A New Decade

I begin to write this in the morning of January 1, 2010: the first day of a new year and a new decade. The media tends to ascribe great significance to this, largely because (I believe) they need things to write about. I view it as being not a whole lot different from a car's odometer changing from 99,999.9 to 100,000. The numbers line up and change at once, but that's about it. The significance is strictly numerical.

That may seem like a slightly cynical point of view ("hey, why not just get into the spirit of it?"), and it occurs to me that the tone of this blog itself might be seen as cynical. I try to analyze social and political problems, and more often than not I end up deciding that the ultimate blame/responsibility lies not with politicians or public officials, but with ordinary citizens, whose apathy, passivity, and ignorance enables those in high positions to act in their own interests rather than in ours. We are stirred only when the leaders' pursuit of personal goals and personal enrichment at the public's expense becomes too great to ignore.

I still believe this is true, but just for a change, I'll try to look at it from a different perspective. What positive things can I find from the collective actions and attitudes of ordinary people?

The first one was inspired by the first paragraph of this post. If I cannot find 1/1/10 a significant day, then what day would I find significant? November 4, 2008 was the one that leapt to mind: the day that 63 percent of American adults went to the polls and chose Barack Obama as president. I was proud and optimistic not just because America became the first democracy to elect as its leader someone belonging to a racial minority group, though that was very significant. It was more because we elected someone who speaks in complete sentences, in coherent, logical, well-thought-out responses to what are often vapid media questions. He speaks to us as if we are adults, as if we are not the idiots that most politicians speak to us as though we are. Is that the reason we voted for him? For the most part, probably not, I must concede. After eight years of Bush, people just wanted a change. I suspect that Hillary Clinton, who practiced a far more conventional and cynical brand of politics, would also have beaten McCain if she had faced him in the general election. Still, the fact that Obama's thoughtfulness didn't doom him is reason enough for optimism. (How's that for low expectations?)

Another collective action/attitude which causes optimism is the progress made for gay rights, particularly marriage, over the past twenty-five years. It was not all that long ago that homosexuality was widely reviled, its practitioners thought to be just one small step away from child abusers. That attitudes have changed as much as they have is due not to policies or court rulings, but rather, ordinary people, one by one, coming to the realization that while they themselves do not wish to be in love or have sex with someone of the same gender, it does not hurt them if someone else does, and in fact it is very important to that other person, an integral part of their identity.

I tend to see the gay rights struggles of the '90s and the '00s as similar to the civil rights struggles of the '50s and '60s. There are, of course, many differences. One is a matter of race; the other, orientation. One can be hidden; the other cannot. For many years, many people maintained that one was a choice, while the other was not. More and more people are realizing that being gay is not a choice, and that even if it was, there is nothing morally wrong with that choice. An important way in which civil rights for blacks and gay rights are similar is that attitudes change over time, demographically. Resistance to gay equality is strongest among the elderly, who were brought up to believe that gays are perverts. Today's youth, on the other hand, increasingly believe that being gay or straight is of no more consequence than being left-handed or right-handed. So, I am confident that the time will come in my lifetime (I'm 47) when people will say, "Did you know that back in 2010, gays couldn't even get married? I mean, can you believe that?", much as we might say the same thing with regard to the fact that the 1961 Hawaii marriage of Barack Obama's parents would have been illegal in the majority of American states at that time.

Another thing that causes me optimism is the extent to which the social safety net has become embedded in the political culture in many Western democracies. Most have socialized medicine, and many provide welfare in a way that attempts to guarantee that there will be no one without a roof over his head and without enough to eat. We have more than enough money to ensure this; it's just a matter of having the political will. America doesn't, but Europe does. Will America change? A health care bill that will greatly expand the poor's access to medical care seems to be on its way to passage. It's far from perfect, but it is progress. Too slow, but moving in the right direction. Enough, perhaps, for optimism.

Lastly, the march of progress of human civilization is heartening. If we look only at Western countries, we see that it wasn't so long ago in historical terms that there was slavery, indentured servitude, open genocide, medical care that did more harm than good, colonialism as a good thing ("the white man's burden"), royalty with real power, religion as a means of power and social control, monopolies and union-busting, women as second-class citizens, all manner of discrimination openly practiced, outlandish political corruption, and a host of other social ills that will go unmentioned here if only because I feel the list is long enough already to make my point. Things have been much worse, and in non-Western countries, in some ways still are. Is it only financial progress that brings social progress? I'm not sure. But however you want to measure it, things have improved, and one can hope they will continue to do so. So while I continue to criticize the people for what they don't do that I wish they would, I must note that there is, over the long term, reason for optimism.