Men's Group

Last edited Mon Mar 18, 2013, 09:03 PM - Edit history (1)

For the most part, though, those willing to give up a privileged position fall into two categories: the opportunists, who are looking to obtain a different type of privilege for themselves and are willing to sacrifice the current one for it, and the visionaries, who can see the bigger picture and the new, different ways a more balanced society will benefit both themselves and the people they care about. Everyone's looking for a way to benefit, that's a survival instinct that's hardwired into us, but the definition of "benefit" varies widely between different people and different groups. So does the definition of "people they care about"; that can be anything from immediate family to the entire world population. The big problem of social change is getting the non-visionary, more egocentric types to give up what they have for a newly proposed social structure, when they aren't able to see a benefit to themselves. It scares people. The wingnuts in this country, for example, know that, and will push the fear of SCARY BLACK MEN! or BABY KILLERS! or GAY PEOPLE! as hard as they can, to slow that change down.

The change and progress in the move toward social equality, just in the past century or so, has been phenomenal. It's the only reason my natural cynicism hasn't collapsed into absolute misanthropy- obviously there is a thin thread of unifying force somewhere in the fucked-up mess that is humanity, in spite of the fact that we ignore it so often or try to beat it to death when we see it. I suspect that a couple of generations down the road, we will see racial, gender and orientation issues become mostly non-issues, IF we can keep on message and don't let the wingnuts or extremists frame the debate. There's hope.

ETA: after viewing yet another porn thread full of yet more true benevolent sexism- women can't choose sex ever, you know- I think I should have gone for the misanthropy. Maybe there's less hope than I thought.