Comment by ignoramous
10 days ago
> The issue is that conservatives have always tried to force people to go along with their views, and reacted with oppression and violence towards anyone who didn't fit into their straightjacket.
All valid, but as always, there's nuances in how people think about assimilation and other things: Normative-ness shouldn't be mistaken for intentional racism. As for normative-ness being systemic racism, there's good deal of changes to be sought there as well, but social institutions that rely on social norms often resist dramatic changes without dramatic escalation in social struggle. The thing with escalation is, it brings about social unrest, which most would prefer to not deal with at all, especially those (who believe in) climbing up the social ladder, or are (relatively) less harmed by the status quo.
Valid point. Of course society needs norms. And I suspect every healthy society has norms. The big difference is what you do when those norms turn out to be unreasonably restrictive to some people. Do your norms override individual freedom even to the freedom to exist and be yourself?
There has to be a point where norms have to give way to freedom, but where do you draw that line?