree rules or laws from “above” that will result in individual change. These do-gooders might mean well, but they are missing the point, and their work will never result in positive, lasting change. The only thing that can is the choice an individual makes for himself, by having the freedom to make his own decisions, his own mistakes, and to come to his own conclusions.
The reason for this is that a person’s view of the world is completely and utterly subjective. Everybody has a unique interpretation of life that arises from the sum of their experience. We all share similar wants and needs (to be loved and respected, for example), but nobody ever really knows what it’s like to be another person, or how another person sees the world. Our internal world is the only world any of us can ever truly know; this is what “personal and subjective” means. Everything important to us exists in this personal and subjective space.
In this personal realm, change must happen by choice. Of course not all those choices are conscious; many of our beliefs are products of our culture and our upbringing, neither of which we have any choice about. But within the confines of things we do make conscious choices about–career, education, friendships, romance, entertainment, diet, work habits, and values, to name a few–we weigh the pros and cons, we deliberate on the issues involved, and we decide what we want to do. We consider outside influences, absolutely, and we are influenced by things beyond our awareness, yes. But in the end, the choice is ours and ours alone. Or, to state the obvious, choice happens voluntarily.
Many people think they can create a better world by trying to force others to make better choices, or, as is more often the case, prohibit them from making bad choices. Such social controls have been around for a long time. A few hundred years ago, they were primarily the province of religion, which threatened disobedience with eternal hellfire. Today, these social controls are largely accomplished through legislation, which threatens disobedience with fines, imprisonment, or both. Neither religion nor law has had much success with actual personal change, the kind of change that really would make the world a better place.
Instead, they merely squelch the means by which people can do and get and behave as they want. And rather than resulting in people wanting different things for themselves, such prohibitions instead tend to result in black market economies that provide the restricted item or an adequate substitute for it. As long as social controls have been around, people have risked both hell and imprisonment to resist them and do what they want. Not exactly positive change, is it?
The Prohibition Act of the 1920s is perhaps the strongest example of this. Not only did people continue to drink, but drinking increased. This era also prompted the rise of organized crime in the U.S., as those willing to take risks got rich providing alcohol by subversive means. After ten years, the federal government admitted defeat and repealed the amendment so people could once again do out in the open what they’d been doing behind closed doors for a decade.
Unfortunately, an identical prohibition continues today with all the conflicting and hypocritical drug laws, which also allow criminals to get rich providing for people what they can’t obtain legally. And in this absurd “war” on drugs, everybody seems to ignore the fact that if people didn’t want them, the problem would vanish overnight. Why is this ignored? Because from an external viewpoint, the demand side of the equation is an unsolvable problem. You can’t force people to want different things. Until people choose different pasttimes, drugs will continue to be exchanged in a thriving marketplace, legal or illegal.
Similar prohibitions have created similar black markets around the world. In soviet Russia, there was a black market for everything from meat to Levi’s–whatever people wanted that the government couldn’t or wouldn’t allow a market for. Today in countries like China, where the Internet is censored by the government, people have found ways to bypass the mainstream channels to get unfettered Internet access. If you can afford it, there is always a way to get what you want.
The moral is that external rules do not change what people want. This mountain of historical evidence doesn’t stop do-gooders, though. Every new generation has new ills and people who think they can cure them through legislation or some other coercive means. They look around at all the problems of the world and say, “My god, we must do something!” And they proceed to try to change how the king thinks by moving around the chess pieces on the board. Sometimes, the controls even succeed in changing people’s behavior. But they can never succeed at what they’re really meant to do, which is to improve the internal quality of people’s desires and choices.
Now, it is entirely possible to create an environment conducive to personal change, an environment in which people ponder and question and reflect on themselves, their lives, and the choices they’ve made and want to make in the future. It is entirely possible to encourage and support people in their desire to improve themselves or their lot in life. And it is important, if you think you have a valid message, to make the effort to help people who want to to change. But that’s as far as it can go. Anything more is not only ineffective, it is disrespectful. Most importantly of all, it violates people’s freedom–and freedom must always trump social control, even if that freedom means allowing someone to go to hell the way he sees fit.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a stellar example of an organization that elicits change from the inside out. AA creates an environment where people can get help if they want it (or as they themselves put it, an environment where a “spiritual change” can occur), but it never forces that help on people. In fact, unsolicited desire for sobriety is so crucial to the program’s success that it is written into the group’s by-laws: the third tradition states that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” This was a brilliant awareness of the founders of AA. Such desire is not only how sobriety occurs, it is how all personal change occurs.
