What to do when something is wrong in your community

I'm one of those idealists that believes that the best way to go about social change is to educate the general public. Most people are just not aware of the bad things going on around them, and even if they are, they often feel helpless OR they believe such is the natural state of things and should not be interfered with. So educating someone isn't just about exposing the problem, but also about providing evidence that it doesn't have to be that way and it's worth putting forth the effort to change something.

The problem is that getting through to the average 30 year old, or a 40 year old, or a 50 year old is really really hard. I've tried and failed, and I've seen people more clever than myself try and fail. (The problem, if you care to hear my opinion, is that, while they are quick to feel the offense, they are even quicker to forget and go back to the status quo using the "I can't do anything about it" excuse to make themselves feel less culpable -- something which I know I am often guilty of doing myself).

So we have to educate young people.

Websites like "the story of stuff" are doing that and I commend them for it.

As I watched their presentation I felt that they were being a bit alarmist. Being a middle of the road sort of person, I often filter arguments to simple emotionless cores. But recently I've realized that even if the situation is not dire, people need to feel that the sky is falling in order to get their ass involved.

My epiphany? I now, finally, learned what that fable is really all about. I know that the story sometimes changes to have a more interpretable moral but here is my take.

Chicken little notices a problem. She is, of course, mistaken. The reader knows it's not really a problem, but she's determined to do right so she goes to the government. Along the way, she meets lots of characters, and each of them is alarmed by her story, but only temporarily. Like adults, they soon forget about the real problem and are swayed off course and promptly eaten by the fox. But Chicken little is singular minded and progresses on to the King who ultimately shows her the error of her ways. But she wasn't eaten by the fox... which is a good thing. She followed her goal to completion, even though it was based on faulty assumptions.

I would rewrite the ending. In my version, shortly after the King explains it all, setting chicken little straight, the acorn tree falls onto the chicken coop killing everyone inside. Because I love irony. And gore.