Less racist, sexist and homophobic world

[Nyvis]

The second part is that when you are trying to argue, “some” does not go as a valid argument. You need to come with the specific names, places, descriptions of habits and preferably demonstration of how exactly these examples impacted the prevailing modern cultures. Of course, there was no (still is not) a complete uniformity among the world’s cultures but you have to demonstrate your point beyond the vague statements.

Meh, your point was a cherrypick of society so I don't feel like I need to be particularly exhaustive in my explanations.

I don't think most of them were less problematic than today, but you only need things to start out better and keep the same trend towards improvement to get a better modern day.

Greece was less homophobic than most antiquity societies for example. Just building up on that instead of going back on it would lead to quicker acceptance of homosexuality.

The Iroquois had much better rules about how to treat women than western societies of the time. This article seem to suggest it could even have participated in the conception of feminist thought, though I don't know how believable that is: https://feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/iroquoisinfluence.html

A lot of multicultural empires had a much different conception of race. In fact, a lot of our racism is built on nationalism, which is fairly young. Of course colonial history also play a role. But my point is that we got worse on that track record rather than steady or better, for a time.

So yeah, I believe there's a bunch of historical material to build a better world, as long as you accept it won't instantly be better than the modern day, just build up to it.

 

[alexmilman]

Meh, your point was a cherrypick of society so I don't feel like I need to be particularly exhaustive in my explanations.

I don't think most of them were less problematic than today, but you only need things to start out better and keep the same trend towards improvement to get a better modern day.

Greece was less homophobic than most antiquity societies for example. Just building up on that instead of going back on it would lead to quicker acceptance of homosexuality.

The Iroquois had much better rules about how to treat women than western societies of the time. This article seem to suggest it could even have participated in the conception of feminist thought, though I don't know how believable that is: https://feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/iroquoisinfluence.html

A lot of multicultural empires had a much different conception of race. In fact, a lot of our racism is built on nationalism, which is fairly young. Of course colonial history also play a role. But my point is that we got worse on that track record rather than steady or better, for a time.

So yeah, I believe there's a bunch of historical material to build a better world, as long as you accept it won't instantly be better than the modern day, just build up to it.

Let’s put it straight, my point was not to cherrypick a society but to backup whatever point you are making with the specific illustrations. As far as the Ancient Greece is involved, while they were rather tolerant of the homosexuality, they also were not into the female equality and they were extremely xenophobic (even Persians with their ancient and well-developed cultures were considered “barbarians”) so copying them would not have these parts of the agenda advanced too far. Not sure in which area we (if you are talking about the US) got “worse” comparing to what? The very fact that this thread is being alive is a proof that we are more tolerant than was the case in, say, early XX.

How racism can be based on nationalism within a multi-ethnic nation is a little bit beyond me and nationalism, as in putting interests of your own nation above those of other nations, has nothing to do with a race and I’m not sure that it is worse than internationalism (at least in its known form promoted by the communists). BTW, racism is not something limited to the US or even to the colonial past. Neither is it young or limited to the European civilizations.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Many brutish people will indeed be grossed out by men kissing each other (men, note; sexism means lesbian porn is still popular), but to what extent is that not a culturally set standard?

One should always be careful of studies that aim to create an evolutionary or biological explanation for modern attitudes. Not only do they often do a disservice the diversity and variety of human culture and history, they often end up being shallow efforts to justify prejudices that are going out of style. Whether or not heterosexual men in the present feel revulsion at the sight of two men kissing, even a passing glance at cultural practices around the world and at history demonstrate that any such response must be learned, not biological. The social pressure against displays of affection between men in the west is a lot newer than most people assume. Before the trial of Oscar Wilde in England, men habitually walked arm in arm and were physically affectionate in public. Go back further, and it's already been pointed out that many cultures, including Medieval Europe, considered kisses between men to be the norm in certain social situation. For that matter, many cultures have been more or less tolerant of male homosexuality, and still others such as Japan, Greece and Polynesia have at times elevated forms of male homosexuality into fixtures of masculine identity.

Interestingly, you might be able to accomplish a greater tolerance for homosexuality through the same method that you lessen racism: preventing or limiting scientific racism. A lot of the social fears behind 19th century homophobia had its roots in the existential fears of Europeans about the decline or extinction of their race. Victorian writers calling for the persecution of homosexuals considered homosexuality to be a social disease (almost always associated with foreigners) that would weaken the moral and physical fiber of the English people, and could lead to the extinction of the English race. If that sounds a lot like the justifications used by various countries for racial segregation and racist laws, it's because it is. The actual target might have been different, but laws against homosexuality and anti-miscegenation laws were supported through the same hysterical fears and described the "threat" in almost identical terms. While there are still centuries of religious pressure to overcome, a Europe and America less concerned about maintaining an imagined racial superiority will almost certainly be less aggressive in persecuting homosexuality.

