Posted September 25, 2012
We still have our (roughly left/right) clashes, and heated debates. The content has changed though. Some things that used to be the subject of extremely violent debates, the object of brutal political struggles, have become "common sense" nowadays, to the point where we forget how polemical they still used to be 30, 40, 50 years ago. So, let's assess. We do agree nowadays that :
1) There is no hierarchy between human "races".
A black-skinned person is not intellectually inferior to a white-skinned person, and sharing the same rights is not a priviledge. Being black is not something that has to be "tolerated" by condescending but well meaning white people. It's not even a thing. We're even past the time where it was all cool and revolutionary to have a black hero or main character in a series or movie ("different strokes", "passenger 57"), we don't even take notice of a character's colour anymore. We all accept that colour discrimination is a bad thing, and, more importantly, an irrelevant thing. Right ?
Okay, some people, and even administrations, still refer to the scientifically debunked notion of "race" (slowly changed to the more politically correct but not much less absurd "ethnicity") to categorise phenotypes, and thus some people still believe that mankind is separated into distinct "races" (or course "equals"), with "half-breed" at their frontiers. But at least, people don't really expect different apritudes from differently coloured people, and the consensus is now that doing so would be both wrong and false. That's a given. right ?
2) Likewise, feminism has won, at some level.
Maybe to a lesser extend, but still, sexism is considered as not much more cool than racism. When someone is accused of sexism, as for racism, his line of defense will be "no, i am not, because...". He won't go "yes i am, and rightly so, because". People tend to globally agree, nowadays, that gender equality is a sound value. And that women should be allowed to wear basically what they want, with the same (relative) freedom as men. And that they should be allowed to pursue the career they want, and that they should be allowed to vote. The last point is quite serious : I'm swiss. In switzerland, women are allowed to vote since the 1970s. And trust me, the debates on the pros and cons of that ("women are irrationnal", "women just vote what their husbands will tell them to") were quite spectacular and violent at that time.
We're not out of the woods yet, of course. "Feminism" is still used derogatively, and many people feel the need to distancize themselves from it ("i'm not a feminist but i think women should have the same rights as men" - duh, that's feminism, moron). You don't see this with "antiracism", and an antiracist is not assumed to be a target of racism (while people envision a woman first, when they hear of "a feminist"). Also, there is still a strong mainstream essentialisation of genders, with notions of "real man" and "real woman". While there's the general idea that women and men have the same competences and should access the same jobs (and be paid the same wages, which they still are not), there are still strong collective beliefs about natural roles and aptitudes. And their deconstructions face strong resistance : teaching gender studies in schools is still hindered by the protests of conservative groups. The gender/sex opposition is in the process of integrating "common sense", but for now, "common sense" still opposes it.
Still, the idea of womanly irrationality (emotion, instinct) as opposed to manly rationality (intellect, courage) is, at an explicit level, ridiculed. And when it still shapes attitudes, it's at an implicit level : the stake is merely to make it visible, not to justify whether or not it would be a bad thing.
3) Ecology.
Are we okay with ecology ? Pollution being bad, all that ? There are still debates about the legitimacy of environmental risk-taking, but these are discussions about the cost/benefit probabilist evaluations of them. Ecology has now official and expensive (even if hypocritical) summits dedicated to it, sustainable development is a widespread concern, and ecological crimes are a serious matter. Technologies adapt to this, first with car catalysts, and then research of alternate sources of energy.
Now, ecological policies are hard to enforce, because pollution does make a lot of money. And taking care of the environment hinders industrial productivity. So, there is an ongoing struggle between environmentalists, and money makers. Which means debates, polemics, and mutual disqualification. Just look at the global warming issue, or even the atom. It's still an ongoing war. But, if you compare with the image of ecology 20 years ago, there are a lot of concerns that, nowadays, are taken in considerations, even if it's just to lie about them. The environment has become a subject for public and political discourses, an item. This shows there's still an agreement at some level now.
4) Smoke.
Same thing. I'm firmly against the over-restrictive cigarette regulations that have developped lately. But they show that, in this case, the power of money has lost in front of health concerns, and the nocivity of smoke is now an established truth. That is something we now agree about, whatever our stance. And that is a recent novelty.
5) Homosexuality.
