The United States of inclusivity
December 6, 2020 at 2:07 am
(This post was last modified: December 6, 2020 at 2:08 am by Apollo.)
So I am watching The Alienist these days—a series showing pursuit of a series killer in 1896 New York City who exclusively kills boy-prostitutes dressed as girls.
Few episodes in and there is murder of a boy prostitute Ali who was dressing as Fatima, who was from Syria.
I am not an expert on US immigration, but I imagine that finding a Syrian in 1896 NYC are pretty marginal compared to finding an Italian or Irish immigrant. I am not saying it cannot happen but I think this contrivance has more to do with recent wave of Hollywood inclusivity than reality.
I think inclusivity is great— as a first generation immigrant myself whose children are second generation USA citizens I am a direct recipient of this inclusivity. We live in a pluralist society and its wonderful but this strife for inclusion in every thing worries me sometimes.
I think it’s takes away from reality itself—the best course, what I have learned from classical liberalism, is always to reflect on reality and learn from it. It is only in the face of reality and oddity the tested successful ideas can emerge. 17th century Enlightenment and subsequent scientific humanism is a proof of that.
However there is also an argument to be made in favor of cultural reformations—forces that derive culture and make long lasting changes—humans are animals of habits and learning. We pass on knowledge from generation to generation and it’s incremental—later generations don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time—they build upon it and society moves forward. As generations learn lessons of inclusivity, issues of racial and other discriminatory nature tone down with every new generation—which is what we want as liberals.
So there seems to be a bit of paradox here—I do believe some lessons are best learned when learned the hard way (freedom of speech for example) or else we lose sight of their core value and take them for granted— and yet every new generation improves only when it builds upon the progress of the previous generation—so when we show a person of color or homosexual doing normal things like white straight people do, we normalize them as just people like anyone else—not to be discriminated or resented but accepted and embraced.
Thoughts?
Few episodes in and there is murder of a boy prostitute Ali who was dressing as Fatima, who was from Syria.
I am not an expert on US immigration, but I imagine that finding a Syrian in 1896 NYC are pretty marginal compared to finding an Italian or Irish immigrant. I am not saying it cannot happen but I think this contrivance has more to do with recent wave of Hollywood inclusivity than reality.
I think inclusivity is great— as a first generation immigrant myself whose children are second generation USA citizens I am a direct recipient of this inclusivity. We live in a pluralist society and its wonderful but this strife for inclusion in every thing worries me sometimes.
I think it’s takes away from reality itself—the best course, what I have learned from classical liberalism, is always to reflect on reality and learn from it. It is only in the face of reality and oddity the tested successful ideas can emerge. 17th century Enlightenment and subsequent scientific humanism is a proof of that.
However there is also an argument to be made in favor of cultural reformations—forces that derive culture and make long lasting changes—humans are animals of habits and learning. We pass on knowledge from generation to generation and it’s incremental—later generations don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time—they build upon it and society moves forward. As generations learn lessons of inclusivity, issues of racial and other discriminatory nature tone down with every new generation—which is what we want as liberals.
So there seems to be a bit of paradox here—I do believe some lessons are best learned when learned the hard way (freedom of speech for example) or else we lose sight of their core value and take them for granted— and yet every new generation improves only when it builds upon the progress of the previous generation—so when we show a person of color or homosexual doing normal things like white straight people do, we normalize them as just people like anyone else—not to be discriminated or resented but accepted and embraced.
Thoughts?
