The World or Yourself

Key Discussion
#21

My answer is: Change the world

There are things I don’t like about myself. Things that I wish I was better, or at least not as bad at. Things that make my life harder than it would be otherwise. However, I am proud of being myself. My thoughts, my ideals, my interests, the things that define who I am - I am extremely fond of them. The idea of becoming something I am not is nigh unbearable and doing so in order to adapt to something or someone else is downright disgusting. I would never let someone or something else dictate me who to be.

When I observe the world around me, I see many, too many wrongs. I often ponder on how things should be and how to make them right. Of course, I have yet to ever find the perfect solution. Of course, as with most things, I don’t care enough to take action. If anything, I try to remain an observer, to avoid being part of what happens around me. If, however, I were to gain both the power and the motivation to change something, I would definitely change the world.

Rather than changing in order to be accepted, I would have my surroundings accept who I am.
Rather than becoming what the world demands me to be, I would reshape the world in the way I think is best.
Rather than giving up on my ideals in order to come to accept the ways of the world, I would force my ideals onto it.

Whether one should decide over many is a different question.

If those born into this world must struggle and suffer just to survive, then the world is in the wrong.

Feel free to call it arrogance, idealism or stubbornness, but that is the answer I always arrive at. And believe me, I have thought about it many times.

3 Likes
#22

From the very moment I saw this question, I knew what my answer would be.

I personally believe that before anything can be changed in the world, it’s important to gauge how I feel about myself first. Trying to change a world full of confusion and discord when I am at my worst will not yield good results. Taking for example, my experience in the Tales community back when Skype was a thing, I was very new to internet communication and tried being my total, honest self, including the good and bad parts with it. It was a huge mistake, and it opened my eyes to the idea that people succeed in internet networking not because they show everything about them out in the open, but because they only show their best selves.

When you look at it from Rewrite’s perspective, (very mild spoilers for Lucia, Shizuru and Akane)[spoiler]comparing Gaia and Guardian together, who looks the most content with their lives? Gaia is a society centered around religious sacrifice, forgoing oneself for the sake of a cause larger than themselves. The thing is, I doubt a large majority of Gaia are internally ready for such a cause. The proaction is admirable, but like most religions in the world, there’s just something missing.

Guardian, on the other hand, while their actions are much more in-the-moment than future-thinking, their friendliness, cooperation with fellow teammates and overall happiness are much higher than Gaia’s. This is likely because they cognitively sought to show the best parts of themselves while acknowledging and improving upon their faults. Rewrite has also made it a point to show that being in Guardian doesn’t mean forsaking religion. Heck, Guardian gets its orders from the Pope of the Catholic Church![/spoiler]

I think what I’m trying to say overall is that neither of these choices are wrong in any sense. It’s a very admirable goal to try to unite the world in righteous living, but such things don’t happen overnight. That’s especially the case if that person is not personally fit to undertake such a task. Rewrite attempted to make a point for both sides, but even so I feel my answer is still the same as when I first started reading it. I think the first step to really changing the world is changing oneself, because who’s going to listen to someone who doesn’t even like him/herself? 8P

2 Likes
#23

Can I vote neither? :stuck_out_tongue:

I lack the arrogance to change the world in my image, but I also fear becoming something I’m not.

1 Like
#24

I would change the world. There’s nothing about myself I’d want to change with some sort of abstract power rather than by personally growing like any human would. But I wouldn’t mind using one to try and make the world a better place for other humans to live in peacefully and contently.

#25

I’d like to change the world. But that’s just because I have little to no reason to want to change myself, while I know that there are people around the world who suffer because of this systemic oppression based on class, gender, race, nationality, etc. When my worldview is something like this, I can’t possibly bring myself to be individualistic. :frowning2:

#26

I’d change the world because someone has gotta get Spice and Wolf season 3 going tbh.

I still believe both answers are the same, just from a different perspective and focus… By changing one you change the other. If you wanna change the world, you might have to do something you wouldn’t normally do, hence changing yourself. If you want to change yourself, you’re probably gonna interact with the world and deal with it somehow. I’m pretty sure the question is just a test of perspective.

If I could magically change the world without changing myself in any way, that’d be perfect, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’d choose a world of free housing and high quality breakfast bars!

