There are several factors here, in addition to the ones you stated.
1. Culture of victimhood/martyrdom. Our culture celebrates the unfairly maligned, and treats being hurt/oppressed as proof of moral value. (hence 9/11; we were hurt, so we could hurt others). So bleeding is the quickest way to sympathy...and sympathy is hard to get. I'm not saying there isn't some real victimization, but the constant "microaggressions" strike me as performative.
2. Moving goalposts. There is always money to be made in prolonging the problem. So what if we're at the least racist/sexist/homophobic time and place in history; we can do better!
3. Perfect world/utopianism. I'm guilty of that myself; it's hard not to look at the very real problems today and wonder why tf we have any of them. I'm not asking for kumbayah-ville; I just want a society that doesn't worship the Just Universe Fallacy, that doesn't base its ethics off of bronze age superstitions, where people at least TRY to examine their prejudices.
4. Lack of time sense/history. A country of 400 million people takes time to change. I'm still surprised how FAST queer rights have appeared, but anything short of complete and total acceptance (with dissenters shipped to Siberia) is not enough. I blame the Internet; it has given people a distorted sense of how quickly ideas move through meatspace.
5. Contempt for normies. Finding a queer space where non-queers can ask questions without getting dogpiled, called bigots, chased out, or otherwise made to feel unwelcome. Just because not everyone is up to date on your bespoke gender identity or every letter in the LGBTQIA[insert letter here], doesn't make them a bigot.
I more or less agree with what you said here. I will say with regards to point 4, the issue of gay rights has been mulled over societally since the sixties; fifty years is a fairly long time to digest and adapt to a controversial issue. What *has* moved very fast is the trans issue- too fast, in my opinion.
There was a decade missed (and a generation dead) in there due to AIDS. Going from "DADT is a dangerous liberal opinion" to "DADT repealed" in less than 20 years was fast, and marriage equality went from holding Dems back in 2004 to legal less than a decade later. Perhaps it's just the pace of modern life. I think the Internet is to blame/credit; information travels MUCH faster there. And I think that's why trans rights blew up so fast; a generation of kids connected tot he Internet found the perfect way to 1)express themselves 2)stick it to The Man 3)deal with their own confusion over identities (everyone is confused as a teenager; it's part of the package 4)find people who will support and validate them and tell them they are beautiful and unique 5)gain the moral high ground against any regressive normies who dare insult their beautiful uniqueness.
I think on the whole, questioning one's gender is a good thing, and the fact that some people get to live their lives more authentically is good. When I was a teen, we wore black, dyed our hair, and called ourselves goths. Now, the teens are cross-dressing, dying their hair, and calling themselves non-binary. How many of that 20% self-identifying as queer will be so in a decade? Less, I'm certain. But I think they'll learn things about themselves. And at least this trend beats emo.
And, despite claims to the contrary, gender and sexuality are different topics; while they overlap, the main thing keeping the T with the LGB has been the fact that The Man hated (and still hates) all of them. In a more sensible world, we could discuss the nuances, but here in the USA at least, all queers have to band together for tactical reasons..
Well, I don't think the issue stopped being discussed or mulled over because of AIDS- if anything, it made the topic even more visible and the debate even more intense. I do agree that we accelerated LGB rights a ton the last twenty years or so, but I would say that came off the back of 30 years of discussion and societal digestion of these ideas beforehand. Others walked so that the newest generation could run.
I do think a lot of people are transtrending and adopting an identity that may not be legitimate in order to fit in. Overall, the trans discourse has moved too far too fast for it to be healthy, in my view.
Social contagion (memetic contagion) is a thing. I don't believe it's purely "the media is turning our kids gay," but I think what people consume definitely affects their ideas of what's possible. And the constantly accelerating pace of the Internet just makes the culture downstream of it move faster. Social issues, meanwhile, are generational; public consciousness doesn't shift until a new generation grows up hearing the new normal. And people living on the Internet simply don't realize how slowly a nation of 400 million people change their minds.
Great piece, 2nd I've read after discovering this sub.
I think one point left out is that so many of these causes had industries created to wage the "war", and now the war has been won, there are people with careers at stake, livelihoods on the line, who are incentivized to continue to search for injustice, else they have to find a new career.
The recent brouhaha on Twitter when GLAAD denigrated the NYT for daring to confirm Jamie Reed's allegations against the St Louis Gender Clinic she worked appears evidence of this phenomena?
I might be quite wrong, but it seems GLAAD won the battle years ago, and rather than unwind the organizational apparatus, they continue to seek new wars where perhaps war isn't the answer?
You leftoids keep pushing pushing pushing…and cry out if anyone pushes back. You never ever learn! This past 2 years is going to cause a needed reckoning
There are several factors here, in addition to the ones you stated.
