Restoring Culture: What Can One Person Do?
November 04, 2006
Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek wisely cautioned would-be social planners against falling into the “fatal conceit” – the belief that they can predict with any precision the complex consequences of their efforts at societal reform. Ken Myers, a leading Christian author and cultural analyst, argues that Hayek’s
call to humility should be given to those of us who want to effect a change in culture. Cultural engineering doesn’t work. We can do very little to encourage or discourage cultural trends or fads. (All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians & Popular Culture, p.32)
Careful not to say that we can do nothing to change the culture, Myers (quoting T.S. Eliot) advises that the “very little” we can hope to accomplish is to:
“combat the errors and the emotional prejudices which stand in the way” of cultural change. That is, we can call attention to the folly or absurdity or outright sin that certain cultural phenomena encourage or facilitate . . . “We should look for the improvement of society, as we seek our own individual improvement, in relatively minute particulars. We cannot say: ‘I shall make myself into a different person’; we can only say: ‘I will give up this bad habit, and endeavor to contract this good one.’ So of society we can only say: ‘We shall try to improve it in this respect or the other, where excess or defect is evident’” (id. at 32-33).
During the last month or two, I’ve returned several times to Myers’ advice. It bothers me. I want to believe – and I do think – that each of us can do more than just “very little” to effect cultural change.
Jesus likened the Kingdom to the humble act of a farmer sowing seeds. The farmer tills the soil, but the seeds sprout and grow because of a power beyond the farmer’s control. . . . What Jesus was saying is that Christians are to do their part, of course, as best as they are able, but the manifestation of the Kingdom comes through God’s power, not theirs (Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict, p.292, referring to Matthew 13:1-23).
But even if this is the essence of Myers’ point, I think his emphasis is misplaced. I suspect that, when it comes to the culture wars, there are few people suffering from delusions of grandeur. In fact, the opposite seems more likely. That is, most or nearly all people believe they are impotent to effect any meaningful cultural reforms. If so, we ought to focus on encouraging one another to action, emphasizing what we can accomplish rather than what we cannot.
And just what can one person hope to accomplish? In his two-decades-old bestseller Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives, John Naisbitt observed that significant cultural movements are bottom up, not top down, phenomena. Chuck Colson similarly argues:
Culture is most profoundly changed not by the efforts of huge institutions but by individual people being changed. [Individual or small groups of] citizens provide . . . a safeguard against the sense of impotence fostered by today’s overwhelming social problems. One person can make a difference (Kingdoms in Conflict, p.255).
To support this claim, Colson points to an array of powerful anecdotes including, for example, Trevor Ferrell (pp.255-7):
It was a cold December night in 1983 on which 11-year-old Trevor Ferrell saw a TV newscast about people living on the streets. Those images stirred a compassion deep within Trevor and he pleaded with his parents to take him to downtown Philadelphia so he could give his blanket and pillow to the first homeless person he met. In ensuing weeks, with the help of family, classmates and neighbors, Trevor made nightly trips into Philadelphia to distribute food, clothing and blankets to the needy (Trevor’s Campaign: History).
Even though the Ferrell family is no longer involved, Trevor’s Campaign persists. Thanks to the spark of his vision and compassion, Philadelphia’s homeless have been served 1.7 million meals, 1400 have secured permanent housing, 350 have found gainful employment and 840 children have been helped to stay in school (id.).
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was started in 1980 by Candy Lightner, the mother of a 13-year-old girl struck from behind by a drunk driver who had three prior drunk driving convictions and was free on bail from a hit-and-run arrest two days earlier. MADD provides victim services through support groups and educational programs aimed at preventing underage drinking, and it has lobbied legislatures to strengthen drunk-driving laws. Through these efforts, “MADD has shattered complacency about alcohol and the carnage drunk drivers have created in our society. . . . MADD has made a significant impact where government had made little progress” (Kingdoms in Conflict, p.261).
For more than four decades, Robert Lavelle has remained at the helm of Dwelling House Savings and Loan, a very small lender in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, “an area where wrecking ball, drug dealer, and welfare check are a way of life” (id. at 258). Dwelling House takes “the extra care and extra risk to help individuals that too often are turned away from ‘corporate banks.’” The “marginal loans” they make “require extra time in terms of educating and counseling people.” Why the extra effort?
We do this because we care; we do this because it needs to be done, and we do this because we obey God's command to help the poor.
Thanks in part to Lavelle’s extraordinary efforts, home ownership in the Hill District has risen from 14 percent in 1960 to over 40 percent today.
These are just a few of the examples cited by Colson. I imagine that you know people like Trevor, Candy and Robert in your corner of the world, people who have made a tremendous difference helping those they see in need. Every Sunday there are people like this sitting in the church pews around me. For example, I’ve mentioned before that among my fellow church parishioners is Gary Haugen, founder and president of International Justice Mission, a leading human rights agency, driven to rescue victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery and oppression. Just ten years ago, Gary left his safe government job to become IJM’s employee number one; as of last October IJM had grown to almost 200 full-time employees around the world in thirteen different offices. As a result of Gary’s vision, IJM is restraining evil and saving lives all over the world.
Another fellow parishioner, Jim Wright, is saving lives and restraining evil closer to home. Jim is the founder and president of Birthmothers, a non-profit Christian ministry “dedicated to providing nonjudgmental assistance to any woman facing an unplanned pregnancy.” Birthmothers volunteers to listen to these women “without judgment” as they share their story; connect them with the support services they need; and provide them with material, emotional and spiritual assistance throughout pregnancy. Why are Jim and his friends doing this? They “believe that God asks us to love each other, not condemn each other. It’s that simple.” Families and communities are being changed, the darkness pushed back.
These ordinary people, in the humble service of an extraordinary God, are doing extraordinary things, having much more than a “very little” effect on culture. What’s to stop us from joining with them?
