Changing the World Starts with Fabricating a Quote?
Over the weekend, I happened to bump into two of my favorite quotes about changing the world. The first was on a tee-shirt and attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Short, easy: not much thinking required: perfect for me and for a tee-shirt or coffee mug. Unfortunately, while the sentiment is directionally correct, there’s no evidence he ever said those exact words. The actual quote (found in volume 13 of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes) reads:
Furthermore, is it not possible that the very existence of creatures like snakes or the cruelty in their nature reflects our own attitudes? Is there not cruelty enough in man? On our tongues there is always poison similar to a snake’s. We tear our brethren to pieces as wolves and tigers do. Religious books tell us that when man becomes pure in heart, the lamb and the tiger will live like friends. So long as in our own selves there is conflict between the tiger and the lamb, is it any wonder that there should be a similar conflict in this world-body? We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
Much longer, more subtle, more specific about what he thinks needs to change in each of us to effect a positive change in the world—heart, words, actions.
The second quote on changing the world is from Ezra Taft Benson:
The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.
Both quotes imply that the problem with the world is within man and woman kind: Our natural tendencies (like Gandhi’s “cruelty” of the snake) give us conflict, greed, war, hatred, cruelty. He concludes that it’s up to each of us to take the first step. Benson suggests the change is only possible through our choice to come to God. In both views, it’s our individual decision to change or not change ourselves that changes or doesn’t change the world. None of this world betterment is within the power of government, protests, unions or grass-roots political movements or in the products and services or power of entrepreneurs or international corporations.
All of this brings me to one last entertaining quote (probably apocryphal, but not worth the effort to find out): Jerry Garcia supposedly said something to the effect of “Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”
“Us” is all we’ve got if we actually want to make this world a better place. “Us” is the total of each person and choice, but it still must be a thousand, a million, a billion people who decide to change who they are individually. Fundamental change in the world comes only from fundamental change in each of us, and, as Gandhi suggests, that begins with my choice, and I do not have to (or better, cannot) wait to chose until I see changes in others.