1. Culture of victimhood/martyrdom. Our culture celebrates the unfairly maligned, and treats being hurt/oppressed as proof of moral value. (hence 9/11; we were hurt, so we could hurt others). So bleeding is the quickest way to sympathy...and sympathy is hard to get. I'm not saying there isn't some real victimization, but the constant "microaggressions" strike me as performative.
2. Moving goalposts. There is always money to be made in prolonging the problem. So what if we're at the least racist/sexist/homophobic time and place in history; we can do better!
3. Perfect world/utopianism. I'm guilty of that myself; it's hard not to look at the very real problems today and wonder why tf we have any of them. I'm not asking for kumbayah-ville; I just want a society that doesn't worship the Just Universe Fallacy, that doesn't base its ethics off of bronze age superstitions, where people at least TRY to examine their prejudices.
4. Lack of time sense/history. A country of 400 million people takes time to change. I'm still surprised how FAST queer rights have appeared, but anything short of complete and total acceptance (with dissenters shipped to Siberia) is not enough. I blame the Internet; it has given people a distorted sense of how quickly ideas move through meatspace.
5. Contempt for normies. Finding a queer space where non-queers can ask questions without getting dogpiled, called bigots, chased out, or otherwise made to feel unwelcome. Just because not everyone is up to date on your bespoke gender identity or every letter in the LGBTQIA[insert letter here], doesn't make them a bigot.
I more or less agree with what you said here. I will say with regards to point 4, the issue of gay rights has been mulled over societally since the sixties; fifty years is a fairly long time to digest and adapt to a controversial issue. What *has* moved very fast is the trans issue- too fast, in my opinion.
There was a decade missed (and a generation dead) in there due to AIDS. Going from "DADT is a dangerous liberal opinion" to "DADT repealed" in less than 20 years was fast, and marriage equality went from holding Dems back in 2004 to legal less than a decade later. Perhaps it's just the pace of modern life. I think the Internet is to blame/credit; information travels MUCH faster there. And I think that's why trans rights blew up so fast; a generation of kids connected tot he Internet found the perfect way to 1)express themselves 2)stick it to The Man 3)deal with their own confusion over identities (everyone is confused as a teenager; it's part of the package 4)find people who will support and validate them and tell them they are beautiful and unique 5)gain the moral high ground against any regressive normies who dare insult their beautiful uniqueness.
I think on the whole, questioning one's gender is a good thing, and the fact that some people get to live their lives more authentically is good. When I was a teen, we wore black, dyed our hair, and called ourselves goths. Now, the teens are cross-dressing, dying their hair, and calling themselves non-binary. How many of that 20% self-identifying as queer will be so in a decade? Less, I'm certain. But I think they'll learn things about themselves. And at least this trend beats emo.
And, despite claims to the contrary, gender and sexuality are different topics; while they overlap, the main thing keeping the T with the LGB has been the fact that The Man hated (and still hates) all of them. In a more sensible world, we could discuss the nuances, but here in the USA at least, all queers have to band together for tactical reasons..
Well, I don't think the issue stopped being discussed or mulled over because of AIDS- if anything, it made the topic even more visible and the debate even more intense. I do agree that we accelerated LGB rights a ton the last twenty years or so, but I would say that came off the back of 30 years of discussion and societal digestion of these ideas beforehand. Others walked so that the newest generation could run.
I do think a lot of people are transtrending and adopting an identity that may not be legitimate in order to fit in. Overall, the trans discourse has moved too far too fast for it to be healthy, in my view.
I agree entirely with that last paragraph.
Social contagion (memetic contagion) is a thing. I don't believe it's purely "the media is turning our kids gay," but I think what people consume definitely affects their ideas of what's possible. And the constantly accelerating pace of the Internet just makes the culture downstream of it move faster. Social issues, meanwhile, are generational; public consciousness doesn't shift until a new generation grows up hearing the new normal. And people living on the Internet simply don't realize how slowly a nation of 400 million people change their minds.
Great piece, 2nd I've read after discovering this sub.
I think one point left out is that so many of these causes had industries created to wage the "war", and now the war has been won, there are people with careers at stake, livelihoods on the line, who are incentivized to continue to search for injustice, else they have to find a new career.
The recent brouhaha on Twitter when GLAAD denigrated the NYT for daring to confirm Jamie Reed's allegations against the St Louis Gender Clinic she worked appears evidence of this phenomena?
I might be quite wrong, but it seems GLAAD won the battle years ago, and rather than unwind the organizational apparatus, they continue to seek new wars where perhaps war isn't the answer?
Maybe.
True. We've made the point elsewhere many times. It's one of the reasons for institutional progress denialism.
this is such drivel, I cannot believe you bothered to write it
Well, that's a carefully reasoned and well-supported response!
You leftoids keep pushing pushing pushing…and cry out if anyone pushes back. You never ever learn! This past 2 years is going to cause a needed reckoning