I think the biggest LOL in history is Main Characters who think they can immediately solve the world’s problems. They literally have a 0% success rate.
All of our actual progress has always been incremental.
It demonstrates precisely the opposite. All it shows is that change can be lost in a moment. And waiting around for it to strengthen only to then backslide into non-existence is not the solution. If we fought half as hard to build up the nation as the right does to tear it down, we’d be making a lot of progress.
Slowly doing the right thing is not a virtue in and of itself. The only people who want slow change explicitly do not want the change to occur if it disrupts those who use inequality to opress.
Do you think the civil rights movement was fighting for slow incremental change? That was a byproduct of the resistance to equality. They wanted it yesterday.
Everybody wants change yesterday, but they never actually get that. They don’t even get major immediate change. At best they get incremental progress.
So when evaluating someone’s achievements, you can’t hold them to an impossible standard. Someone is not a failure if they were unable to change the past. In fact, they are a success if they deliver the best outcome that is actually achievable. And history shows that outcome is incremental progress.
I think you’re misattributing who the villains of progress are. MLK had attributed it to the white moderates that stood in the way of progress. I’m doing the same. The right is not a majority. If the moderates would play ball with the progressives, we could get a lot done immediately, but they refuse.
Perfect example. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
After more than a decade of activism, MLK didn’t live to see the passage of the Civil Rights Act. And that law didn’t solve the problem of racial inequality.
If you were alive in MLK’s time, you would be complaining that he hadn’t done enough.
Still wouldn’t have happened without direct action, which is ultimately what I’m trying to get at in these comments. People like MLK had to put their asses on the line to make change happen. Had to rally support. Simply voting doesn’t really accomplish much. It took Black Americans getting beat in the streets, causing issues for politicians to get the civil rights act past the finish line. You’re right that it does take time for progress to happen but without direct action like what MLK did I don’t think anything would have ever gotten accomplished.
Sure, I agree that it takes more than voting to make change. My point is that change appears incremental when it is actually happening. Only in retrospect, after many small changes have accumulated, can you see a major shift.
That’s the biggest lol in history
I think the biggest LOL in history is Main Characters who think they can immediately solve the world’s problems. They literally have a 0% success rate.
All of our actual progress has always been incremental.
Meanwhile we are backsliding instead of progressing, in a lot of respects
That’s true, but change is always a mix of progression and backsliding. That’s another reason why incremental progress is so valuable.
It demonstrates precisely the opposite. All it shows is that change can be lost in a moment. And waiting around for it to strengthen only to then backslide into non-existence is not the solution. If we fought half as hard to build up the nation as the right does to tear it down, we’d be making a lot of progress.
Slowly doing the right thing is not a virtue in and of itself. The only people who want slow change explicitly do not want the change to occur if it disrupts those who use inequality to opress.
Do you think the civil rights movement was fighting for slow incremental change? That was a byproduct of the resistance to equality. They wanted it yesterday.
Everybody wants change yesterday, but they never actually get that. They don’t even get major immediate change. At best they get incremental progress.
So when evaluating someone’s achievements, you can’t hold them to an impossible standard. Someone is not a failure if they were unable to change the past. In fact, they are a success if they deliver the best outcome that is actually achievable. And history shows that outcome is incremental progress.
I think you’re misattributing who the villains of progress are. MLK had attributed it to the white moderates that stood in the way of progress. I’m doing the same. The right is not a majority. If the moderates would play ball with the progressives, we could get a lot done immediately, but they refuse.
In order for moderates to play ball with progressives, progressives must be willing to play ball with moderates.
We do… all the time. We put Biden over the finish line, for example. And then yall ask us to do it again while refusing to throw us some bones.
We are happy to compromise, but its supposed to be a give and take. Moderates never give
There is zero proof of that. You would call MLK a main character?
Perfect example. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
After more than a decade of activism, MLK didn’t live to see the passage of the Civil Rights Act. And that law didn’t solve the problem of racial inequality.
If you were alive in MLK’s time, you would be complaining that he hadn’t done enough.
Still wouldn’t have happened without direct action, which is ultimately what I’m trying to get at in these comments. People like MLK had to put their asses on the line to make change happen. Had to rally support. Simply voting doesn’t really accomplish much. It took Black Americans getting beat in the streets, causing issues for politicians to get the civil rights act past the finish line. You’re right that it does take time for progress to happen but without direct action like what MLK did I don’t think anything would have ever gotten accomplished.
Sure, I agree that it takes more than voting to make change. My point is that change appears incremental when it is actually happening. Only in retrospect, after many small changes have accumulated, can you see a major shift.