Using same-sex marriage as an example: It was pretty clear, relatively early on, that the pro-SSM side was the “will eventually end up on the right side of history,” and that all the anti-SSM side could do was delay or hinder its progress, but the passage of same-sex marriage (along with widespread acceptance) was more or less guaranteed. The pro-SSM victory was already visible at the end of the finish line all along, it was just a matter of time.
With gun ownership, I think that the anti-gun side is going to be considered “the right side of history” and eventually gun rights will be reduced more and more. With abortion, the pro-choice side is pretty clearly “the right side of history.”
There are some other issues, though, which IMHO it is genuinely ***not ***clear at all which side will eventually be considered, decades down the road, to be on “the right side of history”:
[ul]
[li]Transgender athletes competing in women’s sports *without *surgery or hormone treatment;[/li][li]Racial preferences in dating/relationships (racist to refuse to date someone because of race, or not?);[/li][li]Legalized polygamy (will it follow in the footsteps of SSM or not?);[/li][li]Islam’s influence in the West;[/li][li]The West’s perception of China (is siding with China “the right side of history,” or not?)[/li][/ul]
These are opaque because, in part, you could make a conservative/liberal argument for and against both sides of each matter.
If anyone has others that come to mind, please post them.
The OP is taking the Whig view of history where it is a story of progress towards enlightenment.
There’s a reasonable case to be made that it has been going in that direction for a few centuries. And it would be excessively presentist to look at a few ways in which progress has stalled in the past couple of years and say that we are at a big historical inflecion point.
But continued progress isn’t a done deal. I can’t assume that.
I get that you are looking for examples of divisive topics where it is not clear which outcome would be considered the “right side of history”. But I must say your perception of the “right side of history” has a distinctly western liberal bent. So, I suppose we could use that a filter for evaluating these topics.
But, it is worth stating that history is written by the victors, and as PhillyGuy points out, what we view as progress is not a permanent state. Taking the long view, it is possible that there may be a mean that we are regressing to.
Some of these are some are false dichotomies, and some are ill-defined.
Abortion is a false dichotomy, for example. Do you believe that it is inevitable that at-will abortion during the third trimester will be considered moral and acceptable in the future? If no, this isn’t a yes/no question with clearly defined ‘sides’ where ‘pro-choice’ will ‘win’.
I can’t really parse what you mean by “Islam’s influence on the West”. What are the sides that history is choosing between? Similarly, by ‘siding with China’ do you mean a belief that China will inevitably and justifiably rule the world, or something else?
Things that increase equality and decrease suffering are “on the right side of history”.
Defining these things that increase equality and decrease suffering is the difficult part.
Is that a thing? I know that there are controversies about whether someone with surgery and hormone treatment should be allowed, but I’ve not seen anyone seriously suggest that athletes without undergoing changes.
Refusing to date someone only due to their race is racist, of course. But, unlike employment or housing or service, there is no expectation that you date anyone that wants to be dated.
I do see that such attitudes would decrease over time, and as diversity is more embraced, but there is no one that is ever going to force you to date someone due to affirmative action.
That is actually an interesting one. I’m not sure how that will play out. I don’t see why a group of people cannot form a “family” that gives protections to those family members, but so much of marriage is based on a group of specifically two that it wouldn’t just be a small modification. Survivor benefits and spousal rights get pretty complicated if there are more than two, not to mention children.
The right side of history, IMO, would be the one that maximizes the freedom of people, so I would allow them to form groups with very close associations.
I don’t see what this means. If it is the regressive religious beliefs, then they will go to the same side of history that the regressive christian beliefs ended up.
Once again, what is it the perception of China that you are talking about? They are oppressive to their people, and are trying to use their global power and influence to be oppressive to other people in the world.
Nuclear would be a big one. Population control and mandated decreases in the standard of living would also be a hard one to decide. Our treatment of animals for animal products and as pets. Our treatment of animals that are nuisance or competition. How we manage the environment, whether we use it for our own ends, or we allow it to naturally do its own thing.
ETA: Your listing and my quoting has made a mess of all that. I’m not sure the best way to fix it, sorry.
I’m not aware of a significant push for trans athletics as described here.
As far as dating, that’s not a policy issue. Preferences will (hopefully) never be legislated. I think it’s racist to refuse to date members of a certain race, but it would be (thankfully) impossible to legislate this.
I don’t know about polygamy. I’d have to hear from actual advocates, and I’m not aware of their arguments.
“Huh?” about Islam and the west. Another issue that shouldn’t be linked to public policy, except to ensure freedom to practice one’s religion (as long as that doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others, just like the way of already is in the US).
Also “huh?” on China. We shouldn’t side with China on issues in which they’re restricting freedom of speech, religion, and other freedoms. That should be pretty obvious.