Sometimes do-gooders will make the argument that the world doesn’t have time to wait for change to happen. This argument, they think, justifies their foisting of laws and rules and limits and prohibitions on people in the name of “the public good” or of “saving people from themselves.” They claim the behavior will cause suffering to society, or future generations, or taxpayers (fill in the blank), and it must be stopped. But aside from what we’ve already established–that such means have a dismal record of success–this is a very dangerous argument for anyone who cares about their personal freedom. It always precedes efforts to place ever-greater controls on people, which is really just another way of saying efforts to restrict people’s freedom to do what they want. Taken to its logical extreme, this argument could be used to modify every single aspect of society and human behavior–and to hand over ever more control to the powers that already have too much of it. Of course there are many problems with many behaviors, today as always. And sometimes these behaviors have repercussions that echo ominously through the halls of a culture. But social controls will always have vastly more far-reaching repercussions than any personal behavior could, and none of them are good.
It’s true that personal change can be very, very slow, if it happens at all. It’s true that change is hard, that looking inside yourself and trying to become better is hard. Just as it’s harder to be fit than fat, it’s harder to think critically than it is to be intellectually lazy. Thus, there will always be more shallow, intellectually lazy people in the world than there will be critically thinking, introspective ones. Sad as this might be (and I’m not convinced it is), the only person any of us has the power to transform is ourselves.
Sometimes this can be hard to accept, but acceptance is the only viable option we have, and here’s why. The only way people truly change is by their own volition, when they have the freedom of choice to do so. So if we really want to create a world where positive change is possible, and valued, we must work for ever greater levels of freedom and ever greater levels of understanding. It may seem like the long way around, but as with all things worth having, the long way is the only way that results in anything worthwhile.
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[...] truly help another person is to become a Whole person yourself.–Lama Everest Having said all that, I want to be clear that I don’t mean we should throw up our hands and give up on people or on [...]
Hi, I think this is a very, very delicate issue, Kitty, and must not be dealt with as black and white.
I don’t largely disagree with you, but don’t fully agree with either, because it seems to me that your take on it is black and white.
//..freedom must always trump social control.//
It’s true, but not always, I think. When a child is fascinated by fire and is running into it, doesn’t a parent have a right to stop/control it? The child would then cry and scream, perhaps, for being thwarted. But so, should it be allowed to run into the fire saying that it has a right to learn that fire is hot, for himself, and that would a lesson better learned? The child might get severely burned, right? Similarly (and we have discussed it before), we put control on terrorists; impose our moral standard on them.
What I am trying to say is, that the instinct to control collective social behavior isn’t wrong in itself. I also tend to think it has an evolutionary significance. Like, if parents didn’t feel an instinct to control their children’s behavior, the infants might not survive. At larger, social, level too a similar arrangement is at work.
In the above examples, it is clear that control is the right thing. However, we do have complex issues where it is not as clear whether the control is right, because maybe the impact of an individual doing the wrong isn’t so severe on society. Like, when someone does alcoholism (or to take a milder example, watches porn), one would say there should not be laws prohibiting it. It’s okay, because its impact may not be severe. But if someone is doing cocaine, then? Maybe then, more people would agree that there should be legal restraint, because people see an impact of it rather severe. Just examples they are. You see the point.
Now, drug addicts are probably never going to learn to think critically. But if we created a free environment and allowed them the freedom, then maybe other impressionable youngsters won’t see doing drug as destructive thing and might be encouraged to do it too. By creating restrictive environment we make a statement that it is wrong.
So, the restrictions are not always wrong in principle. I agree, that a lot of the times the ones putting such restrictions are not the most able-minded people to put those restrictions, and so in each case many have to suffer. But I tend to think that since human life is such complex, none of us can come up with perfect solutions even with best of intentions and best use of minds. There will be trade-offs in every policy decisions, there will be unfair costs and benefits to an extent. But in the end, the balance is maintained, precisely because we always have two conflicting camps.
