Changing the world is difficult — but attainable through the choices we make every day. Join Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly, the authors of Somebody Should Do Something, as they paint a picture of how social change happens, one choice at a time. Alongside moderator Sharon Suchotliff, principal at ZS Consultants and a member of the Library’s Common Ground Initiative, this panel will delve into a novel and scientific approach to creating transformative social change — and the surprising ways that each of us can help make a real difference.

Copies of Somebody Should Do Something will be available for purchase at this event.

Crucial issues like climate change, racism, and poverty, are structural. They emerge from our collective practices: laws, economies, history, culture, norms, and built environments. The dilemma is that there is no way to make structural change without individual people making different — more structure-facing — decisions. In Somebody Should Do Something, Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think. Taking inspiration from the writer Bill McKibben, they stress how one “important thing an individual can do is be somewhat less of an individual.”

Organized into three main sections, the book first diagnoses the problem of “either/or” thinking about social change, which stems from the false choice of making better personal choices or changing the system. The narrative then offers a different way to think about social change, anchored in a new picture of human nature emerging across the social sciences. Finally, the authors explore ways of putting this picture into practice. Neither a how-to manual nor an activist’s guide, Somebody Should Do Something pairs stories and science (plus some jokes) to help readers recognize their own power, turning resignation about climate change and racial injustice into actions that transform the world.

Michael Brownstein is professor and chair of philosophy at John Jay College and professor of philosophy at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of The Implicit Mind.

Alex Madva is professor of philosophy, director of the California Center for Ethics and Policy, and co-director of the Digital Humanities Consortium at Cal Poly Pomona. He is a co-editor of An Introduction to Implicit Bias and The Movement for Black Lives.

Daniel Kelly is professor of philosophy at Purdue University. He is the author of Yuck! The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust (MIT Press).

The Common Ground Initiative is The Westport Library’s forum for public discourse on topical issues of importance to the community.  The goals of the Initiative are to: host a positive, productive conversation on how we work together to move forward as a civil society; encourage respectful, constructive dialogue; and build capacity to tackle challenging and/or controversial issues.

Stop Racial Injustice

Climate Change