OP, I have to say that your list is bizarre and I can’t even figure out sides for most of them. As far as I know, few people are for trans athletes competing without some sort of treatment first, and I think it will stay that way. I don’t understand your dating line – are you suggesting that there are people who think people should be forced to date other races or something? I really don’t get it. For polygamy, who knows – I don’t see any moral issues, just legal issues. Can you divorce one spouse but not the other? Do the children have to take a DNA test to decide which husband is the father? Could you marry hundreds of people? Thousands? Could you use it to bankrupt annuity companies and Social Security by keeping a spousal benefit going indefinitely? The rest of your list don’t even have sides that I can tell.
So, rather than just crap all over your OP, I’ll add one:
Eating meat may one day be looked at as being on the wrong side of history.
I’m a meat eater myself, but there are lots of people who don’t eat meat for ethical reasons, for health reasons, and for ecological reasons. I can imagine that I’ll be seen by my grandchildren or great-grandchildren as being on the wrong side of history for eating meat, especially beef which is an ecological disaster, and pork which is an ethical mess.
The core abolitionists were largely the same subset of the population who started the prohibition movement, and arguably, the pro-life movement - all self-described as great moral crusades.
Indeed so. Too much can and will happen between now and then. Epidemics, famines, apocalyptic wars, absurd technologies, alien encounters - any could distort past trends. Any current projections are somewhere between science fiction and wishful thinking.
I think there are some issues where the advance of technology will ultimately make the issues obsolete or irrelevant, rather than ethically resolved.
Technology will make unwanted pregnancies virtually unknown; and in a post-scarcity society with the technology to host a fetus artificially, abortion becomes unnecessary.
I think enhancement and modification of the human body will become so commonplace that the question of transgender athletes will be subsumed as just one of the myriad reasons why the current paradigm for sporting competition won’t last.
The one issue where I think almost everyone is on the wrong side of history, and where there will one day be an ethical consensus as strong as the current consensus against slavery, is the rights of non-human animals. This goes far beyond eating meat - we will resolve that by growing it artificially. But the right to exist, to not be harmed or killed at will by humans.
If we were having this discussion in 1925, you could claim that prohibition of alcoholic beverages was “the right side of history”, if you intended those words to mean that it was the law of the land and leading progressive people overwhelming supported it. Reality turned out differently, though. Prohibition was overturned a few years later and no one of significance supports it now.
As the saying goes, making predictions is hard, especially about the future.
Why do you think this is some kind of “gotcha”? The whole point of the notion of being on the right side of history is that the human consensus on morality and ethics has changed over time. Slavery is an archetypal example.
I vaguely recall an old SF story of limited and unlimited athletic classes. Unlimited, you can have ANYTHING done to your body, and if you win The Big One, you’re set forever; but if you lose, you’re terminated. We’ll likely not see that IRL but I’ll predict ‘limited’ classes based not on gender but on physical capacity, like auto racing formulae. Is that sprinter ‘stock’ or ‘turbocharged’?
Note: On ICEs (internal combustion engines) superchargers are crankshaft-driven while turbochargers are exhaust-gas-driven. A turbocharged human would be fart-powered. More beans! More kraut!
But you’re right – sports as we know them are probably nearing extinction. Athletics is approaching The Singularity. All of humanity, really. Will rampant AIs be on the right side of history when they devour us and rebuild reality to suit them?
This is my preferred position on a great many issues in which “liberty” is supposedly sacrificed in accordance with what, on the surface, would seem to be nothing more than social mores.
About polygamy, I’ll say that I would find it much easier to adopt a simple “pro-liberty” stance if the historical reality of polygamy as generally practiced didn’t seem to revolve around the commodification of women and the collection of wives by powerful/wealthy men.
I generally support the idea that we should aim to “increase equality and decrease suffering,” though I would probably state it more as “maximizing human well-being/flourishing.” If that means that certain “liberties” which are proven to have an almost uniformly deleterious effect on overall well-being and happiness need to be curtailed (ie: government sanction for polygamous marriages) then I suppose I’m okay with that.
More generally, though, I’d also be fine with government washing its hands of the whole issue of marriage. Let people draw up contracts if they want to, and let them sue one another in civil court if they allege someone breaks it, but otherwise leave the government out of it unless there is a criminal complaint.
I concur with several previous posters that this is a quite peculiar, and largely incomprehensible, framing of this “issue”. Majority-Muslim cultures and the Muslim religion have been influencing “the West” in various significant ways for over a thousand years, and continue to do so today. This isn’t an “issue”, it’s a fact.
If what you’re trying to say is that it’s uncertain how much or in what ways some aspects of modern Muslim-majority cultures and Muslim beliefs will end up influencing modern western cultures in what used to be called “Christendom”, then sure, that’s true. But I don’t see why you consider it a specific “issue” on which there will ultimately be a “right side of history”, any more than any similar uncertainty about, say, the influence of Japanese or Chinese or (south Asian) Indian cultures upon “the West”.
[QUOTE=Velocity]
These are opaque because, in part, you could make a conservative/liberal argument for and against both sides of each matter.
[/quote]
You are really going to have to explain what you think “both sides of the matter” are for this topic, and what you think the conservative or liberal arguments are “for or against” them, if you want folks to know what you’re talking about.
