How do we change society and political structures?

Brittany
I’m trying to work through how change can really happen in our society and political structures.  As we discussed last week, it is difficult to change the way people think.  Some of the points related to this that  I found most interesting from Hall were as follows:

1. “The only way of genuinely contesting a hegemonic form of politics is to develop a counter-hegemonic strategy” (11).

2. “It is not because it is impossible, or utopian, but because the left is not convinced that it cannot continue in the old way” (11).

3. “Paradoxically, the ‘party’ of history and change seems paralysed by the movement of history and terrified of change” (11).

I feel like these points in many ways show why there are so many difficulties when it comes to trying to change society.  I think that it comes down to changing the way people think, but it isn’t just about changing the way the PMC thinks or the working class, it is also about changing the way the left thinks.  If something isn’t working, then sometimes it is best to regroup and come up with a new way of thinking, but that can be scary, and I feel like many times it just never occurs.  Does it make sense to try to apply today’s society to old values and views?  Does it make sense to change how you think in order to change society?  I suppose this is where my background in science comes into play because science is all about trying to solve a problem.  In science everything is done for a reason, but you also exhaust all possibilities.  You literally test every variable in order to determine the best course of action, so maybe we should use the past and history as a way to change our course of thinking.  If one action does not work, move on and try something new.  (I’m sorry if my ramblings don’t make sense in written form.) 

            I also liked how Gramsci said, “the argument that economy is to society what anatomy is to biological sciences – one must remember the struggle that went on in the natural sciences to expel from the scientific terrain principles of classification that were based on external and transient elements” (197).  Exacting the type of change that you want is not always easy, and often times it is a process.  Sometimes something that is revolutionary is scary because it completely changes how things are done and takes people into unknown territory.  I certainly don’t have a solution, and as I read these articles I come up with far more questions than answers.