5 ms·

We have a new lines drawn on acceptance for behavior towards sexuality, religion, women's rights and race since the 90's. The line has moved. The 90's was 30 ye

We have a new lines drawn on acceptance for behavior towards sexuality, religion, women's rights and race since the 90's. The line has moved. The 90's was 30 years ago. I don't know your exact situation at all and criticism of you may indeed have been unfair. But for fucks sake don't try to make a case that you're not far-right by looking to the behavior of people in the past. That indicates strongly you may indeed have backwards views that are 30's years out of date.

rendang 6y ago
A belief that morality improves over time as you describe, aka whiggism/meliorism, is itself a kind of religious tenet of a particular set of worldviews (often called left, progressive etc). So I don't think one can say that rejecting that tenet places one outside of the Overton window of acceptability, while at the same time claiming tolerance of a wide range of viewpoints.
- chiyc 6y ago
  Rejecting progressivism or meliorism of course doesn't place someone outside that window of acceptability by itself. It depends on what a person is clinging onto. And I think it's still fair for a person to claim tolerance of a wide range of viewpoints while rejecting positions that are bigoted or deemed unacceptable. For someone who rejects meliorism, what moment in human history is the correct frame for evaluating the world? Many social or religious conservatives positions today often overlook that certain perspectives they hold now were unacceptable a century ago. The use of contraceptives being one example.
  - zests 6y ago
    I feel like the thread of the conversation has been lost. The answer here is that "no frame" is correct. If you simply believe what is morally fashionable then you likely would have had very objectionable "far right" beliefs in the 90s. This is the premise of http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
    - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
      The original thread was a person upset about the definition of what society considers extreme viewpoints. I don't see anyone arguing which frame is correct but merely that the bar moves over time. Which we know it does. Your above link and statement reinforces this. So you can be an extremist today with a viewpoint that was common 30 years ago. That doesn't change the fact that you're an extremist today.
      - zests 6y ago
        Let's say that 30 years from now some of your beliefs would be considered extremist. What value judgement do you place on yourself today? Can we live in a world where "if you believe this now you're evil but if you believed this 10 years ago you're cool."? Replace 10 with any number of years.
        chiyc 6y ago
        I think the three of us are in agreement here!
        AnotherGoodName 6y ago
        Yes. What you've described is common. Think of all the encounters with racist old people that we tend to laugh off with "she's from a different era". The brush off we do doesn't change the fact that they have grossly outdated and evil views by todays norms. Also think about old people that did change. We don't judge them too harshly for past behavior given it was the norm at the time. As a personal anecdote; every time i've been slow to adapt to the new societal norms, when i look back it's been me who was wrong, not society. It's just taken me time to realize it. I've learnt to force myself to accept, based on repeated past experience, that it's probably not society that's wrong when the overton window moves, it's probably me. I'm yet to regret adapting my viewpoint even if at the time it irks me somewhat. If you're over 30 think back to the school yard gay insults and compare your own viewpoints now. It's not wrong you've changed is it? Take that lesson into account with todays changes and you won't regret it. What i'm trying to say here is that fighting against changes to the overton window will cause you to end up as a sterotypical old person with grossly outdated views. There's no need to be this way.
- ribosometronome 6y ago
  That's a lot of words for "How dare you not be tolerant of intolerance".
- saberience 6y ago
  Morality has improved over time though and is still improving. I mean, if you look at how gay people were still treated in the 90s, it was terrible. Most gay people were afraid to be publicly "out" and forget about any sort of trans rights, if you were trans in the 90s you just never transitioned or basically told nobody. Do you think going back to a world where gay people were often attacked and beaten in public is a good idea? Where women were regularly subjected to sexual assault at work? My mum who worked as a teacher in the 80s and 90s told me she was regularly slapped on the ass by male teachers at work. Is this ok? Would you be ok with your daughters getting this treatment?
  - rendang 6y ago
    I think your examples touch on the enforcement of certain norms, not on the change in the reigning social view. In other words, in the 90s neither the average man on the street nor the ruling class would agree that publicly assaulting gay people or workplace sexual assault are anything but immoral. Both were also still crimes at that time, of course. I'm also not quite sure that workplace incidents of that kind have declined substantially up to the present, but I'd be interested in seeing data.
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  Interesting. How do you reconcile the fact that slavery was once widespread and morally acceptable by the majority of society, and defended by the church, with your position that morality does not improve over time? How about the fact that interracial marriage was once considered sin, and that women allowed to own property or vote was also morally acceptable? Would you prefer a return to the morality of the 1800s, since in your view morality does not change, where women and dark skinned people returned to their "rightful place"? Even the Church has undergone massive reformation over the centuries, and what was considered morally acceptable in the 1200s is not acceptable to modern Christians.
