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Notes -
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.
So, the mother of all Texas Sharpshooter Fallacies?
Where's the Free Love that was as or more popular in progressive circles in the 1960s than full racial equality?
I don't really know much about the 60s but tinder et al exist, which feels pretty in line with what I imagine "free love" was all about.
Ironically people are having less sex, but I think that's for other reasons, because sex outside of marriage is now the social norm for the supermajority of Western Civilization.
The modern online dating market is nothing like the concept of free love that was extremely common and important within progressive circles. Maybe on Fetlife or whatever the modern equivalent is. Read Stranger in a Strange Land some time. That's what progressives in the 60s pictured as the enlightened future.
It failed. Young couples today are, if anything, more jealous and possessive than they were in my grandmother's day.
This is what I mean by a Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. It's circular reasoning. You don't even know what progressives aimed for but assume that it must be pretty much what we have today because progressives always get what they wanted so this must be it.
I've noticed this tendency as well. First, progressives claim that changing the law or cultural mores on something will improve this or that, or everything altogether. When their predictions inevitable fail and the changes turn out to be somewhere between less good or outright negative, but everyone already got used to the new norms, the claim becomes that this is what we wanted anyway. Ideally, you start a bunch of tv shows how terrible life as before [X] changed. Didn't chesterton have a quote to that effect?
Ah, found it:
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."
The implication here being that the progressives of old are now the contemporary conservatives.
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I was mostly making that comment to learn more, I was taking a shot in the dark in the hope someone/you would correct me and I'd learn something.
I love the book Stranger in a Strange Land. Excellent point and I totally grok Free Love now.
Cheers!
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