7 Likes
#27

I’d tend to agree with you, but the indication I get from the question is that when you change the world, you’re changing it on a HUGE scale, much more than one person could feasibly do. While yes, you will likely affect the world in different, new ways once you change yourself, it’s unlikely the changes would be nearly as far reaching.

#28

When I saw the discussion topic, I wasn’t sure at first how to answer the question. It really depends on what you want to change and how you’re going to make that change happen. If I were to say to change the world, it would imply getting things accomplished around the world to solving major problems that have been growing exponentially which can be overwhelming at times. The process of communication across the globe to solving issues is not as easy as it looks because there are many factors to consider:

  1. How will you communicate the problems at hand when there are people who may not agree with you and have other opinions that may differ than what you previously had thought of?
  2. What are the issues at stake and how should we go about fixing them in the process?
  3. How much money, time, and energy spent would it take on a global scale?
  4. Are there alternative ways to fixing the world’s problems?

To me, it sounds much more harder than it looks. However, if I were to change myself, I would change the way I view myself personally and try to become stronger, more reliable, and doing things I normally would never do. I think changing yourself requires that we look at ourselves and see what we can do to make things better. I know that I’m not an assertive person and I want to be able to stand up to others when expressing my thoughts and opinions. I’m also been shy since childhood and I have a hard time talking to others but as time grew I was able to get out of my comfort zone. Those are some things I like to change but I think it starts with yourself before helping others first.

2 Likes
#29

Between the world and myself, I’d say myself first and then the world.

As a single human being, my current self is too small to impact the stage of the world.
First: I must seek ways of refining and honing myself, sharping both my primary and secondary blades.
Second: If I desire to change the world, first I must be able to change myself for the better.
Ergo, I must first change in order to change the world. I must become able to present upon the stage of the world.
In the words of one of my favorite mangaka,
‘True Magic results from courage of the heart
Boys and Girls be ambitious
One step can change the world.’ Akamatsu Ken, Mahou Sensei Negima.

To me, that first step is to change myself into a better, or at least more capable man first and foremost.

2 Likes
#30

Ah I’ve been looking for this question, so I’m glad to find a recent discussion of it.

Ideologically, I think it’s better to change myself. However, having tried both, my real talent lies in changing the world. Not literally ZA WARULDO, but more like the current situation. When the going gets tough, I’m much better at altering the situation to be more favorable to myself than I am at overcoming the situation through dedication and will power. It’s become habit. It’s how I get by by default.

However, I have a lot of respect for people who are able to do what I cannot, so to a certain extent I view being able to change oneself as more ideal. Changing the situation has always felt like cheating. Therefore I continuously strive to better myself… which is why I know first hand I’m not nearly as good at it.

In the end probably it’s a trick question, though. We are heavily influenced by our environment, and impact the environment just by existing in it. So you can’t change one without changing the other, it’s just about what you’re better at.

Extremely vague VN (Shizuru/Akane) spoilers:

I suppose Shizuru’s route begs to differ, but it kind of suggests that Kotarou actively gave up his ability to influence his environment when choosing “Myself.” Keeping that in mind makes the route more thought provoking. It would have been interesting if Akane’s route handled the opposite side of the dichotomy with equal rigidity, but in the end that didn’t seem to be the case as Kotarou himself changed quite a bit. (Though maybe if he’d been more open to changing himself he’d have been more open minded in his opinion of Akane and could have figured out what she really wanted a heck of a lot sooner. She’d have probably been a lot happier if he hadn’t been so staunchly loyal in his support of her.)

#31

To use a great power to “change the world” could actually be read in two ways. It could refer to “the world” as the physical “world” - our planet, possibly expanding to the physical universe, though that’s one hell of a scale you’re getting into there - or perhaps human society, which is subtly different.

But it could also refer to your “world”, as in the things you are aware of and connected to. Changing your world in this sense could be as easy as talking to someone new, trying something you never tried before, or going someplace else.

With this interpretation, I would definitely change the world. My source of unhappiness largely stems from “my” world. There are lots of people in the world I will never even see, and for most part, what they do doesn’t directly affect me.

A great power to change my world would come as cheap a few hundred dollars for a plane ticket.

(You should all play The World Ends With You.)