That is a hell of a generalization. In any case, its easy to skew a study to get the result that you want, and it sounds like that "study" was designed by someone trying desperately to justify their own bigotry via an Appeal to Nature fallacy. In the absence of a source or confirmation of peer review, I'm not going to give this "study" any weight whatsoever. But even if it were valid, it would not follow that homophobia is an inevitable or unchangeable part of human nature. The whole point of being self-aware beings is that we can be aware of our biases and consciously choose to reject them when they cause more harm than good- that we can be more than our base natures.

The study in question was professional and peer-reviewed, read https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2017.1328459. Unfortunately, only the abstract is available but there is a good article regarding the study, read https://www.psypost.org/2017/06/str...e-seeing-two-men-kissing-seeing-maggots-49217. The study showed that even heterosexual men who weren't homophobic had disgust at seeing two men kissing, albeit less than the homophobic ones. Thus, it seems that, unfortunately, there's, indeed, a biological reason for that. Believe me, being bisexual, I'd prefer to believe that there isn't, but, unfortunately, it seems that there is.

 

[NotedCoyote]

The study in question was professional and peer-reviewed, read https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2017.1328459. Unfortunately, only the abstract is available but there is a good article regarding the study, read https://www.psypost.org/2017/06/str...e-seeing-two-men-kissing-seeing-maggots-49217. The study showed that even heterosexual men who weren't homophobic had disgust at seeing two men kissing, albeit less than the homophobic ones. Thus, it seems that, unfortunately, there's, indeed, a biological reason for that. Believe me, being bisexual, I'd prefer to believe that there isn't, but, unfortunately, it seems that there is.

To quote the article you linked. "it could be that society has socialized the notion of same-sex sexuality and affection as being ‘disgusting’ or immoral so strongly, for so long, that merely witnessing it causes a slight physiological stress response." Even the abstract seems to suggest that the authors of the article suspect a socialized disgust rather than an inbuilt biological revulsion, but regrettably we only have access to the abstract, so we can only go by that and by the way the article you linked quotes the study's authors. A cultural explanation would make sense, and when considering it it's important to remember that the great majority of men alive today in the Western hemisphere grew up in schools and communities where being called gay was the go-to insult for challenging their masculinity. In particular, note that the authors were unable to tell if the reaction of the men to the kissing images was disgust (as it was with the maggot images) or anxiety, which would be pretty predictable given cultural attitudes toward homosexual sexual expression.

In any case the research is much too limited to actually draw a conclusion that the effect they observed would be universal across modern cultures... let alone universal across all cultures in all periods of history. It's interesting, and could tell us more when/if it gets followed up the way the authors hope it will, but on its own does little to change the fact that history is full of cultures that tolerated, accepted, or in some cases even promoted male homosexuality.

 

[alexmilman]

The study in question was professional and peer-reviewed, read https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2017.1328459. Unfortunately, only the abstract is available but there is a good article regarding the study, read https://www.psypost.org/2017/06/str...e-seeing-two-men-kissing-seeing-maggots-49217. The study showed that even heterosexual men who weren't homophobic had disgust at seeing two men kissing, albeit less than the homophobic ones. Thus, it seems that, unfortunately, there's, indeed, a biological reason for that. Believe me, being bisexual, I'd prefer to believe that there isn't, but, unfortunately, it seems that there is.

Sorry, but what you described as the results of this research is in a contradiction with the available evidence from the country that had strict anti-homosexual laws. A kiss was not necessary associated with the sexual relations and the same goes for outsiders reaction to it.

Here is Brezhnev kissing Honecker

https://www.the-berlin-wall.com/videos/fraternal-kiss-of-brezhnev-and-honecker-665/

And here is Brezhnev kissing Ludvik Svoboda

Clearly, the whole perception is cultural and the cultures are not uniform.

 

[Chungus Maximus]

No slavery in America.

 

[A Most Sovereign Lady]

No slavery in America.

Which has to be preceded with no slavery in X.

 

[Socrates]

Possibly. But my greater point is that aversion to homosexualism looks ingrained, possibly biological.
I don't think its a coincidence that most human cultures consider homosexuality taboo, gross, unamainly or all of those.

Just because a reaction is emotional and visceral does not mean it is inherent or natural. A wealth on research on the nature of disgust shows that disgust is something that can easily be taught at a young age. Heterosexual children raised by gay couples do not have the disgust reaction to gay people because they have not been negatively primed to do so.

Equally, people in the West were often disgusted in a similar manner to masturbation just a few generations ago. That changed with the sexual revolution and people being more open about it. The exception is children from Mormon or Catholic families who still prime negatively about how abhorrent it is.

One related piece of research that may be interesting is that females from low socioeconomic backgrounds prefer men with higher testosterone levels and more masculine features. This a preference that reduces as you go up the income spectrum. It is like related to evolutionary needs: if resources are scarce, women prefer a mate that can fight off enemies. If resources are abundant, that becomes less of a concern and they prefer a nurturing father. Potentially the post above suggesting more rapid income growth could make people more understanding towards more feminine seeming men, including gay people.