Ship of Fools: Why are we still talking about this?

Thread: Why are we still talking about this? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

So many subjects, from feminism, to sexuality and gender fluidity, that I get so frustrated still having to hear the arguments.

I thought we had clarified a century ago that people are all descended from the same. We are all humans, why do we feel such a need to discriminate against others like this? Not just "others from a distant place", but others next door.

Is anyone else frustrated by this? I don't want to argue the same things I was arguing 30 years ago. I want to move on, find new discussions.

I am not suggesting, BTW, that we don't need feminism or whatever. We do, and that is the frustration, the anger. Why, in the 21st Century, do we still need to remind people that all are human, all are valuable, all are valid?

[corrected typo in thread title - Eliab]

[ 06. August 2016, 22:24: Message edited by: Eliab ]

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

Probably because we are all human, and thus flawed, selfish, short-sighted numpties, as well as capable of tremendous goodness.

Yes, it's dreadfully frustrating, especially when it's painfully obvious that "we" are quite clearly, categorically, uncontrovertibly right and "they" must just be wilfully dense. Apart from I remember when I used to hold views as axiomatic that I would now argue strongly against as plainly wrong-headed.

I don't think there is an answer, not on a macro scale (pending the eschaton). On a micro scale I guess you just keep on shining your light/smashing your head against the wall depending on the day.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Why not just hang out with a different set of people? Or not spend so much time reading about the uncongenial beliefs of people you don't know?

Those of us who live in the West are really very fortunate. We're free to believe what we want so long as we don't engage in or encourage criminal activity against other people. I think that's fair enough.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Just to be clear, I am not being needlessly naive on this, I do understand most of the reasons, but it still frustrates me.

I used to hold different beliefs to what I now hold. I would expound them fervently, as I would being a teenager. But I learnt and grew, and realised that my views needed to change. That to be honest to my faith, my Bible, needed to adapt my position.

And yes, it frustrates me that some people are never prepared to check, challenge and explore their views.

And I can't just "hang out with other people", because the people I hang out with experience the abuse. Very few expound distasteful views, but many of them experience the negative side of this bias. What do you want me to do - disconnect from the whole world? I am a part of the world, and to disconnect would be as against my faith as expounding racist views would be.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

What you need to do, ISTM, is tell your friends to leave sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. churches, if it's churches that are the problem you have in mind.

People leave churches all the time. British people are very good at leaving churches. Congregations are getting smaller, and denominations are struggling with money. They can't find enough suitable people (or enough men, anyway) who want to enter the ordained ministry. There's no distinctive social advantage to being a member of most churches.

All this being the case, it's interesting to consider why some individuals find it so hard to leave churches that are making them unhappy. If they left they could set up enlightened churches of the kind they want to see. Or, even better, they could join the more enlightened congregations that currently exist. They're usually in need of more members.

[ 06. August 2016, 12:42: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

Curious, how churches got involved in this discussion.

We could also talk about Political Parties, especially the GOP in the US. There was once a time when it was the party that had most of the black population as members. The Democratic party was the party of segregation. The Republican party was the party of Lincoln. The Republican party was a party of moderation. The Democratic party was the party of regression.

Then things began to change. Several things happened. The key issue was the civil rights act of 1964. A Democratic President signed that into law and many Southern Democrats suddenly felt betrayed.

Roger Ailes, then a Nixon advisor, developed the Southern Strategy. Attracting Southern Democrats to the Republican party and forcing moderates to leave the party.

The party became more white and more racist over the years. Then came Obama. The TEA party, and now you have TRUMP. If you looked at the GOP convention it was 95% white. On the other hand the Democratic party was a wide mixture of people of all races, creeds, orientations.

Now the Republicans are worried that their party will ever survive.

Frankly I think the party will, but it is going to have to become much more inclusive. The pendulum will swing back to the middle.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

Women have been one way or another regarded as second class for pretty much all of human history, and you think societies are going to absorb the change away from that in less than 100 years? Same basic question for inequality based on race or sexuality.

Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on :

Facile suggestions that treat relationships and associations as if they were products on a supermarket shelf are not the answer.

The answer. I believe, is the power and essential conservatism of the collective unconscious. It has not yet been convinced of the need to change. As globalization continues and the body of consciousness it includes increases, the body of conservative opinion grows and the effort required to turn it around increases proportionally.

That wall ain't going nowhere, sadly.

[Waterworks]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

And take heart. The arc bends towards justice.
We have the vote, and we're gonna use it. If they take it away, we'll remember, and get it back. I am not old, but I remember the want ads in the paper, the jobs neatly classified for men, women, and negroes. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would have been unelectable, when I was a teen.
It's slow, but it's getting better, even in my lifetime.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And take heart. The arc bends towards justice.

I used to think that. But the arc seems to be bending back away again.

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Curious, how churches got involved in this discussion.

We could also talk about Political Parties, especially the GOP in the US. There was once a time when it was the party that had most of the black population as members. The Democratic party was the party of segregation. The Republican party was the party of Lincoln. The Republican party was a party of moderation. The Democratic party was the party of regression.

Then things began to change. Several things happened. The key issue was the civil rights act of 1964. A Democratic President signed that into law and many Southern Democrats suddenly felt betrayed.

Roger Ailes, then a Nixon advisor, developed the Southern Strategy. Attracting Southern Democrats to the Republican party and forcing moderates to leave the party.

The party became more white and more racist over the years. Then came Obama. The TEA party, and now you have TRUMP. If you looked at the GOP convention it was 95% white. On the other hand the Democratic party was a wide mixture of people of all races, creeds, orientations.

Now the Republicans are worried that their party will ever survive.

