Shahab Sabahi
Energy and Environment for Development – Policy Analysis Research Group
Social norms are evolved inside societies. The norms are being defined by specific group of people who share values, world view, principles and perceptions of new ideas. The norms are formulated based on the group’s real time needs, experience from past and cultural beliefs. When real time needs cannot be satisfied and societies cannot effectively adapt to new external forces, trust fades away from the effectiveness of norms. Frustration among the members of societies grows and pushes the societies to their limits. Society so often comes to a standstill. The phenomenon is so-called ideological trap happens. This situation drafts society from realm of realities and disables it to adapt to new contexts. To solve the issues, some members of society are basing their arguments on society’s glories in the past and strongly support a backward move to re-establish the old system structures. Among this group, some project the data in the past into future with taking into account the real time boundary conditions, and prescribe some sort of short term solutions. There is a group who looks for solutions out of the norms and view the norms themselves as obstacles for solving problems. They, at least in part, do not deny the dynamism of norms. But they believe the norms should be changed in the means to address the real time needs. Those of them who are radical reject the importance of norms dynamics and moderates keep searching for better norms to replace. The moderates usually fail to explain how society’s norms changes occur. What is the driving force behind the changes? What is the cost of the changes?
Creating norm changes is triggered by changing the mindset of society’s population. Social progress requires a radical shift in society’s dominant value system and review the validity of the existing objectives in accordance with the new defined values. Norm change does not necessarily require breaking with the past. Infant norms rest over the outgoing ones and being consistent with the past. Shifting mindsets requires more than rational arguments and should bring about clear visions of a better life (Purpose) and are inspired to pursue it (Passion).
Norm change is a hard task. It requires a whole society commitment. It takes a big deal of time and has losers and winners. However it is unavoidable. Smart societies recognize realities and take action to change their value systems prior to external forces compel them to admit the changes
