Defining Social Change

    I speak frequently about "social change," but I feel I haven't written enough about what it means to me and why I feel it's important.  I'll start with saying that there is a duality of what has been happening and what I believe needs to happen which I will describe as "dance and discussion."  Wikipedia describes "socialization" as:
"the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society"

DANCE
    Traditionally, our adjustments in respect to each other have been in the form of "feeling" a direction of something near you and "reacting."  This is like dancing, where the subtle movements of one person gives you cues to react and adjust.  An example of this is seeing a panicking person running and getting up and getting ready to run yourself due to some alleged danger.  While these have served us well in some evolutionary respect...the game completely changed when we developed a deeper sense of self-awareness.  Once we began to realize that we are able to perceive and that others are able to perceive, the invention of manipulation also began to come into being.  If you can control stimuli being sensed by another person, you can direct them and shape their behavior to suit your own needs and desires.  It is here we see how most of the "socialization" we find today is the manipulation of ideas and the handing down of ideologies that are completely removed from any individual sense of perception.  Without an individual filter of these perceptions, we are enslaved by the perceptions of others.
    Although the concept of "dance" seems quite poetic and spiritual, it is dangerous and leads to ideas like "collective consciousness," religious ideals, and other such nonsense that leads to manipulation.  This is what we need to realize is happening and the way out of this is what I call "discussion."

DISCUSSION
    Knowing that we can create artificial reactions in people and manipulate (as well as be manipulated), we need to find a way to socialize that is much more grounded.  Rather than arbitrarily adjusting oneself to other peoples' behavior or emotional displays, we need to create a system of socialization based around observation.  The connections we make with other people need to be tied to those observations and have a means of verification.  Based on those solid observations, we need to create channels of communication through the use of ideas.  If we use verifiable observations as our common ground, and communicate through related ideas, we can create goals and socialize in much more meaningful ways.
    The way I think people should approach socialization is this: each person is born with a unique way of perceiving the world.  First, we must learn how our unique observations relate to the physical world in which we live.  This is a process of introspection in which a person must identify the processes which give them the closest approximation to reality that they can ascertain.  Next, we must try to understand how others' perceptions relate to our own (again in the physical world).  Finally, we must tie ourselves together in an understanding of the ideas related to those observations.  If we create a social system in which we use these concepts, and our tendencies are not pulled and swayed by manipulation of our emotions and perceptions, we will begin to connect in a way that leaves us not only more productive, but happier and more fully unified.