So @brin-bellway mentioned that being born into liberal feminism is apparently “vanishingly rare, to the point that I’ve seen people who will actually base an argument they’re making on the assumption that everyone comes from somewhere else. (“Nobody’s born spouting feminist doctrine! Give people a chance to learn!” Dude, I *was* born spouting feminist doctrine *that is now two decades out of date*.)”
Thing is, being a convert (so to speak) from hyperconservatism is also vanishingly rare – I know of one other person besides me who switched, and the most common argument I see against tone policing is “Nobody ever changed a hyperconservative’s mind by talking to them.” Which, I mean, tone policing is in fact wrong, but that argument is invalid, because I’m sitting right here not being hyperconservative anymore. ^_^
So what we were wondering is: where the fuck did all the rest of y’all come from? O_O Is there some large pool of mildly apolitical families out there that we just don’t hear about? (And in today’s polarized political climate, how’d you manage that? ;P)
Well, I more or less was born into liberal feminism, as were a number of my friends. But, that said, I think that, pre-9/11, there was a much larger pool of mildly apolitical families in the US. The polarization had been building since before I was born, but it felt like it really hit an inflection point around that time.
I suspect there are also a bunch of people from families that are liberal, but not explicitly feminist. That kind of think that they’re post-feminist, that the fight’s all done and everything is equal now. I rather suspect most of those folks think the same about race as well. Kids from those families might well end up getting shook up a bit when they start having to deal with the world outside their bubble.
But that’s the problem I’m having, that even when people acknowledge the existence of their own fucking culture they use derogatory words like “bubble” to describe it and act like it shouldn’t exist. Isn’t that what feminists want, isn’t that the point? A world where every child grows up that way, and they never have to learn better because there is no better to learn. Every child that does grow up that way is a step in the right direction, a little piece of the utopian future made manifest.
Even assuming the war is eventually won, it will not be won all at once, could never have been won all at once. You want your culture to win out over the other cultures, your mores to be the mores, and the way that happens is with little pockets where your culture has won, little “bubbles”, that expand until they encompass everything. Try to destroy your own strongholds at every opportunity and you’ll never get anywhere.
Tags:
#in which Brin has strong feelings about subcultural validity #again #reply via reblog #a movement does not survive on converts alone #discouraging the existence of non-convert feminists is a *bad* move #I am tempted to tag this #proud citizen of The Future #though that is not the usual meaning of that tag #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #our roads may be golden or broken or lost
Brinens and Things 
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