6 Likes
#32

I just believe that there is no point in changing yourself if the world stays the same

#33

I could change myself into a god so I choose to change myself.
Then I could change everything as I pleased, including the world I’m unhappy with.
If the vaguely suggested “power” doesn’t allow me to reach god status, then I’d go the “change the world” route as it’s stated in the question that I have a problem with the world and not myself.

Personally I’m all for changing myself, and there’s something a little more realistic and appealing about changing your perspective to suit the world rather than brute-forcing the world to be as you accept it.

#34

I believe that Yourself is probably the more correct option, but I’m selfish enough to choose world regardless.

#35

The World, because, even though it’s something that’s happening all the time for everyone, I fear changing. The idea that I’ll be someone who I am not right now feels terrifying to me. That’s why, even if it’s for the better, I don’t normally make efforts to change myself.

1 Like
#36

Interesting question. Between changing the world and change myself, you know changing the world is a difficult task for just one person , meanwhile changing yourself doesn’t sound that complicated, you have to think for yourself what is going on , or you can analyze your relationships with people in your life. So If you talk about a power a logical response would be changing the world, but the bigger question is how exactly will you change the world. Is it a small change, a big one, how many aspects or how much influence you have over it , yeah that takes too long. Given the case I personally choose none of them, If I want a change for myself or even the world I will make it myself or I will look for methods and help (in the last case). I don’t like the easy way.

#37

Alright, first I have to get out of the way that I can’t explain a large part of my position without going off on a massive tangent about how my brain works, so this is basically just what I can explain without the need for greater context.
I would say the world. This isn’t for some Kotarou-style reason of fearing change or anything. Change isn’t an inherently bad or scary thing, and I don’t think that I’m just so fucking awesome that change would be a bad thing for me. There’s actually quite a bit about myself that I’m unsatisfied with, some of which I could change if I really tried, some of which I couldn’t. At least not without some vague “power” like this question proposes. But I don’t think I’m particularly important, nor do I have any particular desire to be. I’m just some random kid who lives in the middle of nowhere, changing myself would have little to no benefit beyond making me feel better about myself.
In the context of the fight for earth’s survival, I don’t believe in humanity’s ability to change its ways, and I don’t think that the single species which I happen to belong to is more important than the rest of life on earth combined.
I do think it’s somewhat arrogant to force what I think on to the rest of the world, but as someone who doesn’t believe in objective morality, I think I have pretty much an equal chance of being “right” to not being “right”, and at the rate humanity’s going, I think something needs to change, so not acting even though I have the ability too would be even more contradictory of my beliefs.

2 Likes
#38

Due to the inherent nature of mankind, we will always be unsatisfied about things, therefore I would choose to use the power to change the world rather than myself.
This is however, not to say that I am content with my own being, in contrast, I realize that I am flawed and so too is everyone else. Even if we manage to use this power to ‘fix’ ourselves, we will be bound to find other personal traits that would dissatisfy us. As a result, we would get stuck in a loop of forever trying to perfect ourselves, probably without end due to the subjectivity of ‘perfection’.
While the philosophical question Rewrite poses us is broad and can be applied to many topics, I wish to explain my motivations of choosing to change to world using the example of climate change (as Rewrite focused on for a large part).

I admit that I would be fearful in the theoretical situation of having a power capable of changing the world, I would still persist to use this power in this way because of a multitude of arguments, of which the most important are:

  1. The rigidity of our current socio-technical structure.
    Due to the establishment of large technical structures (LTS) that are embedded in present day society and of which the boundaries are overlapping each other, makes the process of forcing a sustainable transition on these LTS very hard, let alone trying to force a sustainable transition on whole networks of LTS (which could involve tens of thousands of people). Governments and NGOs have tried it and they have failed in doing so. While system optimisation occurred within the LTS as a result of less successful governmental policies, there is yet a lack of radical change for the better (Geels, F. W., 2011). Considering the nature of LTS introducing a real transition into these is thus very, very hard by normal standards.
    Hence a significant power is needed to break the status-quo and to guide these LTS towards a sustainable transition for that otherwise we will most likely continue to use fossil fuels to the point of our own downfall.
    (Background info) Due to the energy transition that occurred since the industrial revolution, nature, in the eyes of man, became a bountiful resource, waiting to be fully exploited of. As a result, the rate of consumption of natural resources and production of waste started to reach unsustainable levels. LTS were introduced e.g. infrastructure, telephone cables, oil pipes etc. which functioned favourably in this era known as the great acceleration. Due to their positive outputs, these LTS were firmly embedded in our society (Geels, F. W., 2011), becoming something ‘common’ and ‘normal’, some would even say ‘necessary’.