  - rendang 6y ago
    I don't believe, correct me otherwise, that there are any major religions whose main stream/expression universally taught that interracial marriage was a sin. Certainly some Protestants in 1800s USA did, but Christians in 200, 500, 1300 etc did not. Atlantic chattel slavery could be argued to be crueler than ancient/traditional forms of slavery and hence a temporal decline in moral goodness from the middle ages to late 1800s. It may also be noted that in a low-tech society, feudalist and traditional slave economies may have had some advantages over e.g. a laissez faire wage worker economy. (In a famine perhaps? A question for historians). The cruelty of nature itself on human lives in a low tech society interacts with moral judgments about economic systems etc. in ways that complicate these questions - I would say be careful not to credit to improved virtue what is really the due of technological innovation. A counterexample of moral improvement could be respect and care for elders and parents, broadly speaking. The point being only that the march of progress is not always consistent nor can it be counted on to be so.
    - monoideism 6y ago
      Exactly. Morality rises and falls. It's not an inevitable progress toward "better". Some new moral "innovations" lead to horrible moral outcomes, like when John Punch was turned from an indentured servant into a lifetime slave, presumably on the basis on his skin color. And how to describe Nazism except as a moral abberation? That wasn't moral progress after the (already declining) morality of the Weimar republic. And I'm getting weird dystopian vibes from a significant % of the present left. The moral crusading. The authoritarianism. The absolutism. The shaming. The religious ferver of its movements.
monoideism 6y ago
Great example of the attitude I'm describing. And my specific viewpoint in question? That all people should be treated equally, and given equal opportunity, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. I will die with that belief, even if 99% of the population believes otherwise.
subsubzero 6y ago
The problem I have with this statement is recently(past 4-5 years) the left has gone extremely far in their beliefs and ideas. Take real life examples like - completely disbanding the police, emptying prisons, outlawing all criminal laws. Deciding that people of a certain race/social class are the cause of all problems. Destruction of city statues without due process. These ideas are dangerous for any functioning society and saying every idea from 30 years ago is bad or backwards is wrongheaded. In addition alot of the far left is pinning 'nazi' or 'facsict' on any politician or idea that does not meet their ever changing ideas. Even feminists are now getting trampled on if their ideas don't meet up to the week culture temperature checks.
- southeastern 6y ago
  >Deciding that people of a certain race/social class are the cause of all problems. The thing I love about HN is that it both is one of the most progressive and least so places on the internet. Say what you will but there's no objective way in which Cali is "Deciding that people of a certain race/social class are the cause of all problems". I'm assuming you're talking about white people? Let's not forget Silicon Valley is mostly white with a minority of Asians mixed in, and no one's trying to take it down for that reason. Yet these comments are always way high up. Move to Texas if you want, but don't think that Texans want a bunch of Silicon Valley liberals who, in their eyes and according to their news sources, are responsible for censoring the alt right on FB, YT, and twitter.
- rtheunissen 6y ago
  So much of what you just said is completely untrue. Not a single leading Democrat is calling for any of those things. Emptying prisons? Completely disbanding the police? Outlawing criminal laws? What does that even mean?
  - subsubzero 6y ago
    here are some facts to back my argument: AOC (a leading democratic congresswomen) has called for complete prison abolishment - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/yes-aoc-tweeted-she-wants-101400950.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/yes-aoc-tweeted-she-want... A insightful piece from the NYtimes talking about 'abolishing' not defunding the police - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... Here's another article about when Jacob Frey (mayor of Minneapolis) is asked by a sea of left wing activists if he will abolish the police, he said no and was greeted by a sea of boos - https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0615-abolish-police-bad-idea-20200615-o7toxmerrfhhrott3mw2oo5p2a-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0615-abo... CA decriminalizing shoplifting, which is fueling a huge boom in theft across the west coast - https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-shoplifting-boom https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-shoplifting-boom
zpeti 6y ago
Just so we’re clear. You’re position is that the democrats in the 90s were far right? Like actual racists/ultra nationalists/believers in the superiority of certain races etc? What constitutes center right, center, center left in your view?
J0_k3r 6y ago
morality doesn't necessarily get better as time goes on. if you're a secular, then a place such as iran has got worse over time.
karaterobot 6y ago
I think the commentor was as much concerned with the namespace pollution: to some people on the left, there doesn't seem to be a "right" (or even a "center"), anymore, only a "far right". This isn't because because they all share the same views, but rather because there's a lack of nuance to the language used by many people in discussing politics. (I say people because the same thing occurs in reverse when talking about "extremist leftists")
- monoideism 6y ago
  This is precisely my complaint.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
People today are no more morally superior to the people back in Roman times.

