Do you care about being on the right side of history?

[QuertyGirl]

I'm an archaeologist so I do have some perspective on the long view of history.

Just wondering if normal people ever think about this?

There have been lots of times where plenty of people have signed up to ideas that we now see as manifestly wrong if not downright abhorrent.

Everything from Nazism, phernology, eugenics, racism to hitting your kids and drink driving, has had otherwise intelligent people campaigning to for them.

Does anyone here look at the modern world and ideas and take a guess how history will treat these ideas?

For a start, I think that homeopathy, plastic grass, how we treat ND people and cars for short trips will all be consigned to the historical scrap heap.

I give this precisely zero thought .

The way we are ignoring COVID and letting everyone get reinfected time and time again. Our children will not thank us for it, we are setting them up for a lifetime of ill health.

It really wouldn't be that difficult to push for cleaner air and ventilation in schools, hospitals, other busy public spaces. We learnt from cholera to build sewage systems, but we're failing to learn from covid to build safer indoor spaces.

Not even know I've mentioned it?

I think the who crucible of history idea is fascinating

I feel most people living now will be on the wrong side of history and I doubt most will care

I think they are with their consumption habits at least

We all buy so much pointless shit

Plastic grass should be banned.

The only one I know obsessed with this is Oxfird History grad LOJ who is into Queer theory and Marx.

Attitude to climate change is an obvious one

Lack of almost any regulation around social media is huge in my view

Linked to that the prevalence of (extreme) porn

I think a lot about the fact 3 people in the US have more wealth than the poorest 50%. It’s modern day feudalism

I think most modern medicine. It treats the symptoms not the cause. Things like chemo, I think will be remembered with horror.

Climate change (esp the recent mn thread about dreading the summer and the OP being told she was worrying about nothing!)

I think about this but then I'm into genealogy and spend a lot of time trying to work out what my ancestors were like as people.

We tend to hope we can uncover a suffragette or an abolitionist in our tree so I do wonder what my descendants will make of me in 100 years time.

I think people in the future will wonder how today's voting public allowed our political system to sink so low. If the human race hasn't been wiped out by climate change by then that is ....

I do think future generations will look back on ours and think we were very selfish. We're just using up the earth's resources with no thought for anyone but ourselves and we're making creatures extinct and polluting the place. The one thing we seem to be good at and spend a lot of money on is killing ourselves.

We could be trying to cure diseases, alleviate hunger, colonize other planets, but instead we're more concerned about what's happening on Facebook.

Climate change is happening, the sea level hasn't changed, it's almost ten years since we were told the earth is ending, yet it hasn't.

Have you checked all the science for yourself,

I think attitude to climate change, LGBT issues and veganism will be big ones. Also use of cars like you said, maybe flying and fast fashion.

@SunShineAllMine

Only a climate change scientist can actually check the science

I think after what happened in the pandemic it is quite scary how we just go along with things, orders and instructions from the government.

I don't know. I think it's a relatively new phenomenon. I think most people throughout history were just working within the confines of their time.

Like obviously Hitler and the holocaust was abhorrently evil and definitely the wrong side. The majority of people who sent their kids to Hitler youth or became members of the Nazi party I don't think were all evil they were just trying to keep their families afloat and under the radar even though collectively their actions enabled the Nazi party to keep going.

I can also see with my own family how news cycles and propaganda affect people's views so their idea of the 'right side' isn't necessarily unbiased. The way my parents feel about the troubles in Ireland throughout their youth, is that it's very clearly a right/wrong situation with The British Army in the right. The amount of events they had no idea at all about is unreal. Likewise the way, for example the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert is presented to us (obviously a tragedy btw) vs how we might get to hear about British or US drones accidentally killing everybody at a wedding in Afghanistan. Or indeed Britsh and US meddling in lots of different countries.We get such a skewed perspective on everything that it's practically impossible to see the wider picture. I always think it's worth remembering that nobody thinks they're the bad guy. And most people's actions (though not all) are far more nuanced than good vs bad or right vs wrong.

It's only fairly recently for example that people with a mainstream voice have been sympathetic to the plight of people in Palestine without being viewed as terrorist sympathisers. And for all the internet has many faults I think in this case it's been good in allowing alternative viewpoints to be heard.

As someone who was against lockdowns, mandatory mask wearing etc the past three years have horrified me.

Actually now I've thought about my post I think the reason most 'wrong' things happen is because most people are concentrating on keeping their families afloat and then a small group of people are steering the bigger direction.

Like climate change now. Smaller communities are fairly rare so people need to travel to work. If you have kids and have multiple drops offs/pick ups before and after work then you need a car. Not having a car for each working adult would have major financial implications so we just crack on without thought of the system that was created that made people have to travel further from their immediate locality to work and that made it financially necessary for most families to have both parents working.

When we realised the problem with cfcs in the 80s the governments worked collectively to ban them and come up with workable alternatives. But similar is happening now and all of the onus is put on individuals changing their actions without real attempts to change the system that people are operating within. I think the reason why is greed.

I "worry" often that we have this clear belief that we're in the right side, even though history tells us that's fat from true for the British Empire. How do we really know that we're on the right side over Russia for example? I'm not saying we're not, but how would we, the public, know?

There are lots of smaller things that bother me. For example I'm sure the naughty step/time out will be regarded as a crueler punishment than a short sharp slap, by future generations.

And recycling is/was a disaster. It enables everyone to believe they're doing the right thing whilst continuing with tons of single use stuff, when what we really need to do is use far less of everything.

Nope Transwomen are just that they are not and never will be women I don't care if I am on the right or wrong side of history. I will defend the word and meaning of woman as its important for me, my daughters and granddaughters let alone the wider estate of vulnerable women in hospitals prisons and refuges. To be honest society has shifted positions on it so much over the last decade who could say where society will end up. I just know what my thinking and research has led me to believe. You have to be able to back up your beliefs with facts and reasons but if you can then you should stand by your beliefs regardless of society.

I really disagree with this as a HCP. It’s the best we have (at the moment) to treat illness and people would die without it. We don’t sneer at doctors in the past using leeches, iron lung etc even though you’d never use them know. It’s the best you have at the time until the necessary advances happen!!

OP I agree re: climate change. Our children will be horrified at the plastic tat purchased these days. Agree re:driving. Tbh I find it dreadful now people using cars for short journeys (when able bodied etc etc) let along when society reflects that we all knew the climate crisis and people continued with it.

It's hard to stand up at the time for what's right when big events happen as the media juggernaut swings into action and either convinces people to follow the set narrative or it cows them into submission. 10 years after the event people seem to convince themselves that they were one of the brave souls who stood up and opposed the official line. Think in our recent memory - lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine mandates. Not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq.

I agree this was an awful eye-opener. No doubt some (most?) believed it was for a necessary reason, but it was so easy to have the population locked up and under control and policing each other. What happens if next time the reason is more sinister?

I also agree with this. I don't disagree that it's the best we have currently, as a HCP has said, but the reason it's the best we have is that it's not in the commercial interests of the drug companies to cure anything. If we're all well, where do they make their money? Much better for them to keep treating long term symptoms.