Sure, I sang “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” in a 1967 Viet Nam war rally near Winnipeg’s Legislative grounds, and later got on the front lines of Calgary Trail waving placards to get school secretaries a higher wage on my breaks and noon-hours. There are times I have been or gotten political in action and consciousness.
But the world is much larger than our puny individual actions, thousands of charitable donations later. Instead, The Crucible lives and children are burned as witches in Africa, slave labor is used in the Congo (a la Conrad) to dig out materials for our cellphones, wild animals are still slaughtered for trophies and money, and women are still haremed hither and thither in the Western and Third World worlds.
No, some things have not changed since Dickens, Wilberforce, Conrad, Mother Teresa, and Jane Goodall–significant people who have wrought much change and social consciousness. The world, at large still exploits, abuses, and kills for money and material goods. And money, greed, profit, power, and control have always spoken louder than fairness, equality, democracy, human (and animal) rights, philanthropy, and humanitarianism.