On the plus side.. (society isn't all that bad)

I feel like society, including myself, talk about the negatives too much sometimes. Yes, it's great to talk about feminism, issues related to sexuality and gender identity, and political issues, but sometimes you just have to think positive!



Humans could've died during the ice age, or we could've never evolved the way we did, to think how we do, or the Nazi's could've won the world war, or we could still worship cats (although cute, they aren't very good for the progression of society).

Every society has it's social problems as well as it's merits. In ancient Rome, it was acceptable to be attracted to both men and women, but not just men OR just women. In ancient Greece, did not associate sexual relations with binary labels—great right? But... although young men could have sex with older men, if this continued past maturity, they were labelled and stigmatised negatively, being called euryprôktoi, which translates to "wide arses"!

So what are some of the things we do well in today's society? It could be argued that we do this too slowly, but we progress. 100 years ago, women didn't even have the vote, blacks were lynched in certain countries/states simply for being black and the idea of gender identity didn't exist. Now, in all European countries, and dozens of others, everyone has equal rights legally, regardless of gender identity, sex, race or sexuality. Although not totally equal socially, we are usually constantly improving.

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Talking is something we do well. Controversy is easily caused, as seen in my post about domestic violence against men (left) which now has a total of 11 comments. In the past 5 years, due to the increase in feminism, we are talking about equal rights between men and women. The anti-gay policies in Russia banning homosexuality being talked about in a positive light ironically made other countries talk more about homosexuality. The recent murder of 7 people at the hands of Elliot Rodger made America, and other western countries, talk about how men view women.

Due to our ways of understanding the world, we have technologically advanced quicker than any other prior civilisation. It once took years to circumnavigate the world, now it takes less than two days. We understand and can limit the spread of diseases (increasing the average life span of humans!), and, instead of using numerology and astrology to diagnose and "cure" patients, we use scientifically proven methods to cure the sick and injured. We can also send humans to live beyond our own planet, and send probes deep into space. All this being possible by the scientific method, which slowly evolved after the Renaissance.

And finally...we have culture. We have 100 years more of books, art, music and movies than we did 100 years ago!

Thought of any more good things about society whilst reading this? Comment below!