I had to split my comment in two because it became too large for Lemmy to send in one go.
Continuing:
Sure. Why didn’t this happen in the 1870s, or 1770s? Gay people existed back then, what made it possible after the Stonewall riots?
In the 1700’s or 1800’s, there were other human rights issues prevalent that affected more people. Black people were still enslaved and women didn’t have the right to vote (and work, I think). I suppose secularization hadn’t deepened as much yet, and… the generation of people growing up closely under church were still around.
From what I know the social movement took a sharp turn upwards in favour of gay rights after the stonewall riots, but I don’t know the specifics. As for the lobbying, it is said that they obstructed APA meetings until their demands were met. I don’t know if that is true.
Why is there a shift towards individualism?
I think that individualism is linked with secularization (because it breaks down church conceptions of ideas such as making and maintaining family a primary commitment, perhaps especially for women), which itself is linked with education. We have seen growing literacy rates for a while now.
Individualism is also said to be a by-product of capitalism, though I don’t personally know about how that works.
This is just vibes. Plenty of “collectivist cultures” do have queer rights comparable to the west.
Then you should have no problem naming them for me.
Westerners also care about furthering bloodlines.
Westerners don’t care about furthering their bloodlines anywhere near on the same scale as Asians on average. You’re right in that this is vibes (I don’t have literal stats on me), but this is not really something that is conspiratorial or contested.
It sounds like you’re focusing extremely hard on ideas, without at all looking at the base, the mode of production and distribution, economic conditions, and how that develops and changes.
Because I dont really feel like the economic mode of production necessarily leads to a change in social attitudes, I’m still inclined to think many/most countries remain more or less the same as they are (I know you consider them to not be static). They may walk around with iphones and cars today when they didn’t the last century but they still carry the same conservative attitudes they did last century.
I will bring the example of the Arab, African, or Asian Muslim world again here (I am aware that not the entirety of these diasporas are Muslim, I am specifically referring to the parts that are); I don’t see these countries becoming gay affirming even if the economic mode of production over there changed. Hell, I’d go as far as to say that even China would be much more likely to than them.
Of course, as explained earlier, I still see that as being a very distant thing for China, for similar reasons, but the significant distinction in my opinion is that there isn’t really a stronghold of religion on the Chinese population in the same way that Islam is. Islam is overwhelmingly homophobic, and while there are traditions in Buddhism (and perhaps Confucianism and Taoism, I’m not 100% on Chinese demographics) that are homophobic, it’s nowhere near the same (i.e. Islamic scripture commands the stoning of gay men).
Why have there been a lot of activists in the west? Why have you not been paying attention to activists in, say, China?
I mean I’ve outlined the reasons I could think of already for the west— rising levels of education (and higher education), secularism, individualism, urbanization, the steam engine. Though these apply to China too (apart from individualism— I’m not sure about literacy and higher education though).
I never had an interest in China. I only started discussing it at all this year when I started looking into communism a while back. But apart from that I already said it may be due to the language barrier, and well, queer activism in china has never come up anywhere asides from our conversations (in my life).
Jin Xing (Chinese: 金星; pinyin: Jīn Xīng; Korean: 김성; born 13 August 1967) is a Chinese dancer and TV personality. The most prominent openly transgender public figure in China,[1] Jin is best known as a talent show judge and the host of The Jin Xing Show, though her visibility has been significantly curtailed by the Chinese government since 2021.[2]
Significantly curtailed by the Chinese government.
Sure, is western Europe immune to this backslide?
That is fair, it can be seen as them being in danger. The trans hate in the UK (although not part of the EU per se) is something I always found alarming. So it can change negatively in the future, yeah, but right now and for a good decade or so it hasn’t, and is so far good, which is certainly something to me.
Fascism is sweeping EU sadly, but I view the Chinese state to be fascist too. Granted at this point I’d be hard-pressed to find a country that isn’t.
Why in the world not? You haven’t given any analysis for why things are the way they are, you mostly just recounted historical events while admitting ignorance to the status of struggle in socialist countries.
Because I haven’t seen anything that communicates otherwise to me. You may say that there’s an openly trans celeb (who’s censored), or that younger generations are more progressive, but that really doesn’t communicate that legal change or progress is imminent to me.
Also even if it does happen within my lifetime I’d be really old by then (or so I would expect), which makes me indifferent to it on a personal level.
I think analysis on why things are the way they are is dependent on history. And yeah, I don’t know much about queer activism in socialist countries. Is that supposed to make me feel like progress is imminent? Because it doesn’t, as I said, I haven’t seen anything that communicates that to me.
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In short, my criticism with your thought process is that it is metaphysical and idealist, rather than dialectical and materialist. Metaphysical because you view things in a vacuum and as static categories, rather than ever-evolving processes, and idealist because you view the world on the basis of ideas being prior to material conditions, and not material conditions being prior.
