For even the most minimally progressive of Americans there are dismaying and seemingly anachronistic features of society and events going on. These can be described as the list of things we’ll never be able to explain to future generations. Mundane features of the societies of past generations are almost impossible to fathom for today’s young people. The following were once socially, morally, and legally acceptable:
Some humans were property
Eugenics-based policies and practices (noted Feminist Margaret Sanger, an early proponent of birth control used the language of eugenics to advance the cause)
Women weren’t allowed to vote
The concept of homosexuality did not exist
Children could work in factories or be forced into marriages
Animal torture was a common form of public amusement
At this past TAM I had a conversation at the Del Mar one night with some goodly skeptics about what future generations will think of us. One person said something to the effect of the skeptics being on the right side of history, and will history remember us fighting the good fight? To this I said, we’ll be seen as positive only by comparison to some mainstream views and to some groups and people. But by and large, we’ll still be seen as incomprehensibly thick and ethically backward. When challenged about what I meant, I responded with some of the following items. I find it a good skeptical exercise to consider what things we find perfectly acceptable that would shock and scandalize our descendants (perhaps grandkids, or perhaps a few generations after).
For purposes of this I will not focus on these very true and good examples because they are a bit obvious: typical social and systemic sexism and racism; social acceptability of maligning the obese, ugly, or disabled; regressive and self-defeating attitudes toward the environment; criminalization of harmless drugs and victimless crimes like (potentially) prostitution; the fight for marriage equality; the fight over evolution in science classrooms. And so on. How about some things that don’t get much air time?
Blood sports. Namely, MMA, boxing and related activities. These are events that people show up to cheer for, in which people are beaten to a pulp or routinely exposed to serious and sometimes permanent injury or death. Since 1980, 200 people have been killed as a result of MMA, boxing matches or training. The rate is extremely low, but all were avoidable. A recent study documented brain damage among MMA athletes and boxers. British, Canadian, Australian, and the American Medical Association have all called for banning. But on the other hand, entertainment.
Homeless people. This is part of a broader economic and political problem that does get plenty of attention, but the struggle seems a losing one. In the United States, or any industrialized democracy really, we have the resources and capital to shelter and feed every human being. In fact, doing so would be a trivial sum of money compared to spending on a military which protects us from a non-existent super power. There are many obscene injustices as a result of oligarch-serving laws and politics, but what makes this issue extra galling is how clear and present it is. There are humans sleeping on the streets, dying there. Everyone sees it. We all know. We just don’t care all that much.
Dehumanization and demeaning of males. Maleness carries carte blanche for certain types of hateful insult or blithe disregard (it also carries more benefits than any other group membership except white, but that changes nothing of what follows). This is manifest in large and small ways. The above two items disproportionately affect males. When convicted for the same crime, men are given 63% longer sentences on average, compared to women. Even among the most “progressive” crowds, male prison rape is an amusing thing to be joked about. The idea that men can be sexual assault victims is sometimes disputed outright (1, 2, 3, 4). Lastly, while the defunct notion of “penis envy” once used to disparage women is long ridiculed, it is perfectly common and amusing to apply to men. This is usually invoked when a man is seen with a large vehicle, firearm, or other conspicuously powerful device. It is taken to be a compensatory measure for a small penis and the desire for a larger one. I would expect (hope) this is usually a joke instead of an actual theory about the person, but what’s the joke? What if the man did have a psychological insecurity? How is it that social mockery of someone’s insecurity is ethical? Consider the progressivist thought on how shaming of the insecurities of other groups is taken.
Beauty pageants. It can’t be a great idea to have events where we call one person the most attractive, or that they’re the exemplar to which the rest must aspire. There’s enough wrong with that idea to be an entire other essay. But many pageants are worse than that, they go further. For example the “Miss America” pageant winner is not merely billed as the “best in show” for physical attractiveness, but is also supposed to be some sort of ideal of femininity itself and of patriotism. Read if you can, the lyrics of the eponymous song:
There she is, Miss America
There she is, your ideal
The dreams of a million girls
Who are more than pretty
May come true in Atlantic City
Oh she may turn out to be
The queen of femininity
There she is, Miss America
There she is, your ideal
With so many beauties
She’ll take the town by storm
With her all-American face and form
And there she is
Walking on air she is
Fairest of the fair she is
Miss America
For starters, it’s all a lie and everyone knows it. Miss America is a glorified wet t-shirt contest with the patriotism and exemplar dreck as glued-on as pasties. In fact, I have considerably reduced objection to a wet t-shirt contest- at least nobody is deluding themselves. Then there’s the notion that this special class of person, the “pageant contestant”, a person whose full time job is ironing her body into some mold of stereotypical beauty, is an ideal anything let alone an ideal young woman. Plus, I have no idea what “ideal young woman” could mean.
The idea that there could be just one physical configuration that is “best” should offend our intelligence as well as our ethics. Just as offensive though, is the notion that one set of interests or goals, one kind of personality, one kind of camera-friendly, mainstream-commoditizable woman is somehow more “feminine” or “American” than the rest. The notoriously vapid contestants seem to be women who see pageants as a path to an entertainment career (which is where many of them go). There’s nothing wrong with wanting to act or sing, but is this one pursuit the feminine American ideal? Aspiring astronauts, presidents, teachers, writers, or doctors et cetera need not apply.
The indifference— no, contempt— for individuality, intelligence, education, moral courage, and most of all for the truth that lies therein. That is going to be mighty hard to explain to folks a few generations down the line.
Well there is more that may be said but that is enough by me. What say you?
