There was never an actual social ladder. There’s a social lottery
As far as I am concerned, there was one. My grand grandparents either didn’t know how to write or at most had the 4th grade, poor farmers in the middle of nowhere. My grandparents all got high school done and ascended to low middle class. Their kids all got to uni and all got to proper middle to middle high class. Only in my generation does it look like uni and other formal education may not be available for a relevant portion of the population, thanks to the great work of the so called ”Socialist Party” (as socialist as I am a frog)
In my more conspiratorial moments I wonder if social media driven social justice is encouraged by the elites to keep us fighting over whether the movies have enough gay/Black/trans actors, critical race theory, trans bathrooms etc so that inequality and serious change never come up meaningfully.
Were I one of the wealthy elite, I could think of no better ally in the fight to support the status quo than twitter social justice.
To be clear, I think most of those folks are doing what they believe is right and I generally agree but it also creates a giant schism between Left and Right when it should be about Haves and Have nots.
You know who doesn’t have to use the bathroom? Dead Palestinian kids who might still be alive if we changed the statistics quo and dismantled the military industrial complex instead of incredibly narrow culture war battles.
You know who has serious bathroom problems? The literally billions of people at risk from climate change because we are stuck in the status quo and fighting culture war battles on the margins.
In an ideal world, yeah, everyone would agree with me on everything. But as that’s not the case, we have to prioritize. And I think that while trans bathrooms are a tragic issue, being drawn into those fights keeps the status who and condemns billions to suffer.
It’s like we’re trying to win the battle but lose the war except we’re only managing to stalemate the battle while also losing the war.
I think the people fighting those issues “on the margins” are likely accomplishing more on the issues you claim are important too though? It’s not either or. You don’t have to choose to only care about one thing.
The conspiracy part of my mind thinks people saying things like you’re saying just don’t like trans people, but ultimately don’t really care about Palestinian children or climate change either. I’ll take people that actually fight for something.
Occupy Wall Street was 2011.
I took Google Ngrams with some various terms around social justice, set smoothing to 0, and sorted the outcomes. Feel free to verify; I’m no expert.
Tested terms (alphabetical order): Bigot, Bisexual, Black, Cisgender, Civil Rights, Critical Race Theory, Discrimination, Diversity, Empowerment, Equality, Equity, Gay, Gentrification, Hate Speech, Heterosexual, Homosexual, HRT, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Inclusive, Inequality, Intersectionality, Lesbian, LGBT, Liberation, Marginalize, Microaggression, Oppression, Privilege, Racism, Representation, Social Justice, Solidarity, Systemic, Transgender
Upturn in 2011/2012, upward trend since: Cisgender, Critical Race Theory, Gentrification, LGBT, Transgender
Downturn in 2011/2012, upward trend since:
Unclear in 2011/2012, upward trend since: Bigot, Bisexual, Hate Speech, Identity Politics, Inclusive, Inequality, Intersectionality, Microaggression, Social Justice
Upturn in 2011/2012, unclear trend since: Discrimination, Gay, Lesbian
Downturn in 2011/2012, unclear trend since: Privilege
Unclear in 2011/2012, unclear trend since: Black, Diversity, Empowerment, Equality, Human Rights, Liberation, Marginalize, Oppression, Racism, Representation, Solidarity, Systemic
Upturn in 2011/2012, downward trend since: Equity, Heterosexual, Homosexual
Downturn in 2011/2012, downward trend since: HRT
Unclear in 2011/2012, downward trend since: Civil Rights
I certainly didn’t sort them perfectly. I don’t want to tell you what to think, but I will say that I was pretty sure of this theory before running this test, and though I feel the evidence supports it, it wasn’t as strong as I thought.
This reads so much worse when you realize that the distraction is the point.
Voter: Please address our material interests.
Politicians: Nah, let’s all get violent over pronouns and bathrooms and Christmas and school books.
