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This is an interesting trend in history, but i think another way to look at it is why its happening, and why certain societies and not others?
First and foremost, this doesn't seem to follow geo politically. It seems to be a phenomenon that's unique to specific societies, like the US, and this "progress" is not uniform nor takes place everywhere.
Most of east Asia is much more "racist" & "sexist" than the west. China is insanely oppressive and controlling, they are not democratic in the slightest. Out of wedlock births are few and are stigmatized in those societies, they do not allow gay marriage.
Ukraine is currently "losing" its war with Russia.
What would be the morally correct position on the Israel-Palestine conflict? Can we say that history is bending towards Palestine, Israel, or a 2 state solution?
The Taliban taking over in Afghanistan.
There is a loss of privacy & general alienation that comes with modern technology.
Why does this only happen in certain countries and not others? If its about morality, why is history permiting some "immorality" in some places and not others. What makes progressives such a cultural power house in the states?
It’s due to the nature of social progress and western responses. De Maistre defined how the revolution would be defeated 200 years ago; not through a revolution against, the Orleanist solution that failed not only in France but with Franco’s shogunate and which is at least unsuccessful in Iran, but through the opposite of a revolution, adaptatory and distributed change which coalesces into its own antithesis in a reverse dialectic, gradually restoring the civilization of the west.
The western right by and large does not realize this, and does not realize how to do this; this despite the distributists completing the system of de Maistre’s counter-revolution in an inculturated form nearly a century ago. In east Asia, things are different, as the embedded Confucianism of these societies naturally generates its own antithesis to revolution, resultant in the dialectic restoring their tradition passively. But we’re talking about the west, here, where Confucius is a strange foreign import of made up wisdom to sell fortune cookies. Things are different, and that’s ok.
What can you do? You can join real traditional communities and contribute to rebuilding functional villages which, by their very nature, will seek to confederate, turning into a standardization feedback loop that rebuilds a healthy society over the centuries. Quick and cheap doesn’t work; neither right wing Leninist vanguard parties nor neo-orleanism can push the process through, although political accommodationism to this societal rebuilding is probably a good thing.
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I'd say it's taking place in most places. Outside of like the hardest of Muslim countries, women wearing pants and showing skin is basically the default now. Things like rock music/hip-hop/etc are listened to around the world. A lot of the examples I gave apply worldwide. Not every country is going to have equal "progress" on everything. That Japan still widely shuns tattoos in a way the US doesn't anymore, does not mean they aren't still warming up to them and becoming more lax on the topic.
It's true they don't allow gay marriage, but that's not the only thing related to homosexuality to begin with. They decriminalized it a few decades ago for instance. And polling seems to suggest same sex marriage is also getting more widely accepted too.
So even this is still changed in a way that just a few decades ago would be considered insanely subversive in China.
That Ukraine has been able to put up this incredible fight against Russia, long considered one of the world's superpowers that was in intense competition with the US, for years on end is by itself an accomplishment is it not? I remember how it was expected Kyiv would fall in days.
Again, that it doesn't apply to every conflict and country at all times equally doesn't stop it being generally true that things are a lot more "progressive" than the past on a lot of different topics worldwide.
Interesting/sad/etc to watch self-inflicted backsliding in parts of UK, Belgium, Germany, France, and Sweden.
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