The problem with “it’s so big and universal there’s no point in fighting against it”

A fairly common attitude amongst many caring people is: 

“it’s so big and universal there’s no point in fighting against it”

That attitude is problematic.

If everyone had lived by that attitude there would have been no struggle against:   tobacco,   drink driving,   littering,   women getting the vote,   racism,   and other changes we have seen. 

And the fact that those changes have occurred shows how wrong that attitude/belief is. 

As an example, drink driving was endemic and considered “normal” when I was a child - and contributed to a horrendous road death toll back then (in the 60s and 70s). 

As an example of how bad it was, someone I met decades ago had been in a single vehicle accident that killed his drunk friend who was driving - and yet they considered they “had” to keep drinking to “honour” their dead friend!!! 

Now, friends call out other friends if they are close to drink driving, and that is not grounds to end the friendship, it is recognised as a form of caring. 

Drink driving has not been eliminated (and racism still has a very long way to go), but it is massively reduced - and anyone who wants to quibble with that because we have not yet archived perfection is actively demotivating attempts to cause change and thus acting to support the evils of drink driving with the evil of their “fashionable cynicism”.

Yes, the problem may be so big (e.g., poverty, cruelty [particularly towards animals], cybersecurity, and the climate crisis) you won’t personally see results from your individual efforts, but other humans are being born and growing up who deserve better: how about some consideration for them?

And if the topic is being raised publicly as a concern, then others are concerned and you can be the single flake of snow that starts an avalanche ...

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.
Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/