In Paul Steinbergs book, Who Rules the Earth?, he describes how social rules affect the world around us as well as how people respond to these rules. Steinberg recognizes that in order for the world to progress, social changes are necessary and according to him, there are two things that social change entail- to get rid of old rules, and to make new ones as shown when he says “Social change is not about creating more rules than existed before. For every new rule put in place to protect the environment, others were dismantled.” (Steinberg 2015, 212).
Steinberg also realizes that it is important to be instilling beneficial rules when going about social change which need to be recognized by the public if there is any hope for a positive effect. In order to do this, he introduces the idea of mind and muscle which he describes by saying, “Social change happens when innovative ideas are encoded in the rules we use to coordinate our activities— be they laws, contracts, urban plans, constitutions, or industrial design standards. It takes both mind and muscle. Without winning over minds, new rules are unlikely to be followed” (Steinberg 2015, 229). The key factors to bringing about new rules is to educate the public about why they should follow the rule(mind), and then instill the rule(muscle).
One would be hopeful when making new rules that they would stick so it could amount to something big and actually have an effect on the world. Steinberg explains the pitfalls of actually having a long lasting rule by using the U.S forrest service as an example. He explains that in the 1860s, the forrest service focused solely on the “greatest good for the greatest number” (Steinberg 2015, 234) but at that time, the greater good only took trees into account entirely leaving out wilderness. This proved to be successful until the 1960s people started to recognize that the health of ecosystems and biological diversity were still taking a lot of damage. Although officials were aware of these dangers, it wasn’t until 1993 that serious changes to the preservation of forests were made. The forrest service trained their employees to be very disciplined in following the rules making it difficult to adapt to a new system which explains why it took so long to change the techniques of preservation. Steinberg sums up this example saying “Today Pinchot’s creation places a greater emphasis on ecological health, but this has produced exasperation for many within and outside the agency who argue that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of preservation, at the expense of sustained use. Regardless of where the right balance lies, the Forest Service story illustrates the perils of permanence.”(Steinberg 2015, 239).
Through this course, I have developed a pessimistic view of the world seeing no logical solutions to the enormous issue of climate change, but this book gave me a sliver of hope. Steinberg shows that change is possible and can have a serious and positive affect on our planet as long as it follows the mind and muscle guide. Steinberg also helped me to realize that there is no one solution to this issue. The world is always changing and with that, will always require the creation of new rules and dismantling old ones. I know am more optimistic that we can still positively change our world.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.