How did your problem come to be? When people tell the story of its origin, are there specific characters who they point to as deficient or even villainous?
Every social problem has a past, and the only way we have to relate to the past is stories. In particular, people love origin stories — just look at how many superhero franchises begin that way. The hero defeats her first big villain and then gets to join the Avenger League, or whatever.
The story of a social problem, though, is usually not so happy. Typically, the people who are connected to your problem will imagine a past golden age without the problem, then some person or event that ruined that wonderful world. Sometimes these stories are simple (“They cut the budget!”) but more frequently with entrenched problems, they are complex and multilayered.
Just like in the story of the Garden of Eden, there are multiple ways to view the failures that led to your problem. Some people may look at people and organizations that are similar to their own and say, “They didn’t do good enough” — the equivalent of placing the blame on Adam and Eve. Others may point to an external power like the Serpent as the culprit. In this way, they construct their social problem — and the solutions to it — as a revenge story against political or social forces they despise.
When analyzing behavior around a social problem, it’s not so important to figure out which of these stories is right. Chances are, there is an element of truth in all of them. Instead, carefully listen to each story and see the way people talk about the villain or the catastrophe. How do different versions of these stories lead to various behaviors now? How might people behave differently if they told the story in a new way? How might you think differently about your problem if you adopted a different story of “original sin”?
This question is an example of how to dig under the surface of a social problem using the history dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I help people master to improve their critical thinking and build strategies for social change. Reply to this e-mail with your answer to the question and I’ll let you know what I think! Or learn more by visiting http://www.teachingsocialchange.com.