But this is far too crude an argument to support your strongly apathetic conclusion. It is true that technology, history and conditions form a large explanation of where we are - a capitalist world, say - but the variations within that system, while small from a distant historical perspective, are extremely significant to the people they effect.
Fair enough, but you've already anticipated my counterargument there. How much of that variation is the result of conscious political action and how much of that variation simply mirrors similarly slight variations in underlying conditions? My guess is that it's overwhelmingly the latter.
For instance, the EU and the US are both wealthy and capitalist yet are quite different in the treatment of their citizens with respect to health, education and employment.
I think you could make a compelling argument from geography and historical patterns of migration there, i.e. basically, America has always had the whole "boundless frontier of the West" myth going on, whereas Europe has not. From there, you could trace the roots of huge differences in the expected relationships between the state, the community, and the individual.
Now, you could argue that the historical and environmental conditions are what give rise to these differences, and I would possibly then reply by comparing Sweden and the UK, which you could also explain by similar mechanisms.
Exactly.
The thing is, at some point, these historical mechanisms are sufficiently local that small groups of people can be said to have made a difference. There is no way that your kind of deterministic framework can explain the variety of human society without some fuzziness around the edges. And people can live in the fuzziness, can change the fuzziness, maybe to the extent that the fuzziness effects the whole, over a long enough period.
Which is why I said the following in the other thread:
"Of course, this begs the question of why I’m so irritated by Olulabelle’s post when I don’t actually have any confidence in anyone’s ability to actually affect the sorts of changes being discussed. It’s mostly because it’s incredibly frustrating to see potential allies put so much thought and effort and outrage put into a course of action which is at best useless, and at worst counterproductive, when the same energy could be put into doing something that’s actually useful.
It’s much easier (read: it’s actually possible) to have a lot of influence on the small scale, creating niche environments where the prevailing norms are a lot closer to your ideals than perhaps they are in the broader society, and then try to lure people inside. You can’t really change existing society, but you can work on building a more attractive alternative and selling it to people, possibly by tailoring it to meet the same needs people feel are being fulfilled by the things you’d like to change."
Which can be read as a companion piece to this from upthread:
You can protest, you can vote, you can boycott, you can do whatever you damn well please, but you cannot change the fundamental realities involved. You can try to negotiate a better deal for yourself, or for someone else you think is getting screwed, but you can't change the fundamentals.
(emphasis added)
My position is basically this:
1) We live in a consumerist capitalist society, and that's not changing in any real sense anytime in the foreseeable future no matter what anyone does.
2) In such a society, everything is eventually commodified, including sex and sexual displays. Again, that's not changing in any real sense anytime in the foreseeable future no matter what anyone does.
3) As long as there is demand for sex and sexual displays, there will be supply.
4) Yes, there are what we might euphemistically call "power implications" in any such exchange. That sucks on a lot of levels, and it sucks disproportionately for women, but see points 1-3.
5) Like any industry, the best thing we can do to ensure that people in the industry get the best deal possible, and that the industry works with the least harm to society, is to bring it as far out in the open as we can.
6) Additionally, by doing so, we open up room for niche markets, which dramatically expands the range of permissible expression, which in turn increases acceptance of marginal groups.
No, it's not perfect, but it's never going to be perfect, and we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. People will do things that probably aren't psychologically healthy for them, but when is that not the case, and do the benefits of any proposed intervention to protect people from themselves outweigh the costs? |
