Not all the big problems have been knocked down. Slavery is essentially gone, but Jim Crow is still a de facto situation in many parts of the country, and BLM wouldn’t be a thing if it weren’t actually markedly more dangerous to be a black man confronted by police than it is to be a white man in the same situation. Don’t let’s pretend that we’ve solved all the big issues and all we’re left with are petty ones. Those numerous petty ones are what help lay the foundation for the bigger ones.
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More like, “The struggle will continue even if we have to come to the difficult realization that some of the ‘innocent, fun’ behaviour we ourselves engaged in when we were younger was harmful or dehumanizing towards a whole group of people.”
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As for the scariness of halloween, my understanding of it is that it should be uncomfortable. The idea seems to be that it is a time when fae, monsters, and the dead wander through communities. One dresses up so that one can walk amongst them unharmed. So the sort of thing which comes to mind for me is on the Walking Dead when the survivors cover themselves in zombie guts to effect a risky escape. They are tense scenes because the threat feels real and immediate. If it doesn’t, then you are doing it wrong! Going out in this context as Sailormoon or Iron Man completely misses the point. Although I would pay extra to see Rick and Darryl sneak around zombies dressed like that. Cute and sexy have no place in halloween for me, people can dress like that on any day of the year or make another holiday which is about those things.
I think that the peeping tom decoration looks lame, and not scary. Also I think that the people who complained about it were off base when suggesting that there is anything innately sexual about it. Maybe if I went to a friend’s house and saw it while I was masturbating in their living room.
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Appalled about the innocent thing you did that offended nobody! Imagine all the horrible racist things you are doing right now without ever having a racist thought in your head! Imagine how ashamed you will be later on when an enlightened university freshman lets you know that drinking orange juice or tapping your foot to music is very problematic. Best to just go lie down on the floor of your garage, think about white privilege and try not to move around too much. Woops, owning a garage is classist and elitist. I don’t know, it’s really hard not to be a future racist. It’s probably safest to be on record pointing fingers and condemning other people for their racist thoughts and actions.
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It must be nice to have that absolute knowledge, that even the person who was there confesses he doesn’t have. If the wrong person found one of those nooses lying around, it could very well have made that person fear for their life. Besides, it did offend at least one person: present-day Donald. And don’t you want to act in a way that you can be proud of, not ashamed of, when, decades in the future, you discuss your childhood with your grandchildren?
I do! It’s called “Being a decent human being and trying to figure out what effect your actions might have on other people.”
Well, no. Best to think through the possible consequences of your actions and act in a way that makes other people’s lives better. Next best is to at least think through your actions enough so that you aren’t actively making other people’s lives worse.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
No, because that’s reaction, not action. Reaction is usually instinctual, not planned, and thus isn’t thought through. Action, though, allows for planning and forethought, and is almost always safer than reaction. Thus, it’s probably “safest” to think through all of the possible consequences of the different actions you could take, and act accordingly.
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You make some good points. The behavior you would like to encourage is probably best encouraged by your yourself acting as an exemplar.
Perhaps a better way would be to place oneself in the position to influence young minds.
But what you learn, as you get older, is that there are a few billion other people in the world all trying to be clever at the same time, and whatever you do with your life will certainly be lost—swallowed up in the ocean—unless you are doing it along with like-minded people who will remember your contributions and carry them forward.
Being an example is always best, but I am usually very much in my own head, and find it very hard to place myself in anyone else’s. That doesn’t mean that I don’t try, but, rather, I don’t let my failure to be perfect stop me from preaching the ideals that I try to follow to others.
That we occasionally violate our own moral code […] does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.
Both quotes are from The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.
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