Now, this, just like other gender issues, is a matter in mutation. I'd say that, on this forum (and most forum I've seen), homophobia is accepted as not cool. But, there are still some vocal homophobes who feel more at ease, more backed up by society, than, say, racists would. And homosexual marriage, and homosexual adoption, are being currently discussed. These discussion will certainly look as stupid in 30 years as the old discussions about black people in public transports and in school, or about women's vote. But we're not there yet. However, it still seems that there is already a dominant tendency to accept homosexuality. We're still at the "different strokes"/"passenger 57" level (when main characters are homosexual, it's a "thing", even if we are starting to see -with Torchwood for instance- the first fictions that are not about the sexual orientation of the hero. We're still not colourblind, when it comes to this. But I'd say we're on the way. Few politicians, even right-winged, are openly homophobic. And when they ask to maintain restrictions of rights for homosexuals, they generally do the effort of trying to not look directly homophobic. It's an evolution.
Now, there are things that are more problematic.
Do we agree about the liberty of cults ? There is a strong trend of islamophobia (partly as a reaction to islamism) that makes me doubt it. Many people consider christianism as inherently superior to islam, and lately, Switzerland has voted against the right to build mosquees (while christian churches can still be built).
Do we agree that war is a bad thing ? Tough call. We've seen, in the last decade, a warmongering propaganda that was directly echoing the most moronic WW1 rhetorics. And apparently, joining the army is still considered as the cool thing in the USA, with some prestige attached to it. I don't really trust the crocodile tears of the proponents of the iraq bombing, when they talk of necessary evil. I still think that war is totall awesome to a lot of people, beyond the obligatory "reluctant hero" posture.
And we're still far from agreeing about collective responsabilities in poverty. I think there's still a strong force in neo-darwinist rhetorics, ideas that "if you're poor then you deserve it" and "if you've got human qualities, then you become rich". Wealth redistribution is a huge issue because of this. There's also no agreement about wealth differentials : there's those who consider it's a bad thing (makes the rich richer and the poor poorer), and those who consider it's a good thing (either because the richer rich make the poor richer, or because fuck the lazy-ass leeching paupers, they're not my business). In Europe there is a strong consensus about capital punishment being an outdated medieval barbaric practice, but, again, we're far from having established this in the USA.
And, Earth is mostly round. And we basically all agree that a representative democracy is better than the autocracy of a given dynasty. Though I'm not certain about oligarchy - people seem quite against it at the level of discourses, but quite supportive of it when it's nicely presented. And I think that, after WW2, eugenism has fallen a bit out of fashion. Even though there are still indirect echoes of it here and there, it would be much more of a scandal nowadays than when it was enthousiastically theorised and/or applied in the democracies of the first half of the XXth century.
So, that's it. That's where we are now ? What are the fundations that we can base our discussions upon nowadays. Where exactly do our opinions diverge.
What about yesterday. What about tomorrow.
(Counting the posts before this becomes a "Steam" debate.)
1) There is no hierarchy between human "races".
A black-skinned person is not intellectually inferior to a white-skinned person, and sharing the same rights is not a priviledge. Being black is not something that has to be "tolerated" by condescending but well meaning white people. It's not even a thing. We're even past the time where it was all cool and revolutionary to have a black hero or main character in a series or movie ("different strokes", "passenger 57"), we don't even take notice of a character's colour anymore. We all accept that colour discrimination is a bad thing, and, more importantly, an irrelevant thing. Right ?
Okay, some people, and even administrations, still refer to the scientifically debunked notion of "race" (slowly changed to the more politically correct but not much less absurd "ethnicity") to categorise phenotypes, and thus some people still believe that mankind is separated into distinct "races" (or course "equals"), with "half-breed" at their frontiers. But at least, people don't really expect different apritudes from differently coloured people, and the consensus is now that doing so would be both wrong and false. That's a given. right ?
2) Likewise, feminism has won, at some level.
Maybe to a lesser extend, but still, sexism is considered as not much more cool than racism. When someone is accused of sexism, as for racism, his line of defense will be "no, i am not, because...". He won't go "yes i am, and rightly so, because". People tend to globally agree, nowadays, that gender equality is a sound value. And that women should be allowed to wear basically what they want, with the same (relative) freedom as men. And that they should be allowed to pursue the career they want, and that they should be allowed to vote. The last point is quite serious : I'm swiss. In switzerland, women are allowed to vote since the 1970s. And trust me, the debates on the pros and cons of that ("women are irrationnal", "women just vote what their husbands will tell them to") were quite spectacular and violent at that time.
We're not out of the woods yet, of course. "Feminism" is still used derogatively, and many people feel the need to distancize themselves from it ("i'm not a feminist but i think women should have the same rights as men" - duh, that's feminism, moron). You don't see this with "antiracism", and an antiracist is not assumed to be a target of racism (while people envision a woman first, when they hear of "a feminist"). Also, there is still a strong mainstream essentialisation of genders, with notions of "real man" and "real woman". While there's the general idea that women and men have the same competences and should access the same jobs (and be paid the same wages, which they still are not), there are still strong collective beliefs about natural roles and aptitudes. And their deconstructions face strong resistance : teaching gender studies in schools is still hindered by the protests of conservative groups. The gender/sex opposition is in the process of integrating "common sense", but for now, "common sense" still opposes it.
