4 ms·

Society is moving forward, it's happening. It's not something that's going to correct itself fully in a day, month, or year. It will take at least another gener

by jbob2000 10y ago

Society is moving forward, it's happening. It's not something that's going to correct itself fully in a day, month, or year. It will take at least another generation to fully work out these problems, but it's happening. There's a nice quote that I just read, but I forget the author: "It's easier to raise strong children than to fix broken adults". This is how we are going to fix sexism. Not by writing and reading huge personal diatribes. Not by protesting. Not by affirmative action. But by raising smart, empathetic children.

alphabettsy 10y ago
That's true, but someone certainly has to raise them and like poverty, bigotry depends a lot on your parents.
peterwwillis 10y ago
A human is more complex than that. Even with granola-eating compost-gardening flower child parents, you can still end up with a hitler youth. The opposite is true as well. Why? Because parents are not the only influence (thank Bob) on a developing person. One of the strongest influences on a person is their peer group. Parents provide a model, but the peer group is where a lot of people get their core social values from. It's where you learn how to dress, how to talk, what sports to play, what music to listen to, and how to treat other people. But to say "eh, things are getting better, don't worry about it", is completely antithetical to the idea of not writing personal stories, or protesting, or affirmative action. Things are getting better because of these things. You didn't grow up in the era of desegregation. You didn't grow up in the era of women's suffrage. These things took many, many generations to defeat, and they required long, protracted battles and getting in people's faces because most people didn't want things to get better. Yes, we need to raise smart, empathetic children. And we need to bring them to protest rallies.

alphabettsy 10y ago

That's true, but someone certainly has to raise them and like poverty, bigotry depends a lot on your parents.

peterwwillis 10y ago

A human is more complex than that. Even with granola-eating compost-gardening flower child parents, you can still end up with a hitler youth. The opposite is true as well. Why? Because parents are not the only influence (thank Bob) on a developing person. One of the strongest influences on a person is their peer group. Parents provide a model, but the peer group is where a lot of people get their core social values from. It's where you learn how to dress, how to talk, what sports to play, what music to listen to, and how to treat other people. But to say "eh, things are getting better, don't worry about it", is completely antithetical to the idea of not writing personal stories, or protesting, or affirmative action. Things are getting better because of these things. You didn't grow up in the era of desegregation. You didn't grow up in the era of women's suffrage. These things took many, many generations to defeat, and they required long, protracted battles and getting in people's faces because most people didn't want things to get better. Yes, we need to raise smart, empathetic children. And we need to bring them to protest rallies.