Despite sharing the values of the social justice community, I often
feel a bit at odds with it, and I think I figured out why. For me,
societal problems are not only a matter of conflicting values but also
of how we respond to the people who hold those values that differ or
even oppose ours. That things like consciously tolerating an increase in
diversity (even of conflicting values and even while challenging them
when harmful) inevitably leads towards more acceptance and progressive
values.
That may be wrong. I need to think about this more, but I
think right now my feeling is that our collective responses across
society and generations haven’t really changed even while our values
have progressed, or at least, increased in nuance and understanding, and
that worries me for the future, that we’ll just be repeating different
iterations of the same social cycles of conflict, because we keep
responding the same ways to each other when hurt. But then, of course we
do, human nature is human nature, and while we can change ourselves and
consciously modify our responses to things, what I’m imagining requires
a large-scale shift in the average self awareness and social awareness
of others.
