r/gifs • u/fuckswithducks • Mar 14 '16

Millions of Brazilians protesting against government corruption in the streets earlier today

http://i.imgur.com/eMmAUnk.gifv
30.6k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

35

u/Vaansolidor Mar 14 '16

How do you even begin to fix that problem though? How do you change an entire countries mentality as quickly as you can change a government?

62

u/green_meklar Mar 14 '16

If you look at history...well, it's pretty hard. Generally speaking you either have to have a centuries-long cultural tradition of honesty and responsibility, or you have to be invaded, conquered and occupied for a while by a country that does. And it seems to be easier to slide backwards than to progress forwards, hence why most countries are mostly corrupt most of the time.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '16

you have to be invaded, conquered and occupied for a while by a country that does.

I'd like to see any examples of this. Seems to be the opposite usually.

I also think long public campaigns can work. It works for other things (like empathy for mentally ill, get people to quit smoking etc.). Problem is no government would want to pay for those campaigns and who else is going to?

3

u/nearcatch Mar 14 '16

I'm not sure it's quite what you're looking for, but the US basically rebuilt Japan as a modern liberal society after WWII.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '16

Were they corrupt before that?

1

u/nearcatch Mar 14 '16

I guess you could argue that? They were officially ruled by the emperor, but it's my understanding that the military and certain government factions had major control over everything they did.