I’m familiar with the basic idea of diamat. I think while it can be a useful model, I don’t believe it is necessarily applicable everywhere; I’m inclined to believe some things just stay the way they are (“static”, yes). You’re forcing a model that is believed in by socialists on someone that doesn’t believe in said model or even the broader ideology.
Mm, and no, I don’t view things in a vacuum, most/many things are interconnected, but I don’t think it is necessarily true that everything always has to be. I’d have to look into the real-world evidence behind diamat to consider whether or not it is empirically accurate (and to what extent it is), and to figure out to what extent the model can be used, where and how, in order to determine if I personally believe in it— but this would wind up being a completely separate endeavor.
I had to split my comment in two because it became too large for Lemmy to send in one go.
Continuing:
In the 1700’s or 1800’s, there were other human rights issues prevalent that affected more people. Black people were still enslaved and women didn’t have the right to vote (and work, I think). I suppose secularization hadn’t deepened as much yet, and… the generation of people growing up closely under church were still around.
From what I know the social movement took a sharp turn upwards in favour of gay rights after the stonewall riots, but I don’t know the specifics. As for the lobbying, it is said that they obstructed APA meetings until their demands were met. I don’t know if that is true.
I think that individualism is linked with secularization (because it breaks down church conceptions of ideas such as making and maintaining family a primary commitment, perhaps especially for women), which itself is linked with education. We have seen growing literacy rates for a while now.
Individualism is also said to be a by-product of capitalism, though I don’t personally know about how that works.
Then you should have no problem naming them for me.
Westerners don’t care about furthering their bloodlines anywhere near on the same scale as Asians on average. You’re right in that this is vibes (I don’t have literal stats on me), but this is not really something that is conspiratorial or contested.
Because I dont really feel like the economic mode of production necessarily leads to a change in social attitudes, I’m still inclined to think many/most countries remain more or less the same as they are (I know you consider them to not be static). They may walk around with iphones and cars today when they didn’t the last century but they still carry the same conservative attitudes they did last century.
I will bring the example of the Arab, African, or Asian Muslim world again here (I am aware that not the entirety of these diasporas are Muslim, I am specifically referring to the parts that are); I don’t see these countries becoming gay affirming even if the economic mode of production over there changed. Hell, I’d go as far as to say that even China would be much more likely to than them.
Of course, as explained earlier, I still see that as being a very distant thing for China, for similar reasons, but the significant distinction in my opinion is that there isn’t really a stronghold of religion on the Chinese population in the same way that Islam is. Islam is overwhelmingly homophobic, and while there are traditions in Buddhism (and perhaps Confucianism and Taoism, I’m not 100% on Chinese demographics) that are homophobic, it’s nowhere near the same (i.e. Islamic scripture commands the stoning of gay men).
I mean I’ve outlined the reasons I could think of already for the west— rising levels of education (and higher education), secularism, individualism, urbanization, the steam engine. Though these apply to China too (apart from individualism— I’m not sure about literacy and higher education though).
I never had an interest in China. I only started discussing it at all this year when I started looking into communism a while back. But apart from that I already said it may be due to the language barrier, and well, queer activism in china has never come up anywhere asides from our conversations (in my life).
From your link, first paragraph:
Significantly curtailed by the Chinese government.
That is fair, it can be seen as them being in danger. The trans hate in the UK (although not part of the EU per se) is something I always found alarming. So it can change negatively in the future, yeah, but right now and for a good decade or so it hasn’t, and is so far good, which is certainly something to me.
Fascism is sweeping EU sadly, but I view the Chinese state to be fascist too. Granted at this point I’d be hard-pressed to find a country that isn’t.
Because I haven’t seen anything that communicates otherwise to me. You may say that there’s an openly trans celeb (who’s censored), or that younger generations are more progressive, but that really doesn’t communicate that legal change or progress is imminent to me.
Also even if it does happen within my lifetime I’d be really old by then (or so I would expect), which makes me indifferent to it on a personal level.
I think analysis on why things are the way they are is dependent on history. And yeah, I don’t know much about queer activism in socialist countries. Is that supposed to make me feel like progress is imminent? Because it doesn’t, as I said, I haven’t seen anything that communicates that to me.
————————————————————————
I’m familiar with the basic idea of diamat. I think while it can be a useful model, I don’t believe it is necessarily applicable everywhere; I’m inclined to believe some things just stay the way they are (“static”, yes). You’re forcing a model that is believed in by socialists on someone that doesn’t believe in said model or even the broader ideology.
Mm, and no, I don’t view things in a vacuum, most/many things are interconnected, but I don’t think it is necessarily true that everything always has to be. I’d have to look into the real-world evidence behind diamat to consider whether or not it is empirically accurate (and to what extent it is), and to figure out to what extent the model can be used, where and how, in order to determine if I personally believe in it— but this would wind up being a completely separate endeavor.