the march of progress

I am not often going to comment on political issues herein, because this blog is not so much a personal diary as a professional tool.  However, I read today that a poll found 3 out of 4 Americans are in favor of allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the U.S. military.  I am heartily encouraged by this and it is a topic of sufficient personal interest to make me stretch my boundaries.

I have been reading John Stuart Mill's essays on my lunch hour, in an attempt to raise the tone of my brain, which is all too easily tempted down the easy path.  Today's pages turned up this little gem, which seems apt:

"In all things of any difficulty and importance, those who can do them well are fewer than the need, even with the most unrestricted latitude of choice: and any limitation of the field of selection deprives society of some chances of being served by the competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent."

This was written in 1861, a time when slavery was still legal in parts of the United States; when women did not have the right to vote either in England or in the U.S.; and when great colonial empires were still in the process of being assembled, under the manifestly pernicious notion that one class of people, by virtue of superior technology, had the right to subjugate other classes of people. 

Many of the latter peoples are still fighting (in some cases, literally) their way free of the unintended consequences of colonization. Among these was the lack of a "native" educated class in many countries, due to the assumption - by the colonizers - that "native" people were incapable of governing themselves.  This assumption was based on little more than the false logic that since the colonizing people had better technology, they were better suited to govern.

Generations of talent, creativity, intelligence, and ambition were lost because of this assumption.  Enormous populations were prevented from exercising their abilities simply because to allow them to do so was perceived to threaten the ruling class; to be economically or socially disruptive; or to be "unnatural."

It is blind and stupid to restrict access, by any class of people, to the rights and privileges of other classes.  It is also, of course, a natural human tendency to wish to keep things as they are; to fear change, and to seek amongst historical precedents, political theories, and (when all else fails) religious dogmas for reasons why change should be resisted.  However, despite the efforts of some to (in the words of William F. Buckley, Jr.) "stand athwart History yelling STOP!," history cannot be and should not be stopped.

Among all nations, progress has been marked by a gradual expansion of civil rights and civil liberties.  Some nations resist progress more strongly than others, but most nations find their own way to integrate progress with their culture for maximum benefit with minimum upheaval.  I believe today's reported poll results are a good indicator that further expanding civil rights to our last excluded minority is no longer a matter for fear among the majority.

Comments

[R K Young]

Being denied marriage myself, I'm of course totally behind your conclusions here. With perhaps one exception. In the "right" to marriage argument, I'm not convinced that fear is what motivates the opposition, but rather a desire of the majority to punish the minority for not fitting in to a proscribed "moral" code. A "you shouldn't have access to the same civil rights as we do because you can't possibly be in God's image and therefore are less than human" type of argument. Unless we get treatment and are "cured," of course. Thanks for sticking your neck out on the tough issues!