I hope I'm not too late (6 months but who is counting) but just noticed this thread and had a few thoughts. Seems it was kinda left in limbo.
Donald said:
That's true, but I do think that these polls can be used comparatively (and very carefully). By comparatively I mean that the same polll questions taken in 1978 compared to 2008, say, assuming that the rate of lying to pollsters is roughly the same.
But maybe rate of lying about specific cultural/political concepts changes as certain things become more "accepted" and more "popular", and others more demonized and less accepted.
Donald said:
Well, Anart, all I can say now is that I don't think how you are characterizing what I wrote is anything like what I meant. I know racism is a fundamental problem and hasn't come close to going away. But I do think there are degrees. And things can get better and they can get worse again, too.
You know the saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same. For example look at how quickly and easily Americans adopted racism towards Muslims. Even some people I know who aren't racist towards black people (based on how they choose to behave and what they say only) are saying the most ridiculously bigoted things towards Muslims. Like that's different somehow.
I think looking at it from a pathological/ponerological view, people haven't evolved any in the past 100 years or so. They are still as mechanical and ignorant and pathocracized as ever - even more so now. So if there is ever an impression that racism is "lower", considering that things have not changed pathologically from the perspective of having done the Work and rooted out their ignorance/mechanicalness at its fundamental level, then I can't see how that change can be anything but cosmetic. Yeah we now have all these "laws" to protect minorities etc, but that in and of itself says a lot - how would we be treating others if we didn't have any of those laws? Similarly, how "good" would all those religious people be if the promise of heaven and threat of hell was suddenly taken away?
In some parts of the country, in some social groups, racism against, say black people, is less so in behavior - because of constant interaction with people of other races and just a group consensus that it's "wrong". Although that doesn't really say anything about their private thoughts and feelings, but let's say in some cases they match their outer behavior simply because they accept black people as equals per group consensus and lifelong interaction. But are those people different from those who are overtly racist? Well, if we take into account that they are simply doing the "right" thing for the "wrong" reason, then I'd say no.
They are just as ponerized, programmed, mechanical, and have no more understanding about the root of racism than any other person in their "default" state would. They just happened not to be "conditioned" to be racist towards a specific race due to circumstances, which has nothing to do with any conscious will or understanding or decision on their part. So unless they spent a significant time Working on themselves and becoming psychologically healthy and understanding their programs and analyzing their thoughts and actions and little i's, basically debugging their machine and becoming objective, I don't see why they'd be any more resistant to racism than anyone else. If the conditions were such that they are now being actively pressured and manipulated into racism and bigotry - by friends, media, environment, etc, that's when you really find out whose perspective is just one of many potential i's, and not something that originates from a conscious and objective and deep understanding/knowledge. Knowledge protects, it really is the only thing that can, and I suspect very few people have the true Knowledge and therefore psychological health to be above being manipulated into such things by those who know how to effectively manipulate people.
I think it is similar to war and peace. Sometimes a country can be at peace but it doesn't mean its population has somehow wisened up about the folly and ridiculousness of war, it's just peace is "in" for the moment, and people can talk about how they are all peace loving and all that until the moment that the PTB decide they need war and then we discover that the population is quite easily to manipulate into accepting and even demanding war as the only way to "deal" with whatever lie they are given. I mean this kinda happens in US constantly - people scream about peace one second, scream about "war on everything" the next. Sure a few people really do "get it" but everybody else is just jumping on the "me too" bandwagon and adopting a skin-deep perspetive with one little "i" until the wind blows a different way.
And there's a lot to be said about "political correctedness" - that phrase in and of itself is telling. If it is "politically correct" nowadays to say all races are equal, that's what politicians and media will say. In fact, as part of what the PTB learned from their past very overt tyrranical power grabs, they need to engineer an effective illusion that we are governed by peace-loving equality-loving freedom-loving awesome fellas. Those who pay attention see it as just another manipulation, a much more clever one but coming from the same psychopaths that boiled people alive in public not so long ago. I think a lot of people could say that we are more democratic and free today than we were in years past. But I'd argue that this is just part of that same engineered illusion by the psychopaths to trick us, and I think the same would apply to the illusion that racism is diminished in any real way. Normal people haven't changed, and neither have psychopaths. The only thing changing are outer forms and pretenses, but this isn't really anything cuz as G says, consciousness cannot evolve unconsciously.