Still, the idea of womanly irrationality (emotion, instinct) as opposed to manly rationality (intellect, courage) is, at an explicit level, ridiculed. And when it still shapes attitudes, it's at an implicit level : the stake is merely to make it visible, not to justify whether or not it would be a bad thing.
3) Ecology.
Are we okay with ecology ? Pollution being bad, all that ? There are still debates about the legitimacy of environmental risk-taking, but these are discussions about the cost/benefit probabilist evaluations of them. Ecology has now official and expensive (even if hypocritical) summits dedicated to it, sustainable development is a widespread concern, and ecological crimes are a serious matter. Technologies adapt to this, first with car catalysts, and then research of alternate sources of energy.
Now, ecological policies are hard to enforce, because pollution does make a lot of money. And taking care of the environment hinders industrial productivity. So, there is an ongoing struggle between environmentalists, and money makers. Which means debates, polemics, and mutual disqualification. Just look at the global warming issue, or even the atom. It's still an ongoing war. But, if you compare with the image of ecology 20 years ago, there are a lot of concerns that, nowadays, are taken in considerations, even if it's just to lie about them. The environment has become a subject for public and political discourses, an item. This shows there's still an agreement at some level now.
4) Smoke.
Same thing. I'm firmly against the over-restrictive cigarette regulations that have developped lately. But they show that, in this case, the power of money has lost in front of health concerns, and the nocivity of smoke is now an established truth. That is something we now agree about, whatever our stance. And that is a recent novelty.
5) Homosexuality.
Now, this, just like other gender issues, is a matter in mutation. I'd say that, on this forum (and most forum I've seen), homophobia is accepted as not cool. But, there are still some vocal homophobes who feel more at ease, more backed up by society, than, say, racists would. And homosexual marriage, and homosexual adoption, are being currently discussed. These discussion will certainly look as stupid in 30 years as the old discussions about black people in public transports and in school, or about women's vote. But we're not there yet. However, it still seems that there is already a dominant tendency to accept homosexuality. We're still at the "different strokes"/"passenger 57" level (when main characters are homosexual, it's a "thing", even if we are starting to see -with Torchwood for instance- the first fictions that are not about the sexual orientation of the hero. We're still not colourblind, when it comes to this. But I'd say we're on the way. Few politicians, even right-winged, are openly homophobic. And when they ask to maintain restrictions of rights for homosexuals, they generally do the effort of trying to not look directly homophobic. It's an evolution.
Now, there are things that are more problematic.
Do we agree about the liberty of cults ? There is a strong trend of islamophobia (partly as a reaction to islamism) that makes me doubt it. Many people consider christianism as inherently superior to islam, and lately, Switzerland has voted against the right to build mosquees (while christian churches can still be built).
Do we agree that war is a bad thing ? Tough call. We've seen, in the last decade, a warmongering propaganda that was directly echoing the most moronic WW1 rhetorics. And apparently, joining the army is still considered as the cool thing in the USA, with some prestige attached to it. I don't really trust the crocodile tears of the proponents of the iraq bombing, when they talk of necessary evil. I still think that war is totall awesome to a lot of people, beyond the obligatory "reluctant hero" posture.
And we're still far from agreeing about collective responsabilities in poverty. I think there's still a strong force in neo-darwinist rhetorics, ideas that "if you're poor then you deserve it" and "if you've got human qualities, then you become rich". Wealth redistribution is a huge issue because of this. There's also no agreement about wealth differentials : there's those who consider it's a bad thing (makes the rich richer and the poor poorer), and those who consider it's a good thing (either because the richer rich make the poor richer, or because fuck the lazy-ass leeching paupers, they're not my business). In Europe there is a strong consensus about capital punishment being an outdated medieval barbaric practice, but, again, we're far from having established this in the USA.
And, Earth is mostly round. And we basically all agree that a representative democracy is better than the autocracy of a given dynasty. Though I'm not certain about oligarchy - people seem quite against it at the level of discourses, but quite supportive of it when it's nicely presented. And I think that, after WW2, eugenism has fallen a bit out of fashion. Even though there are still indirect echoes of it here and there, it would be much more of a scandal nowadays than when it was enthousiastically theorised and/or applied in the democracies of the first half of the XXth century.
So, that's it. That's where we are now ? What are the fundations that we can base our discussions upon nowadays. Where exactly do our opinions diverge.
What about yesterday. What about tomorrow.
(Counting the posts before this becomes a "Steam" debate.)
Post edited September 25, 2012 by Telika
