subject: The Status Quo Always Dies Hard! [print this page] Many are incensed that Barack Obama received a Nobel Prize for having accomplished little or nothing "tangible". After all, it's just rhetoric and intentions! And rhetoric and intentions don't change anything! Oh really?
Being a cynic myself, I would concur that rhetoric and intentions rarely do much of anything to change the status quo but are they always futile? Here is a consciousness raiser: being that the status quo (which often is or becomes harmful to society at some point in its life) dies hard, how are we ever to move beyond the most dangerous ones? By paving new and untraveled roads.
Because the status quo is so entrenched in the mindset of a society, rhetoric and intentions must be sufficient to sow the seeds of change. Since Homo sapiens seem motivated predominantly by reward, how then do we pave the way for change? By rewarding and honoring rhetoric and intentions! This will then attract others to travel these new and untraveled roads. Over time, the status quo will relinquish its unshakeable grip and voila, tangible changes ARE accomplished!
Perhaps the more relevant of questions would be, which status quos have overstayed their welcomes and which have not? A tempting question to be sure, but this is not what I am addressing here. I am simply addressing WHY it is or at least could be beneficial for society to REWARD rhetoric and intentions alone. If there was never incentive to change the status quo, how would it ever have changed?
