I have grave suspicions whenever someone declares that change is going to cause some discomfort. I think they usually mean it will cause some discomfort for you. They have already made the changes they are going to, and now it is your turn.
At least, that's what I sometimes meant when I used to say such things. I don't say that anymore, having been on the receiving end of it too often. Others decide there will be changes. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that. They may be in positions of authority which allows or even requires it. But the reluctance of others to sign on quickly and happily is seen as a fault, not as a possible indicator that the change is not the right one. It's their change, of course it's the right one!
It has been said that a difference between conservatives and liberals is that for liberals, heaven is in the future, and that for conservatives, heaven is in the past. Another way of expressing that is that for liberals, change is good, and for conservatives, change has the potential to make things worse. By temperament, I am a conservative, because in my childhood I experienced a fair number of events that made things worse- sometimes as quickly as in the blinking of an eye. I had gut experiences that told me that change wasn't always good.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in college I read National Review from time to time, as I wanted to know what the enemy was up to. I was surprised to read in National Review a letter to the editor from the brother of a high school classmate of mine. He wrote that while he was a conservative at Columbia, a very liberal place, his views were respected.
It turned out that his parents were also conservative. This very much surprised me, as his Jewish parents had fled Austria after Hitler annexed it. It took me a while to make sense of that, as one would expect them to be liberals.
Before Hitler, life for Jewish people in Germany and Austria wasn't perfect, but it was bearable and quite often comfortable. Hitler came to power shouting at the top of his lungs that he was going to CHANGE everything. Which he did. Not all change is good.
While it was a good change to get rid of Jim Crow laws, not everyone is aware that Jim Crow laws didn't come about until about 30 years after the end of the Civil War. The passage of Jim Crow laws wasn't a change for the good- though many white Southerners viewed it that way.
Change??? I'll knock you on the head and run off with your "change".
ReplyDeleteYeah, I do GRUMPY.
ReplyDeleteThat would be for FUN, not PROFIT.
The talk about change that annoys me is the technique of dismissing legitimate concerns by accusing me of simply being uncomfortable with change in any form. I like change just fine when the change is for the good, which it often is in my life. I believe in progress on all kinds of fronts. But try to shift the focus from the harm I'm objecting to, to my supposed allergy to change in all forms, and I'll just conclude you have no substantive defense to my prediction of clear and present danger of harm that outweighs even the projected benefits of some boneheaded program or other.
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