//The moral is that external rules do not change what people want. This mountain of historical evidence doesn’t stop do-gooders, though.//
The do-gooders must not stop. We should definitely create an environment for people such that they can develop on their own, and that’s the best way. But restrictions, many of them, in principle, are right and they do-good, too.
You gave some examples where restrictions have failed. My terrorist and drug-doer examples perfectly justify legal restrictions (I hope). So, what does it say about the desirability of restrictions? We both gave black and white sort of issues, but in the middle issues what should we do? Ideally, complex, middle issues are best left to be solved by interaction of conflicting ideologies each favoring restrictions and against it. Because really, those issues aren’t black and while. Let’s paint them grey, or some variation of it, lest otherwise we make a mess!
I don’t have perfect answer to those problems, but I would be wary of suggesting a black and white answer.
If we never controlled people, it might result in the situation of Tragedy of the commons sooner than later.
That’s the point of legalizing morality.
Hi Darshan,
I think you misunderstand what I mean by social controls (mostly because I should have defined it more clearly). Social controls are coercive methods, such as laws, created by people who have the power to do so, such as politicians (or in earlier times, often the church), meant to make people conform to some idea of what is morally correct. An example of a decent and proper social control would be one that prohibited people from inflicting harm on others. An example of an indecent and improper social control would be, well, IMO, just about everything else. By this definition, laws prohibiting terrorism are moral and just, while laws prohibiting drug use are not–and this includes use of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and every other drug, including those now only available by permission of a doctor. (And also, it should be obvious, but parental teaching and discipline does not qualify as a social control.)
What I’m saying is that issues of personal choice, that do no harm to others, belong solely and completely within the realm of individual choice. And this is true even though many individuals make poor choices about many things.
It is true that that the world is complex, and that there are many gray areas in which it is difficult to determine what requires prohibition and what does not. The “tragedy of the commons” is a good example of this. But IMO, this is an argument for LESS regulation, not more; I would never presume to understand the complexities of such a problem without careful research and analysis, and nor should anyone else. Because we are so fallible and so capable of errors in judgment, we must be very, very careful about what laws and prohibitions we think ought be imposed on a society. Laws are not a solution to moral dilemmas, and considering them such is a dangerously slippery slope. Does this mean people are going to have rely on their own experience and learn from their own mistakes instead of relying on some external authority to tell them what’s best for them? Yes, absolutely. The end result would be a society that valued critical thinking far more than what we now have.
Thus, I stand by my statement that personal freedom must always, always, always, ALWAYS trump social control–except, as I said, in cases of inflicting harm on others. Without freedom, that is, the right to own our own minds and bodies completely, we lose what makes us human. To me, this is the bottom line argument that all those advocating “morality thru legislation” tragically miss. And BTW, “morlity through legislation” is a contradiction in terms: “that which is outside the province of choice is outside the province of morality.” In other words, coercion does not create a more moral society, it creates a less moral society.
If you don’t understand why this is so, I would be happy to elaborate on it.
I would also like to make an observation: In all your arguments for imposing restrictions on a society, you always refer to other people’s behavior, never your own. Please keep in mind that if you believe it is alright to impose your ideas of what’s best on others, then it is also alright for others to impose their ideas of what’s best on you. If you follow this logic to its inevitable conclusion, then you end up with a society in which those who whine the loudest to the government get their way (which today means those with the biggest bribes-er, I mean “campaign contributions”). Which is pretty much the system we now have in the U.S.
In summary, we all have opinions and ideals, yes, and we ought all feel free to share these with each other. And problem-solving through a meeting of different minds is wonderful. But there is nobody out there who has enough knowledge, wisdom, education, or experience that they should have the power to direct how other individuals should conduct their lives. To think that it is possible to have that power in any form is, to me, the height of both arrogance and ignorance.
//Please keep in mind that if you believe it is alright to impose your ideas of what’s best on others, then it is also alright for others to impose their ideas of what’s best on you.//
I am aware of that fallacy. That’s the reason I mentioned I don’t have perfect answer for these problems. Because I am also POSITIVE that “no restrictions” will do more harm than benefit, especially since all our societies are increasingly being governed by bodies with profit as the only motive.
