We all know that opinions change over time, but it’s only when you look back a few decades that you can see how fast they have changed. Racism has not dissipated entirely of course, but in the West it’s certainly not a marketing tool to beat consumers with anymore. It’s easy to look back at the racism and sexism of the last century and mock, ridicule and laugh. The interesting thing to wonder about though, is how we will view our current, modern opinions in 50 years time.
As egocentric humans we always assume that the current way we think and perceive must be the best, and we struggle to imagine how we could change. The smoking ban for instance was heralded as a massive change, but people stopped talking about it pretty much as soon as it had come into effect. You get used to stuff much faster than you think you will. Now it seems absolutely mental that we ever smoked in confined spaces in the first place.
There are bound to be things that we do now, every day, that seem completely normal, but that we will look back on in a few decades with jaws agape. It’s hard to imagine what those things might be as we pat ourselves on our liberal backs; smiling in the belief that we have conquered backwards thought and are now part of the enlightened elite of the world. Women with equal pay (sometimes), slavery abolished (on paper), racist jokes frowned upon (in some places), welfare etc. Although, tbh, 90% of all adverts have a scantily clad woman in them, and UKiP are on the rise, so maybe we haven’t come so far?
When I try to imagine something we do now that we will be shocked about later in our lives, the only thing that keeps coming to me is eating meat. I’m not a vegetarian, but I reckon in 50 years we will sneer at other nations that still kill animals to eat. We don’t need meat to survive and we certainly don’t need to torture animals so we can have a cup of milk. That’s the only aspect of my life that I think I will surprise my grand kids with. Any ideas yourselves?
Anyway, have a gorp at these:
There’s more if you can take it…
More sexism for you Sir?…
