Hez . . . Thank you for the response that includes much I should spend more time on. I agree with you more than you may realize but I try to write from different perspectives to better communicate the situation and to see what plays with people.

You are advocating a solid and logical sociological approach to dealing with conflict from change management. I was long an advocate and used the techniques you are recommending. I think this situation requires a more complex response than mental model manipulation. That will actually work when people are ready to change. In very large phase shifts the changes are profound and too profound for some people to accept without a fight. Revolutions inevitably take a toll in blood and suffering.

While shaming people doesn’t change them, what I am actually saying is that we cannot change the most extreme so we should simply ignore them but prevent them from doing the more damage. The pressure on the “sorry ass people” is not so much shame as a constant reminder of why these changes are happening and why they have already changed our society.

As I’ve said elsewhere and will write about more, full paradigmatic and language changes don’t really cause trouble until they are already beyond the critical human mass. The new world view will dominate. The casualties may be larger than wanted and they may include whole concepts of human social organization, e.g. nation states, but they will dominate.

I’ve found it is necessary to switch metaphors on this because of its complexity and non-linearity. These changes are very much more a metamorphosis than we can easily see. The old shell is destroyed as the new grows and emerges. From an active human perspective this is building the new structure inside the old organization as the old structure crumbles. Both of those analogies are useful, I think to keep this in perspective.

I do differ with you on one point, however. There are bad people and I think it is dangerous, as I’ve said in another essay, to ignore that distasteful reality. That is a small minority but they can do a great deal of damage. Trump and a number of his circle are simply bad people. These need to be kept from positions that they could use for great damage. We may be too late to do anything about that one in this country now. But change is constant and how this works out may be a surprise. We need to be open to those surprises.