How to create social change that sticks

Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change and democracy reform are structural. They are larger than any one person can solve on their own, yet we're bombarded with information about individual actions like attending a public meeting or lowering your carbon footprint. Do these individual actions even matter? Should we focus instead of fixing broken systems?

For our final episode of the season, we explore how individual actions and structural reform can work together to create lasting social change on a range of issues, including democracy. Our guests offer a way out of the either-or thinking and a framework for creating lasting social change. In Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change, Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think.

Brownstein and Kelly join us on the show to discuss examples of how individual actions leveled up to create larger-scale change, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the milk pasteurization movement in the early 20th century. We also discuss how the lessons from these movements can be applied to democracy reform campaigns like campaign finance reform and ranked-choice voting.

Brownstein is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at John Jay College and Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Kelly is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, where he is also the Director of the Cognition, Agency, and Intelligence Center.

This is our final episode before our summer break. Thank you to Brandon Stover for editing the show this year, to WPSU for production and promotional support, and to Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Cyanne Loyle, and Candis Watts Smith for sharing their insights on the show. We'll see you in September!

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