Social Change

Maria Arpa

Wednesday Whisper

13 May 2020 Modified :5 years ago

This week

Social Change

Plus…

Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness 

and

Where to begin in this new era

When we think about social change work, we usually segment it into activism on big issues such as poverty or the environment, on the ground volunteering such as food banks or consciousness raising practices such as meditation and mindfulness.

In these new times, how about social change in business?

Usually this takes the form of Corporate Social Responsibility and is compartmentalised into some ‘doing’ or ‘giving’ that helps others and sometimes raises the profile of the business. But social change for these times could be about challenging the way things are done, and taking a transformative leap into routine generosity and fairness. Injustice is everywhere in our day to day lives. It dominates our lives through win/lose, competitive systems which use punishment and rewards to gain compliance. It happens at work and we do it as parents almost automatically. And thus, we are either perpetrators or victims interchangeably depending where we are in the hierarchy.

What if we were able to model a more human set of values?

What would life be like if corporations committed to becoming socially conscious in all areas of dealing?

Of course, it’s a dream but if times like this don’t implore each of us to notice how the values we live by do not go far enough to care for each other then I wonder if we ever will?