Black and white, red and blue, male and female
When did the world turn to extremes?
Maybe my memory sucks... but I think it used to be that opinions about not just politics, but every other subject (science, morality, etc.) more or less represented a bell curve in this country. Most people clustered around the peak of the curve, and the fringes of the curve were pretty small; there was more or less a consensus about most issues. Sure, the majority of political thought was spread across a single axis, but the far fringes were nonconsequential, for the most part... and there was, if not broad agreement, then relatively minor differences between those close to the center. We toggled back and forth between liberal and conservative, but neither side was ever able to establish any long term dominance.
But these days, it's not just politics that has diverged. Instead of a bell curve, the majority of thought looks more like a two-humped camel, with few, if any, truly in the valley in between.
If not for the efforts of certain elements in our society, we'd all be conscious of the two century history of racial discrimination in America, for example. The civil rights battles of the 1960's should have been in our rear view mirror... and indeed, anyone who watches television would already have noticed that the split between black and white has collapsed, for most people; just consider the number of ads featuring interracial couples, for no particular purpose, other than the fact that the majority of people in this country recognize the normalization of love without racial divides.
Yet, White Christian nationalism is on the rise, and the images of Charlottesville are still fresh in our minds... and racism sure seems to be on the rise, rationalized by people who otherwise claim the tenets and adherence to the Christian message. I forget which founding father expressed the idea that religion was responsible for most of the blood spilled through the centuries, despite what to whom many would think was the exact opposition to Christ's message.
We see pretty much the same phenomenon with regard to global warming and climate change. With the overwhelming opinion of climatologists and other scientists who study the threat, we are giving deniers almost equal credence in the marketplace of ideas, with the very predictable support of those interests whose wealth, income, and influence enable the misinformation.
The hate directed towards homosexuality and transgenderism is truly tragic... for the victims. The right wing continues to insist that there are only two sexes, male and female. Reality, however, shows a very different truth. For one thing, some babies are born with indistinct genitals. Before the days of DNA testing, this forced a truly heartbreaking decision on the parents of such children; how will they be raised? What will be their gender identity? Whether it ended up being advisable or not, surgical 'correction' was common... and might easily have been mistaken in some cases.
Once DNA testing became available, we were still unable to make the kind of absolute determinations that the right wing demanded. I recently read a story about a beautiful young African-American woman, as lovely and feminine as any, who was presumed female, raised that way, and became a model. As a young adult, DNA testing showed that she was one of a rare number of people born, not with XX chromosomes (female) or XY chromosomes (male), but with an XXY chromosomal abnormality. In her case, her physiology expressed as female, despite the undeveloped and undescended testes seen on an MRI. Is she female, or male? Should we let politicians decide?
Even for some whose genetic markers define a specific sex, there are a small percentage of people who are homosexual, or suffer from gender dysphoria. Both conditions are as old as recorded history, and the friezes from ancient Greece and Rome show, it was hardly uncommon. What makes these people become that way? There is convincing evidence that, in either the case of homosexuality or gender dysphoria, the cause is not genetic; studies of identical twins, where one is gay and the other not, are pretty convincing. What about how children are raised? It's common to find families with one of multiple siblings becoming either gay, or transgendered, despite being raised by the same parents in the same households.
The gays have the advantage these days, since acceptance of homosexuality has had a big head start, in terms of the broad society being able to accept homosexuality, despite the fringe right gay hate. Transgenders have it much tougher, since politicians are more than willing to overrule science when it comes to what the appropriate, compassionate, and sensible treatment these people deserve. I am unwilling to define transgenderism as any sort of 'disease', but I read recently that even with appropriate treatment, the suicide rate among transgendered adults is something like 20X the rate of the population in general.
In case no one noticed, authoritarianism is on the rise, globally, and it frightens me far more that the prospects of atomic warfare with either Russia or China. Under authoritarianism, people at the fringes of society, who might have found acceptance and sympathy in a more progressive political environment, suffer horribly. Misinformation, disinformation, fascist nationalism: these are the big threats. Most of us can recognize this, and fight back... with our vote, maybe with our money... but the marginalized people are too few in number, and too few in support, to defend themselves.
I guess it's up to us.
Sorry for the rambling rant, but it's been on my mind lately.
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Originally Posted by Norman Bernstein
