Making Change Happen

During my no-so-far-back-days in grad school I had this class that I really didn´t like. It was called Make Change Happen, and while its easy to dislike hard classes, this one was supposed to be more practical. The goal was to come up with a project that would change the world in some way: it could be at the local level or it could reach higher than that. My teammate for this project was already eyeing a thesis on building codes in Sweden and so since she already had some knowledge on the topic, we took on the building codes in Lund County, Sweden. We submitted a citizen´s proposal complete with our reasons and a social theory background drawing on Rawlsian concepts of inter-generational justice. Our proposal passed. Granted the green party came up with a better idea that would have been more rigid, and which both my teammate and I would have preferred. We didn´t let that bother us so much because we had gotten something done. We had made that change even if it was just a baby step in a certain direction.

Health care reform in the United States. Its not the bill I want, but if I was in the house of representatives, I would vote for it. A baby step in the right direction is better than a status quo that hurts a lot of people. As for people being against it I have two things to say about that: a. do they really know that much about it (who are their sources?) and b. even if people aren´t gung-ho about something does not mean we shouldn´t improve on something that desperately needs it.

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