Frankly I think the party will, but it is going to have to become much more inclusive. The pendulum will swing back to the middle.

Gramps

Have you seen my post in All Saints?

Spike
SoF Admin

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Its not particularly churches that I had in mind actually, although they are guilty. It is society in general.

RuthW - I do accept that oppression has been part of our society for centuries. I suppose I thought, with some of the radical developments in scientific thought - like Darwin on evolution - we might have understood our real place in the world. We might have realised that we are all the same.

I suppose I have an expectation that people should be sensible and learn and understand about their beliefs and ideas. For me, that is just a natural thing to do - to want to learn. Despite everything, I still have a belief that people are better than they seem to actually be.

And yet the more I see of humanity, the more I think we should just give up, vote Trump in, and all die in a nuclear war. Because we deserve nothing else.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

No, we are getting better. And we can prove we are getting better.
Step into the Wayback Machine, and let's go and visit Charles Dickens in 1840. We have dinner (highly adulterated meats, water that may give you cholera and certainly will give you the trots, flour cut with chalk, butter cut with lard, but food and water safety are a separate achievement). Then what? A dogfight, perhaps. Or a hanging, how about! Bring the kiddies. Nothing like pain, agony and death to finish off a jovial evening.
There may still be places, and people, like that today. But if you offered to have a dog fight in downtown London today you would be lynched. In the US you would be jailed, like Michael Vick. They're having difficulty sustaining bullfighting in Spain (ongoing since Rome ruled the place).
We are less mean, less bloodthirsty. There's hope.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Not entirely sure about the dog fights. Or the badger baiting. And not many people would want to take on the people concerned, who are more like the lynchers than lynchees.

People from downtown London go out in the country hare-coursing, and the farmers won't take them on as they go tooled up. (I heard this the day I was about to start an embroidery sold as 'showing the peaceful life of a country farm. I'm still toying with the idea of doing a realistic one.)

Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on :

I think thinks have changed radically in my life time. I remember the Jeremy Thorpe scandal as a child hood measure of tolerance to Gay rights. I remember being told by a friends mother (respectable suburbia) they would never sell their house to blacks or Asians. Women's rights have improved, my daughter expects to go to university and not to be a house wife.

The direction of travel for most things has bee right even if the journey is not done yet. (Perhaps with the exception of employment rights that have taken a hammering in the last ten years or so).

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

When Thomas Hardy researched rural England, to write what would become highly popular accounts of the jovial and healthy outdoor life, the reality of unrelenting hardship, poverty and entrenched attitudes that he encountered would not have sold many of his books.

We have come a long way. Yet now for some strange, hard to pinpoint reason there seems present some irresistible urge to go back. Go back to What exactly?

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

But we still have adulterated meats (horse, anyone?) - it's just done differently. And maybe less dangerous, because there are better regulations.

And there are many, it seems, who would raise fundamental problems with a party leader who was openly gay. Although, by comparison with Jeremy Thorpe, being unremittingly corrupt and criminal seems to be a necessity for PM......

I think we have moved on in the sense that there are legal changes to regulate the worst excesses. But I think in terms of attitudes, we have not moved on a great deal.

As an example, the Victorians were well known for using child labour. We have, quite rightly, moved on from this, but seem to have moved from physical abuse to sexual abuse. Have we really moved on? Have we, as a society of people (rather than as a regulatory organisation) changed our core attitudes?

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

Social change happens slowly. I think we forget that. Let's check things out in 2050. In the meantime, stay on the battlefield.

Sweet Honey

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Why, in the 21st Century, do we still need to remind people that all are human, all are valuable, all are valid?

Because the 21st century has massively better technology than the 19th but no better philosophy.

You feel strongly about ideas that make sense to you given your experiences. Other people feel just as strongly about different ideas that make sense to them given their experiences. And to the extent that these conflict, there is no common accepted philosophical framework within which you can prove that you are right.

Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
But I think in terms of attitudes, we have not moved on a great deal.

Maybe. I suspect many ethical improvements are due to us having greater resources and stability: if there was widespread starvation and violence we'd quickly rethink our current values. That said, IMO you're seriously underestimating how far we've come and how quickly.

quote:
As an example, the Victorians were well known for using child labour. We have, quite rightly, moved on from this, but seem to have moved from physical abuse to sexual abuse.

Child prostitution was rife in Victorian London, and according to Wikipedia the ages from 10 to 13 were typical for sexual consent during the mid-19th century. This is an area where huge progress has been made.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I thought we had clarified a century ago that people are all descended from the same. We are all humans, why do we feel such a need to discriminate against others like this? Not just "others from a distant place", but others next door.

Because we're animals, and it's what animals do. Do you think rutting stags care that they're all from the same herd, never mind species?

Competition for territory, resources and mates is innate to virtually every form of life that exists.

quote:
Why, in the 21st Century, do we still need to remind people that all are human, all are valuable, all are valid?

Because the first of those things does not lead to the second and third in all philosophies. It's certainly not a natural conclusion to reach - just look at chimp or monkey societies and you'll see all kinds of caste structures, with the ones at the bottom getting the worst of everything.

quote:
I suppose I thought, with some of the radical developments in scientific thought - like Darwin on evolution - we might have understood our real place in the world.

You mean the same Darwinian theory of natural selection that fundamentally relies on competition between individuals/groups in which only the strongest/fittest will survive?

quote:
We might have realised that we are all the same.

But we're not. That's a trivial observation. There are lots of different ethnicities, cultures, classes, languages, creeds, etc. And given that we're not in a post-scarcity society just yet, we're all in competition for resources, territory and political dominance.

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