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There is not always a long arc of morality.
So this article is interesting, but the pessimist in me cant help but think that this is "wrong" in the long run.
Im not a fan of progressives by any means. I'm sure many here are not either but i also think that we must look reality straight in the face: Most conservative positions (Id argue at least 65% ) lose in the long run. Primarily due to demographic shifts. Primarily in age cohorts, but we cant be naive that race is likely playing a factor as well.
One example he takes that is in my opinion, quite poor, is Abortion. First and foremost, there have only been 3 states that have been to defend the pro-life position successfully at the ballot box recently, Florida (only be a 60% technicality), South Dakota, and Nebraska respectively. Many deeply red states have voted for the practice (Kansas, Kentucky, etc). And lets not forget the fact that there are 5 states in the union including DC, that have 0 gestational limits, and attempts to add limits failed in Colorado and New Mexico. This an extremist position by western standards, in is not law in the majority of the world.
This one particularly bothers me, because of how fucking disgusting and twisted many of these doctors who do these later terminations are, the fact that states protect them, and the fact that the mainstream media & democrats lie about them taking place on healthy children and mothers.
The pew research link ive sighted above also reveals that many among Gen Z support some level of gender ideology (well, surprisingly, most still think that gender is determined at birth) But id probably bet money that this could be shifted as well.
Lets all face the music, Conservative America is simply going the way of the dinosaurs. We have a declining birth rate, religiosity is going down the toilet, marriage rates are going down toilet. Same thing with "patriotism". I would love to optimistic here, but i simply don't see it. America is becoming a more progressive society, like it or not. While i don't think this is "Inevitable"... I also see no way it could be practically prevented. It just seems like historically and currently, winning the public over and tilting the overton window rightward is just really difficult.
But hey, who knows, maybe im wrong, and 50 years from now, we will be laughing at the idea of multiple genders, mass immigration, or secularism.
The long arc of morality doesn't mean for every topic, but in general progressive movements do tend to win out over more conservative ones. They win out so strong that you don't even think about it much anymore, at least for these examples of the US.
Women wear pants and show skin above the knee, they work in leadership roles, and marital rape is illegal nationwide.
Universal suffrage is the default of democracy around the world now, even the pretend democracies of Russia or North Korea often act as if everyone can meaningfully vote instead of just property owners.
Left handed people are not only left unbeaten, but left handed products are readily available to buy for anyone who needs them.
Barely anyone cares about interracial marriage or gay marriage anymore. There is a small movement to try to shift the needle but it's not mainstream.
Tattoos are now widely accepted (within reason) and tons of people have them without much societal pushback or shame anymore.
The Catholics are just considered a normal form of Christianity now (our VP is a Catholic even!) Jews/Italians/Irish/etc are now considered an ordinary form of white instead of as foreign criminals and scum. Most blue laws go essentially unenforced nowadays, with alcohol as the only meaningful vestigial exception in some states.
Casual clothing is now commonplace in many work environments, with people even wearing branded tshirts and the like.
Jazz/rock/hip-hop/metal/etc are just considered normal forms of music instead of the work of Satan corrupting our kids.
There are a ton of things like this, victories that are either so absolute no one even considers going back (like women in pants, oppressing the Irish, or opposing rock music) or have opposition that is niche and opposed even within "traditional values" groups.
It's the same way the comment before me pointed out, even religion has changed. They're more accepting that the earth is round, heliocentrism, that germ theory exists, that changelings and witches aren't commonplace in the world. Many religions are even accepting of (or at least softer in opposing) the ideas of evolution and the earth being billions of years old. Many believe in no fault divorce, Trump himself has been married three times. And like the other example I gave above, left handed people aren't oppressed. We have a Republican presidency where one of the main advisors and figures in it (Elon Musk) was an unashamed fornicator who barely disguises his atheism, and no one cared. The average American Christian today is a sinful heretic to someone a thousand years ago.
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.
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