  2. The inequity between present and future generations.
    There is inequity not only between countries but also between (future) generations that induces jealousy and cannot be easily solved. As the industrial revolution spread far and wide, it were countries such as Europe and the US that benefitted the most and quickest from this energy transition.
    However, countries such as Africa, India and other developing countries do not enjoy this luxury (yet). Due to this inequity of wealth, these developing countries strive to catch up to the Western higher living standards, often disregarding the environmental degradation that accompanies their industrial actions in order to follow the footsteps of Europe and the US. However, as the threat of climate change is becoming ever more visible and felt, developing countries are nowadays being condemned for the same pollution intensive development they are going through that modern Western powers were guilty of in the past.
    As we want to prevent extensive climate change, it is morally wrong to condemn developing countries for trying to achieve the same economic growth that we have experienced however, allowing them to develop to the same extent as modern Western powers would cause a significant increase in the global temperature.
    Since this dilemma is based on morality, no one is really in the wrong but debating about this problem will not get us anywhere. Therefore, at some point a decision must be made, a decision that people must abide to in order to cease the everlasting discussions and start moving on to the next step to promote and advance sustainability in society.

Futhermore, using the definition of sustainability and sustainable development according to the Brundtland rapport: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (S. Imperatives, 1987: 41), there is a clear problem with providing equity between our present and future generations. The same opportunities that we are given today may or may not be there to future generations, therefore these future generations are robbed of being able to satisfy their expected needs as a result of us fulfilling our own needs in the present, without them being able to protest. To add up, while there is much debate and little consensus about what actually should be done in order to preserve the needs of future generations as the debate is ongoing, more and more chances and possibilities will disappear for future generations. Therefore, I believe that at one point the everlasting debating and prolonging should stop and a decision must be made.

Worldwide problems such as climate change are very complex problems involving millions of individuals with their own interest and opinions postponing the environmental debate from coming up with real radical transitions to LTS in the world. Individuals or even groups of individuals can only exert a certain (small) amount of change. However, with climate change time is not our friend and dragging this problem on could cause most catastrophic results for the whole of mankind (prisoner’s dilemma). Therefore, I believe that if I had this power I or anyone else would have this power, it would be in our best interest to use it to solve global issues such as environmental problems in the short amount of time that we have (thus change the world).

Sources:
S. Imperatives (1987). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Page 41
Geels, F. W. (2011). The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms. Environmental innovation and societal transitions, 1(1), 24-40.

4 Likes
#39

I would rather change myself rather than the world.

My reasoning for not wanting to change the world is that all humans are flawed, and I am no exception. If I were to gain power over the world and change however I see fit, even with the best intentions, it’ll still have problems.

If I were to use that power to change myself, I would be improving myself as a person. Doing that would not only benefit me, but those close to me as well.

Any sort of self-improvement, no matter how big or small, is always welcomed in my book.

1 Like
#40

I am still not sure what I would be allowed to do if I had the power to change the world or myself. Would this gift allow me to make one change regardless of outcome and never monitor or adjust it as the situation changes? Would I be given the ability to discuss my power with other intelligent people before making my decision, and if so, how much time would I receive to do this? Is there a penalty to using this power (such as death)? Am I allowed to make any chemical or physical change that I choose to make?

It would leave an endless ocean of possibilities for the power itself, but my choice would not change regardless of the restrictions of the power. I would change the world since this world currently has massive problems that need to be addressed in my opinion. I also think that some of the problems that I have in my life are because of my choices and lack of understanding, and sometimes my ineptitude. While being able to go back and fix them could be a great thing, it is also the same as making excuses and taking an easy way out - and all at the cost of possibly not being able to use that power for something far better and meaningful.

In addition, adjusting things to make a better future just for myself wouldn’t matter much either since I don’t need that power to find happiness or to have some feeling that I can make more excuses and get away with it.