rendang 6y ago

A belief that morality improves over time as you describe, aka whiggism/meliorism, is itself a kind of religious tenet of a particular set of worldviews (often called left, progressive etc). So I don't think one can say that rejecting that tenet places one outside of the Overton window of acceptability, while at the same time claiming tolerance of a wide range of viewpoints.

chiyc 6y ago
Rejecting progressivism or meliorism of course doesn't place someone outside that window of acceptability by itself. It depends on what a person is clinging onto. And I think it's still fair for a person to claim tolerance of a wide range of viewpoints while rejecting positions that are bigoted or deemed unacceptable. For someone who rejects meliorism, what moment in human history is the correct frame for evaluating the world? Many social or religious conservatives positions today often overlook that certain perspectives they hold now were unacceptable a century ago. The use of contraceptives being one example.
- zests 6y ago
  I feel like the thread of the conversation has been lost. The answer here is that "no frame" is correct. If you simply believe what is morally fashionable then you likely would have had very objectionable "far right" beliefs in the 90s. This is the premise of http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
  - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
    The original thread was a person upset about the definition of what society considers extreme viewpoints. I don't see anyone arguing which frame is correct but merely that the bar moves over time. Which we know it does. Your above link and statement reinforces this. So you can be an extremist today with a viewpoint that was common 30 years ago. That doesn't change the fact that you're an extremist today.
    - zests 6y ago
      Let's say that 30 years from now some of your beliefs would be considered extremist. What value judgement do you place on yourself today? Can we live in a world where "if you believe this now you're evil but if you believed this 10 years ago you're cool."? Replace 10 with any number of years.
      - chiyc 6y ago
        I think the three of us are in agreement here!
      - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
        Yes. What you've described is common. Think of all the encounters with racist old people that we tend to laugh off with "she's from a different era". The brush off we do doesn't change the fact that they have grossly outdated and evil views by todays norms. Also think about old people that did change. We don't judge them too harshly for past behavior given it was the norm at the time. As a personal anecdote; every time i've been slow to adapt to the new societal norms, when i look back it's been me who was wrong, not society. It's just taken me time to realize it. I've learnt to force myself to accept, based on repeated past experience, that it's probably not society that's wrong when the overton window moves, it's probably me. I'm yet to regret adapting my viewpoint even if at the time it irks me somewhat. If you're over 30 think back to the school yard gay insults and compare your own viewpoints now. It's not wrong you've changed is it? Take that lesson into account with todays changes and you won't regret it. What i'm trying to say here is that fighting against changes to the overton window will cause you to end up as a sterotypical old person with grossly outdated views. There's no need to be this way.
ribosometronome 6y ago
That's a lot of words for "How dare you not be tolerant of intolerance".
saberience 6y ago
Morality has improved over time though and is still improving. I mean, if you look at how gay people were still treated in the 90s, it was terrible. Most gay people were afraid to be publicly "out" and forget about any sort of trans rights, if you were trans in the 90s you just never transitioned or basically told nobody. Do you think going back to a world where gay people were often attacked and beaten in public is a good idea? Where women were regularly subjected to sexual assault at work? My mum who worked as a teacher in the 80s and 90s told me she was regularly slapped on the ass by male teachers at work. Is this ok? Would you be ok with your daughters getting this treatment?
- rendang 6y ago
  I think your examples touch on the enforcement of certain norms, not on the change in the reigning social view. In other words, in the 90s neither the average man on the street nor the ruling class would agree that publicly assaulting gay people or workplace sexual assault are anything but immoral. Both were also still crimes at that time, of course. I'm also not quite sure that workplace incidents of that kind have declined substantially up to the present, but I'd be interested in seeing data.
landryraccoon 6y ago
Interesting. How do you reconcile the fact that slavery was once widespread and morally acceptable by the majority of society, and defended by the church, with your position that morality does not improve over time? How about the fact that interracial marriage was once considered sin, and that women allowed to own property or vote was also morally acceptable? Would you prefer a return to the morality of the 1800s, since in your view morality does not change, where women and dark skinned people returned to their "rightful place"? Even the Church has undergone massive reformation over the centuries, and what was considered morally acceptable in the 1200s is not acceptable to modern Christians.
- rendang 6y ago
  I don't believe, correct me otherwise, that there are any major religions whose main stream/expression universally taught that interracial marriage was a sin. Certainly some Protestants in 1800s USA did, but Christians in 200, 500, 1300 etc did not. Atlantic chattel slavery could be argued to be crueler than ancient/traditional forms of slavery and hence a temporal decline in moral goodness from the middle ages to late 1800s. It may also be noted that in a low-tech society, feudalist and traditional slave economies may have had some advantages over e.g. a laissez faire wage worker economy. (In a famine perhaps? A question for historians). The cruelty of nature itself on human lives in a low tech society interacts with moral judgments about economic systems etc. in ways that complicate these questions - I would say be careful not to credit to improved virtue what is really the due of technological innovation. A counterexample of moral improvement could be respect and care for elders and parents, broadly speaking. The point being only that the march of progress is not always consistent nor can it be counted on to be so.
  - monoideism 6y ago
    Exactly. Morality rises and falls. It's not an inevitable progress toward "better". Some new moral "innovations" lead to horrible moral outcomes, like when John Punch was turned from an indentured servant into a lifetime slave, presumably on the basis on his skin color. And how to describe Nazism except as a moral abberation? That wasn't moral progress after the (already declining) morality of the Weimar republic. And I'm getting weird dystopian vibes from a significant % of the present left. The moral crusading. The authoritarianism. The absolutism. The shaming. The religious ferver of its movements.

