Post #4376675

This is indeed another problem. Successful change tends to be incremental, but when dealing with social issues going "incrementally" basically leaves people in the dust. There was a lot of bad blood over gay marriages, for example, in some gay/lesbian quarters when that hard-won right was finally achieved (though there's loads of signs of this backsliding now because ... well ... *gestures vaguely in the direction of the world*). After a major social bloodbath they'd finally accomplished a major goal only to get "sandbagged" (as they called it: their words not mine!) by the trans community basically saying, again from their perspective, "how dare you celebrate your victory when we're still in chains?" And that's the problem right there. From a strictly analytical point of view, gay marriage was a HUGE victory for the progressive movement and an incremental change in the right direction ... but trans people were also **right**. Because people aren't statistics, and if the statistics show that things are "better" in some ways, the people who aren't in that "better" crowd ***are still suffering***. And are rightly upset that, again from their perspective, it seems that their allies are ending the battle because they got what they wanted. The numerically smaller group is being asked, in essence, to act as triage. To act as cannon fodder and to be patient as they waited for their turn. This is profoundly unfair; it may also be profoundly necessary. (After all women started to get rights while queer society had to wait, right? Women got the vote before gay marriage was a thing.) Fortunately that brief period of bad blood ended and we've kept up the pressure, but it highlights another serious problem: that exhaustion you mentioned. The battle is wearying and seems never-ending. Every time a gain is made here, there's either a falling back there, or a new battle to be fought in another place. People have limited energy (and that energy evaporates as they get older on top of that!) and at some point the question starts entering our minds: "What's the point?" Now add in the fact that men aren't even really in the fight for women's rights. (**SOME** men are, but men as a whole are not.) They're viewing it as them giving things up. Many of them do it willingly. At first. But then, from their perspective, each time they do so, a new demand for them to give something up rises and ... well ... they get weary too. And unlike women, or LGBTQ+, racial groups, or ... they don't have a vested interest in effecting the change. (They view it as giving things up, remember! It's always been a struggle to present a *positive* face from progressive change to the dominant sector of society, even without the bad-faith blowback from those opposed to us.) And I wish I knew how to solve that running out of steam and resentment at the never-ending struggle thing equitably. (I say this who's in the running out of steam stage herself.) I mean, using myself as an example, I could just stop and hand the reins off to the younger generation. But then I'm sitting here and seeing the younger generation make photocopies of every mistake my generation made (who ourselves made Gestetner copies of every mistake social activists made before us, who transcribed in monastic cells every mistake social activists made before them, presumably). This seems counter-productive. But I'm increasingly out of the energy needed to keep going on.¹ Maybe I should just step back and hope the generation after this one uses better quality paper and high quality laser printers to make their mistakes. --- ¹ Before anybody asks in private, no I'm not in a great place right now. And no I won't be sharing why.