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.

Louder than words

I was listening to the radio in the car today. I heard a song that I have heard a thousand times. I heard the song "Shots" by LMFAO. I've hummed along to this song many times before, but this time, I stopped to listen to the words for a minute.

What a mistake that was. I have never heard a song quite like it. The language was so intense I'm not even comfortable putting it on my blog post right here. This was the type of radio station that my 12 year old brother would listen to, and that I would have on in the car while he is with me. Yet talking about women in a demeaning way, inappropriate language as if it were cool, and alcohol as if it were a glorified substance to be abused.

As I arrived at my destination, I shut off the radio and exited my car at the mall. At the mall, the song and its teaching kept running through my mind. Suddenly, I passed several stores that sold all sorts of products: clothing, makeup, jewelry, and more. What I found interesting was that almost everyone I saw had a bag of some kind. Everyone.

I'm a big fan of the saying "actions speak louder than words". But what is even louder than that is that money. What we as a society spend our money on is what defines us as a culture. The fact that LMFAO has sold thousands (if not millions) of songs on iTunes. The fact that so many people are willing to spend their money on this inappropriate type of "art" is, at first, somewhat surprising. What is not surprising is that most of the purchasing is done by ignorance. Many people do not take the time to listen to the words of each song, to understand what it is that we are endorsing with our credit cards and checks.

The same can be said at the mall. I'm sure that many people have purchased products that have been suspected of atrocities to either human or animal ways of life. Both the companies Nike and Ugg boots have been proven at some point in their histories to use sweatshop work and animal cruelty respectively. Whether they still do this I will not claim to know, but I am not buying Ugg boots. I know too many girls who are avid animal rights activists, enthusiastic defenders of ethical treatment of animals who wear these boots out of the ignorance for the process by which they are made.

Does this mean that you should research every object that you purchase? Not necessarily. But I find it to be important that if a person is to take a stand on a particular issue, to make sure that he or she is not talking out of both sides of their mouth. How can someone say that they find demeaning women to be offensive, and yet have paid money for LMFAO to make a profit from doing so? How can someone speak out against animal rights when such animals suffered for the production of the boots on their feet?

I have the song "Shots" on my iPod. I don't intend on taking it off because I heard the words today. I don't intend to petition iTunes to take it off of their website. But I am saying that I am conscious of what is being said in the songs I listen to and that I have an understanding of what I'm endorsing. I do not endorse this song; I do, however, like the rhythm and beat that is used in it. But I am aware of the content and DO NOT IN ANY WAY SUPPORT IT. I encourage everyone to be mindful of what is going on around them and make sure that they are representing they type of people they want to be.