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Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? Even in purely economic terms anyone who wasn't a white male would disagree that there has ever been a

Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? Even in purely economic terms anyone who wasn't a white male would disagree that there has ever been a time when this was true.

DuskStar 7y ago
> When have we ever had a common lived experience? The obvious answer is the generation that fought in WWII. Oh, maybe not literally everyone, but a huge portion of the male population went through the military. Baby Boomers might qualify too - white picket fence, 2.2 kids and a dog, shared culture (only a handful of TV/radio stations, national brands, etc) and more.
coldtea 7y ago
>Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? In eras with much less inequality? In eras without so easy access to echo bubbles? In eras when you couldn't as easily have news tailored to your preferences/prejudices? The "the world was always exactly the same" / "we never had it as good as today in any aspect" argument is getting tiresome, on top of being ahistorical.
- otterley 7y ago
  I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and minorities. I can’t think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn’t getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the proverbial shaft.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and minorities. There are different kinds of equality (equality between the sexes, races, economic, etc). Economic inequality, which are talking about here, was less in decades past: "The Great Divergence is a term given to a period, starting in the late 1970s, during which income differences increased in the US and, to a lesser extent, in other countries": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality) >I can’t think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn’t getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the proverbial shaft. Which is neither here nor there. Even at that, there have been periods and societies much better than 2019 US in almost all of those aspects. The very concern of "white" vs else is a US one, due to its "melting pot" nature (and the very recent historical baggage of slavery, segregation, etc. Other European countries for example where done with that shit for centuries, not merely until the ...70s). And of course, in more homogeneous societies (all white, all asian, all black, etc) those things weren't a concern.
    - UncleMeat 7y ago
      But this is precisely the sort of analysis that writes over racial minorities, women, the incarcerated, and gay people. Yes, economic inequality is greater now. But "let's just ignore the other kinds" while lamenting the loss of shared experiences snacks of blinders.
- cafard 7y ago
  "In eras when you couldn't as easily have news tailored to your preferences/prejudices?" Well, no, not electronically. But in the early republic, political parties sponsored newspapers. In the early 1800s, southern postmasters would seize and destroy abolitionist literature. Considerably later it was easy to find one that leaned your way politically.

Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? Even in purely economic terms anyone who wasn't a white male would disagree that there has ever been a time when this was true.

DuskStar 7y ago

> When have we ever had a common lived experience? The obvious answer is the generation that fought in WWII. Oh, maybe not literally everyone, but a huge portion of the male population went through the military. Baby Boomers might qualify too - white picket fence, 2.2 kids and a dog, shared culture (only a handful of TV/radio stations, national brands, etc) and more.

coldtea 7y ago

>Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? In eras with much less inequality? In eras without so easy access to echo bubbles? In eras when you couldn't as easily have news tailored to your preferences/prejudices? The "the world was always exactly the same" / "we never had it as good as today in any aspect" argument is getting tiresome, on top of being ahistorical.

otterley 7y ago
I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and minorities. I can’t think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn’t getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the proverbial shaft.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and minorities. There are different kinds of equality (equality between the sexes, races, economic, etc). Economic inequality, which are talking about here, was less in decades past: "The Great Divergence is a term given to a period, starting in the late 1970s, during which income differences increased in the US and, to a lesser extent, in other countries": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality) >I can’t think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn’t getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the proverbial shaft. Which is neither here nor there. Even at that, there have been periods and societies much better than 2019 US in almost all of those aspects. The very concern of "white" vs else is a US one, due to its "melting pot" nature (and the very recent historical baggage of slavery, segregation, etc. Other European countries for example where done with that shit for centuries, not merely until the ...70s). And of course, in more homogeneous societies (all white, all asian, all black, etc) those things weren't a concern.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    But this is precisely the sort of analysis that writes over racial minorities, women, the incarcerated, and gay people. Yes, economic inequality is greater now. But "let's just ignore the other kinds" while lamenting the loss of shared experiences snacks of blinders.
cafard 7y ago
"In eras when you couldn't as easily have news tailored to your preferences/prejudices?" Well, no, not electronically. But in the early republic, political parties sponsored newspapers. In the early 1800s, southern postmasters would seize and destroy abolitionist literature. Considerably later it was easy to find one that leaned your way politically.