Part 1: Picking Fix

This is the first in a four part series of posts that deal with some of my most significant feels about change in the current world.

Over the past several weeks, I have had several conversations with my father, as well as a wide variety of other people about a topic that has always fascinated me as well as haunted me. This idea is that of social change: How do we bring it about, what do we want to bring, and how long will it take are just a few of the questions. With all of the time that I spend in youth group and other similar organizations, the idea of social action is incredibly common to discuss and execute. What interests me is the difference between social action and social justice.

Whenever anyone asks me, I always say that I am much less interested in social action and much more interested in social justice. The primary difference is that social action works to try to ease an issue, whereas social justice works more to completely end an issue in society.

I am constantly thinking of things that bother me about society. My biggest issue deals with our selection of passions. Why is it that so many people are arguing about gay and lesbian rights? Why can’t we just let the homosexuals alone and let them live freely? At the VERY LEAST it doesn’t affect anyone else. It isn’t bothering some snooty heterosexual who before was taking an active stance against gay rights. There are so many more pressing issues: starvation, poverty, disease, and a thousand more life threatening problems. I’m not saying gays shouldn’t have rights. Quite the opposite. I think we should stop questioning and debating their rights and simply give them to them and move on to more pressing issues.

I think it is of vital importance to find the things that are most important to our society that we need to change and to start as soon as possible. The days of being able to sit back and let others fix the world are over. We, each and every one of us, needs to start the work to repair those things that are plaguing our society and make sure that we are going about our lives the right way.