Even though the popular sentiment is that we live in the most egalitarian and socially progressive time in human history, isn’t today actually more conservative than much of the 20th century in a lot of ways?
The Left is dead, today’s “revolutionaries” tend to be right wingers (ie Islamist terrorists, Alex Jones, free market fundamentalists like Ron Paul), fascism is making a comeback thanks to the fall of communism and China’s turn to the authoritarian right, workers’ rights and the welfare state are being curbed in most countries. Anti-immigrant sentiment and open racism are undergoing a revival, and even the “politically correct” crowd has borrowed the reactionary tactics of the Right and generally embraces the free market.
Ideology is dormant due to the events of 1989 creating the “Washington Consensus”, which has only recently seen some opposition with Putin’s Russia and Chavez’s Venezuela. There’s more or less a universal agreement that pseudo-democratic capitalist plutocracy and a Starbucks on every corner is the best the human race can ever hope for. The only real difference between the “left” and the right is whether it’s OK to persecute certain minorities and whether or not we should let the poor and unemployed starve to death.
One also sees a move towards the right in terms of attitudes about crime and punishment. Rehabilitation was a popular idea in the late 20th century, but it’s largely been replaced by the old fashioned belief that harsh punishment is the only way to deal with criminal behavior. The expansion of America’s prison system has been driven partly by privatization, but also by a more philosophically vengeful culture.
The only thing that’s truly more left wing about today is the attitude towards gay people, and that’s really more of a libertine thing than a leftist thing.
Would it be fair to say the global “zeitgeist” now is more conservative and right-leaning than it was between say 1950 and 1988? Especially now that the EU seems to be collapsing?
Here a couple areas which are definitely not conservative: Marijuana legalization: no state legalized it 30-40 years ago, unlike a few today. Sexting: Ask any woman in her 60s how often she gave nude Polaroids of herself to teenage boys (as this would be the equivalent of sexting). I think the answer would be never.
Yeah, libertine, but I wouldn’t really say there’s anything “left wing” about that. I guess the word I should have used is “right wing”, though right wing politics and conservatism are closely related in the sense they favor the status quo and the powerful.
I’m not sure that one can assert that these two phenomena are unequivocally progressive triumphs.
But some of the political momentum in favor of MJ liberalization comes from fiscally conservative, free market libertarianism schools of thought. I’m convinced that if Rand Paul were the CEO of a company, he would consider it his prerogative to implement random drug tests for any reason or no reason; if you didn’t like it you’d be free to leave, etc. That said, with regard to non-libertarians, I do believe that progressives are generally more receptive to the idea of legalization.
This, again, isn’t necessarily a demonstration of progressive liberality; instead I think part of the motivation for the girls who do it is that they’ve been warned against doing so. It’s one aspect of the much wider phenomenon by which young females are encouraged by the cultural context to show off as much of themselves as they can, but the opposite message goes out to males. In the 1960s and 70s, as part of the general spirit of cultural liberation, people of both sexes might strip down on occasion. I’d say there were more clothing option facilities back then as well, like nude beaches, and they were frequented by both sexes.
This. There is no way the world was less conservative in the 20th century. Anyone who thinks so frankly wasn’t there. Just because a few hippies burned their bras and took their clothes off in the 60s ignores the fact that for the vast majority of people, women were still expected to stay home and raise kids, ‘living in sin’ was genuinely frowned upon, employment law was minimal, gays had zero rights and on and on.
Actually America had much better worker protections in the mid 20th century than now. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but the general trend since the 80s has been to give more power to corporate interests and less to workers and labor.
They tend to be extreme versions of what we already have. Libertarianism is basically the same stuff George W Bush and Reagan believed in, but even more extreme right. It would be more accurate to call them counter revolutionaries.
You mean back when oral contraception was first released, and all of North America referred to it as, ‘The Pill’? Because oral and contraception were both too graphic. Even if 100% medically necessary to save your life, you still needed your husband’s permission to terminate a pregnancy.
I’m not buying it, those were MORE conservative times, by almost any measure.
It’s still often called the pill. Again, sexual liberation is just one issue. I consider labor far more important and far more clearly a “left wing” issue.
It also ignores the fact that large swaths of the world, particularly the Middle East and former USSR have seen more conservative sexual mores in recent times. And if anything I really think the US has become more sexually prudish compared to the 60s and 70s aside from the issue of homosexual marriage.
Support for abortion today is higher than it was in the 50s for sure, but pretty similar to what it was 30-40 years ago, ie the 70s and 80s. The pro life movement is pretty strong, about half of Americans could be considered pro life to some degree.
I think it’s overrated. Their life expectancy has improved little and in many ways the people there have fewer rights than they did during the earlier stages of liberalization in the 70s and 80s. The economic growth of China has been built on the exploitation of rural peasants and bogus construction schemes like the “ghost cities”. I don’t see the rise of a consumer class in China as being a really beautiful thing in a world that needs less, not more mindless consumerism. It’s not like most Chinese people can afford to participate in it anyway, which produces envy and instability.
I don’t get why posters are comparing now to 1950 when the 60’s and 70’s were the apex of 20th century leftism in the West, except for the decline of labor unions over the course of the century. There has recently been a liberal trend during Obama’s term, but that can be changed with a new administration, such as Bush Jr. after Clinton.
You may not see it as beautiful, but I saw something so beautiful in China that it took my breath away every day. It’s typical in China for grandparents to provide childcare while the parents work, so every afternoon in China you see countless grandparents and babies. The grandparents knew a time when one in six people in the province died of starvation and people ate the bark from trees to try to survive. The babies will never know hunger.
That is beautiful.
My Chinese students were from rural villages where a generation ago, their only hope would be to marry early and hope to have a son. Now they are starting businesses, traveling the world, performing volunteer work and choosing their own path. It’s not even a close comparison.
I think the numerous ways ordinary technology enables citizens to be constantly monitored and the complete erosion of privacy pretty much answers the question of whether we’re more conservative.