//..laws prohibiting terrorism are moral and just, while laws prohibiting drug use are not..//
Are you assuming that people doing drug don’t do harm to the society? Let’s take an example: I have a family with three members. Myself, my brother and my mom. My mom is severely ill. (Just an example.) My income isn’t enough to support her condition. My brother could earn, and things could be okay. BUT, he says he is interested in doing drugs and he doesn’t care! Because by doing drug he isn’t harming any one but himself. Being an autonomous human being, he has the right to do drugs, even if that means him not getting job, and the tragedy at home. What do I think about this? I think it is immoral of him, because in an interconnected life, to think for oneself alone is, in principle, wrong and immoral.
In larger context, at social level too the same thing happens. A human being in a civilized society is, by birth, a part of the society. Any person thinking of himself as a distinct, independent agent who can think only for himself, is committing a fallacy that, in principle, would lead to “tragedy of the commons”. Hence, if one believes in “moral framework” then one is automatically obliged to not act in a way that only serves one’s own selfish interests, without benefiting at all to the society. Because just by existing, one is a cost to the society.
Hence, ASSUMING we have immaculate and infallible mechanism to measure our moral judgement, I would go so far as to say that any human being who is able-bodied and able-minded, but isn’t contributing to social wellbeing, and is thus only a liability, can be imposed external morality by those whose judgement is better.
The problem (which I am fully aware of) is in the measurements of who is right and wrong. We don’t have immaculate and infallible capacity of judgement. And for that there is no solution. That is what makes the issue grey. And there I don’t see black and white answer.
I could be wrong, and I will think further. But right now I still hold to my point.
Yes, of course drug use can cause problems for families and society. But this is true for any selfish behavior. The problem is that, by this rationale, the powers that be can rationalize any and all controls they put into place to coerce people into doing what they want them to do. This is the slippery slope I was talking about. We are seeing that now with personal choice issues such as smoking and eating. I saw a billboard the other day by a health insurance company that said “We beat smoking! Obesity, you’re next!” Do you really think this is alright, for insurance companies to have so much influence over our personal choices? Because this is where that ideology ends up.
Yes, the choice is between accepting societal ills as part of life or trying to eradicate them with freedom-prohibiting laws. Since the laws rarely work anyway, and it is an illusion that society can be made safe from all harm, I prefer to take my risks in a (mostly) free society and let others do the same.
Everybody, just by existing, is a cost to society. Everybody uses resources to survive. Maybe some use more than others, but this is a very complex and difficult thing to measure. Many drug addicts, for example, have also been great artists, writers, and inventors. This is also true for fat people and people who smoke. And BTW, the overwhelming majority of drug users hold down a job and pay their taxes like everybody else. Addiction to the point of self-destruction is a tiny percentage of the population: look it up if you don’t believe me.
Anyway, my point is that the desire to coerce people into certain behaviors can be justified by almost any statistic or rationale, but that doesn’t make it right, and if you look deeper into the issue, you will inevitably find that the people who benefit the most are the ones who want the laws passed. Society certainly does not: each time we lose the option to make our own decisions, we are one step away from freedom and one step closer to tyranny, fascism, and infantilization.
Your solution to societal ills is more social controls to fix things; my solution is less; for people to learn to think for themselves. I think this is because I have a clearer idea of where the ideology of social control ends up. My bottom line is that the more power a government has, the less freedom its citizens have. If you think social controls (beyond protection from harm) make the world a better place, then you don’t value personal freedom, and if you don’t value personal freedom, you will lose it.
I am not going to change my mind about this. It is one of my most basic, bottom line, first-principle values upon which all my other ideas rest. It is not the most popular of views these days, and I know you will be hard-pressed to find others who see things this way, but they’re out there. Read: Ayn Rand, Thomas Szasz, Andrew Napolitano, Ron Paul, Ludwig Von Mises, Peter Schiff, for starters. And please don’t get back to me until you have done some research.
Just one tiny clarification:
//Your solution to societal ills is more social controls to fix things; my solution is less;//
No, ma’am! Your solution is clear, but I have NO SOLUTION. That’s my exact position, not “more social control”. I am absolutely for creating awareness and letting people learn and think for themselves first. But at the same time, I think controls are required to an extent people are ignorant. Where the equilibrium will be, that I DON’T KNOW, BECAUSE IT IS GREY.
