Decepta-Kyle
TRIBE Member
I was just reading the "Guys Rules" thread, and it triggered something that I've been thinking about for a long time now and this seemed like the best time to air it out.
I suppose I should say what I mean on top of meaning what I say. What I'm talking about is the complacency of the majority of society where it concerns some of the major social issues brought to a head in the 60's. I think that a generous comment on the outcome of social activism concerning (for example) racism and sexism would be that it stiffled blatant and violent instances of both in North America and Europe. It also took a huge step in changing people's perspectives on these issues.
My point is this, after seeing activism reach a certain point in its effectiveness, did we as the heirs, fail to take up the calling with the necessary zeal and determination that might have seen us take the next huge leap toward irradicating these attitudes from our very consciousness?
Instead of improving the position which we found handed to us, should we not have striven for a time when "nigger" wasn't even part of our vocabulary, or a joke about women being in the kitchen didn't even receive a snort of amusement?
Did the laziness that the critics of our generation attribute to us also apply to the good we could have done? I realize that activism isn't dead and that people still do fight the good fight, but as a society did the cry for social equality become like the ill fated car alarm? Where anyone who hears has heard it so many times that all they can think of is when the person in charge of it will turn it off and where they don't even think that a crime may be being commited.
Kyle
I suppose I should say what I mean on top of meaning what I say. What I'm talking about is the complacency of the majority of society where it concerns some of the major social issues brought to a head in the 60's. I think that a generous comment on the outcome of social activism concerning (for example) racism and sexism would be that it stiffled blatant and violent instances of both in North America and Europe. It also took a huge step in changing people's perspectives on these issues.
My point is this, after seeing activism reach a certain point in its effectiveness, did we as the heirs, fail to take up the calling with the necessary zeal and determination that might have seen us take the next huge leap toward irradicating these attitudes from our very consciousness?
Instead of improving the position which we found handed to us, should we not have striven for a time when "nigger" wasn't even part of our vocabulary, or a joke about women being in the kitchen didn't even receive a snort of amusement?
Did the laziness that the critics of our generation attribute to us also apply to the good we could have done? I realize that activism isn't dead and that people still do fight the good fight, but as a society did the cry for social equality become like the ill fated car alarm? Where anyone who hears has heard it so many times that all they can think of is when the person in charge of it will turn it off and where they don't even think that a crime may be being commited.
Kyle
