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60 years ago, our society was much more homogeneous than it is now. The social systems in contention now weren't set up to create that homogeneity, they were set up because the homogeneity allowed the public at large to see value in systems and structures that achieved common, (that is to say homogeneous) goals.
Now we are heterogenous, and the systems and structures become a weapon to fight over, in the endlessly spiraling series of escalations. You're describing it as though that fight was the norm previously, only it really, really wasn't. There would be no public school system if the population that established it had suffered the level of values-conflict we currently endure. Likely there would have been no nation either.
I think you're wrong. This homogeneity is a historical illusion. 60 years ago you had the civil rights era. Was that because everyone thought and was treated the same?
60 years before that it was womens suffrage you were divided over. With differing feelings and laws in different states.
60 years before that you're fighting over whether men who can't own land can vote. Plus you know the whole civil war.
The difference i would argue in each of these cases is that one side won convincingly each time. And that then trickled down to all states. You had some forced homogeneity for a time before the next division erupted. But only because there was victory. There were always weapons to fight over. You just don't see them because the battles were so convincingly won. And that changed landscape is the water you swim in.
Women not being able to vote being a niche idea in the US is because a cultural battle was fought and won over it. Thats why 98% of people don't question it.
If the right wins the trans "war" in 60 years people will look back and say how the right side won and how quickly everyone fell into line. They get broad strokes. And someone then will say thats because 2023 is more homogeneous in views than 2083. Not realising that battleground is why homogeneity emerged.
That's not going to happen. If the trans side loses the whole thing is getting memory holed. Best case scenario we'll be talking about it like we do about lobotomies as "bad thing crazy doctors were doing", not as something intimately connected to the progressive movement. Worst case scenario the whole thing is getting pinned on the right ("in Iran the government was forcing gay people to transition, and even in the west we had a movement trying to promote transition for gender non-conforming people") the same way eugenics is nowadays, and the only people knowing this is ass backwards will be a bunch of internet contrarians.
Might be naive, but I don't think things like that can get memory-holed.
The fucking President met with Dylan Mulvaney, on HD video, visible from the little clairvoyant in everyone's pocket. It's over.
There used to be leftist groups in the UK and elsewhere in Western Europe advocating the decriminalization and normalization of pedophilia / man-boy-love. After they failed to replicate the success of the Civil Rights Movement as they wanted, they faded away and their entire existence was memory-holed. The same happened to the wing of radical feminists advocating for lesbian separationism. The fact that gay rights groups didn't promote the legalization of gay marriage as their main goal until the early 2000s is also memory-holed. So yes, it can actually be done.
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To use an example that makes my side look bad, as somebody pro-trans.
How many people do you think knew about Donald Rumsfeld happily shaking hands with Saddam only about 15-20 years before treating him like the most dangerous man in the world? Probably not a lot. Or I'll put it more accurately if you put that picture in front of somebody who was pro-Iraq War, would their opinion have changed? Probably not.
90% of people don't put much thought into politics, 9% put only a little, another 0.9% put a lot, and the last 0.1% are weirdos like us.
If it turns out the gender-critical/anti-trans side is completely right, nobody is going to get punished, there will be no massive shift in societal or political views. We'll just move on to the next fight, and you'll move on to the next fight, trying to block us.
Wait, you're neocon? Or did you mean it was going to be an example where his side looks as bad as the pro-trans side? What makes you think the anti-gender side is not already overwhelmingly against the Iraq war, and would want to put the neocons on trial?
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Sure, and in 2083 this will get the same treatment as the "Democrats" in the KKK
(Byrd), and the ones who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the ones who voted to expand slavery into every new state at the 1860 Democratic Convention. To wit, "Those were actually Republicans."
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In a year or two most people are going to barely remember what all that was even about. The ones that will vaguely remember something will struggle to find said video because Google / GPT5000 will suck at historical searchers relating to culture war. As years go by the few internet contrarians that will remember it fully, and have the video on hand, might elicit a reaction similar to the one you get when someone posts a from the 90's relating to the current culture war.
One of my first top level comments I made after we moved here was about this very question because I already felt the vibes shifting, and if at all possible, I would like to preserve the historical memory of this particular culture war exchange, and one of the most compelling responses was that I don't have a chance. A culture war issue has to be constantly reinforced to maintain it's position in our awareness. As an illustration, you may have heard about lobotomies, but have you heard their sequel: psychosurgery? From what I gather it was a massive culture fight spanning a decade, with choirs of Expert Trusters shouting down dissent. It even got it's own Hollywood movie. How much have you heard about it?
This might be counting my chickens before they hatch, but still, if you have any ideas for how to preserve the memory of what is happening now around this subject, please share them. This is the second most important thing after winning the issue itself.
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Which another way of saying the past will look homogenous right? It was only some crazy doctors and so on. That's my point, the past will look more homogeneous than it actually was.
In this case it will, but your other examples are wrong. All the other movements are talked about as an epic battle between good and evil, that does not leave one with an impression of homogeneity.
Also, aren't you conflating broader society with what is taught in schools?
Depending on when you pick your points it looks homogeneous would be a more accurate statement yeah. It took 60 years between the first state to grant womens sufftrage and it happening federally.
What was being taught in those first states would be that women can vote. Do you think they taught that as a good or bad thing to the generations that were in school and then became adults while that was going on in those dirst more "progressive" states?
It's very likely that it was not taught at all, or taught neutrally.
That seems unlikely, Utah under heavy Mormon control allowed women to vote in 1870 because they thought Mormon women would vote to uphold polygamy.
I.e. Because they thought it would be a positive change.
(They revoked that right later because as it turns out that did not happen).
You think Mormons weren't teaching their kids that polygamy was good and (for those 17 years) that therefore women voting was a positive thing?
Schools always have and always will take sides on things. American schools teach it's good the Allies won WW2 and it was good the Union won the Civil War and it was good the Colonies won the Revolutionary war. Politics and political bias has been in schools for nearly forever. And it should be! Kids should be taught a postion when it comes to the civics of their nation. And they should all roughly be taught the same position.
It can evolve over time of course but if you want a cohesive polity you have to trach them cohesively in my opinion.
In state schools? Yeah, I think there's a good chance they stuck to the basics, and left all the other stuff to the church.
Except for the times when they don't. Spanish schools mysteriously always run into the summer break whenever it's time to cover the Spanish Civil War, Eastern European schools mysteriously run into the same problem whenever it's time to cover anything that happened after World War 2. There's plenty of cases where the powers that be decide to leave well enough alone, and stick to ABCs and 123s until things calm down.
But from this it doesn't follow that schools have always have indoctrinated children into the establishment's view of every single recent culture war controversy.
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