I won’t comment anymore. Thanks.
Darshan pointed me to this article and it is an age-old debate: libertarianism versus conservative morality (including using legislation).
For the record, I am a libertarian when it comes to myself, the wise me, and a dictator when it comes to the millions of infantile fools that I see around.
Seriously though, our individuation is not a given. Our attitudes, thought processes and behavior patterns are formed from myriad influences prevalent in our times, and most people act in statistically predictable ways.
When somebody says that he/she should be allowed to be a free individual, it is mostly that he/she is asking for freedom from the coercive effects of others’ disapproval.
And the progress of civilization and human rights can be seen (in one way) as it becoming more and more safe to be unpopular. Victim-less crimes are sought to be decriminalized.
Let’s take a few examples:
1. A person wanting to ride his motorcycle without a helmet.
2. A person wanting to see what cocaine feels like.
3. A person wanting to opt out of a marital contract because he is bored.
4. A person wanting to keep/abort a fetus.
These are all subjects of contemporary debate, and if people feel strongly enough about these things, they will legislate what they think is appropriate behavior. I think it is perhaps unwise, and certainly incorrect, and an extreme form of libertarianism, to say that all such social and legislative control is counter-productive.
Many people do not think of long term consequences, and not everybody is wise enough to do so. Moreover, people expect the society to pay for the consequences of their short-term thinking. It is society which has to keep a drug addict in an emergency room, it is society which legislates alimony for no-fault divorces, tax breaks for single moms, to take care of the kids of a fool who became a vegetable because he wasn’t wearing a helmet when he crashed.
As long as society is providing and is responsible for an individual and for the consequences for his acts, the individual cannot claim total freedom to do whatever he wants, even if it is to harm only himself.
It may be a slippery slope, and we have to constantly be vigilant, but the libertarian slope is not automatically a less slippery one.
See for example:
@Darshan – The fact that we control children for their own good in no way can be extended to controlling adults. It’s a well established fact of jurisprudence as well as common sense that children don’t know what’s good for them and are therefore under the legal guardianship of their parents. Once a person enters adulthood however, they are responsible for themselves. That burden cannot be shifted onto anyone – not their parents, not the government, and especially not “society”.
@Kitty – as far as” hard” drugs go, I’d like to point out that these substances actually “change” the way our brain works. While it’s true that the initial decision to take the drug is within the realm of choice of an adult, I don’t believe it’s so cut and dried for subsequent consumption. “Soft” drugs like marijuana are comparatively harmless. There are other dangerous substances like crystal meth or cocaine which are murderously addictive – to the point where it is debatable whether or not one has free will while craving their consumption.
We know that drug addicts for example are willing to go to any extremes in order to fulfill their cravings. Mothers will sell their children, others will give up everything they have in order to obtain the next “fix”. My opinion is that these are not the actions of a rational person.
So while I’m entirely in favor of personal choice and strongly believe that no social control should be exerted on a free person as long as they keep their hands to themselves, “hard drug” use has to have a measure of regulation because it strips a person of their free will.
Hi Bhagwad,
Thank you for the response to Darshan; I think you are exactly right on here.
As for the drugs, well, what you say is true, that drugs change change how the brain works. But unless the drug use is chronic and long-term, the change is temporary. Furthermore, much of the general terror out there about drug use is based on propaganda and misinformation. Very, very few drug users become addicts, and of those who do, a small percentage become criminals to support their habit. It’s very possible to use “hard” drugs recreationally; many people do so. I’m not encouraging drug use, or saying that it’s a wise personal choice, but the vast majority of drug users do so recreationally and responsibly, holding down jobs, paying their taxes, and not being a burden on “society.”
I am not advocating drug use, but I do think people should look into the actual statistics before engaging in this argument. And also keep in mind that the US government (I can’t speak for other countries) wages a hypocritical war on drugs that costs the taxpayer (“society”) WAY more than the tiny percentage of drug users who turn into criminals to support their habit.
Just some food for thought.
Thanks for the comment,
Kitty