monoideism 6y ago

Great example of the attitude I'm describing. And my specific viewpoint in question? That all people should be treated equally, and given equal opportunity, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. I will die with that belief, even if 99% of the population believes otherwise.

subsubzero 6y ago

The problem I have with this statement is recently(past 4-5 years) the left has gone extremely far in their beliefs and ideas. Take real life examples like - completely disbanding the police, emptying prisons, outlawing all criminal laws. Deciding that people of a certain race/social class are the cause of all problems. Destruction of city statues without due process. These ideas are dangerous for any functioning society and saying every idea from 30 years ago is bad or backwards is wrongheaded. In addition alot of the far left is pinning 'nazi' or 'facsict' on any politician or idea that does not meet their ever changing ideas. Even feminists are now getting trampled on if their ideas don't meet up to the week culture temperature checks.

southeastern 6y ago
>Deciding that people of a certain race/social class are the cause of all problems. The thing I love about HN is that it both is one of the most progressive and least so places on the internet. Say what you will but there's no objective way in which Cali is "Deciding that people of a certain race/social class are the cause of all problems". I'm assuming you're talking about white people? Let's not forget Silicon Valley is mostly white with a minority of Asians mixed in, and no one's trying to take it down for that reason. Yet these comments are always way high up. Move to Texas if you want, but don't think that Texans want a bunch of Silicon Valley liberals who, in their eyes and according to their news sources, are responsible for censoring the alt right on FB, YT, and twitter.
rtheunissen 6y ago
So much of what you just said is completely untrue. Not a single leading Democrat is calling for any of those things. Emptying prisons? Completely disbanding the police? Outlawing criminal laws? What does that even mean?
- subsubzero 6y ago
  here are some facts to back my argument: AOC (a leading democratic congresswomen) has called for complete prison abolishment - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/yes-aoc-tweeted-she-wants-101400950.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/yes-aoc-tweeted-she-want... A insightful piece from the NYtimes talking about 'abolishing' not defunding the police - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... Here's another article about when Jacob Frey (mayor of Minneapolis) is asked by a sea of left wing activists if he will abolish the police, he said no and was greeted by a sea of boos - https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0615-abolish-police-bad-idea-20200615-o7toxmerrfhhrott3mw2oo5p2a-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0615-abo... CA decriminalizing shoplifting, which is fueling a huge boom in theft across the west coast - https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-shoplifting-boom https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-shoplifting-boom

zpeti 6y ago

Just so we’re clear. You’re position is that the democrats in the 90s were far right? Like actual racists/ultra nationalists/believers in the superiority of certain races etc? What constitutes center right, center, center left in your view?

J0_k3r 6y ago

morality doesn't necessarily get better as time goes on. if you're a secular, then a place such as iran has got worse over time.

karaterobot 6y ago

I think the commentor was as much concerned with the namespace pollution: to some people on the left, there doesn't seem to be a "right" (or even a "center"), anymore, only a "far right". This isn't because because they all share the same views, but rather because there's a lack of nuance to the language used by many people in discussing politics. (I say people because the same thing occurs in reverse when talking about "extremist leftists")

monoideism 6y ago
This is precisely my complaint.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago

People today are no more morally superior to the people back in Roman times.