Michael Shermer: Real Social Change Happens From the Bottom Up

Research shows that when you know somebody, say who's gay, you're less likely to be homophobic, just the exposure to them. And so the effect, part of the effect of cause of moral progress is this bottom up. Now sometimes you have to pass laws to get people to change, like to abolish slavery in the United States, we needed a war, and 750,000 people died about that. And you know, sometimes you have to send in the federal troops, like I think it was Eisenhower did that to desegregate Alabama schools that were segregated. And you remember the governor said, you know, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. And I forget who was president at the time, but he said, no, you're segregating and we're sending the, you're integrating your schools and we're sending in federal troops, men with guns to make sure you do it. Okay. Sometimes you have to do that. But most of the change happens from the bottom up of just oppressed peoples saying, you know what, stop that. Don't do that. I don't like it when you say that, you know, and it began with the N word and just kept expanding. So there's a logic to where we ended up today, where you have this big bin of microaggressions and so on. But there was a logic to it, like just saying, it's hurtful to do that. And most of the effects have been good. They've been positive. Just, you know, when Ellen comes out on her TV show, that's just a little thing there. Or when South Park, you know, makes fun of all different religions, you know, that gets perspective on things. Humor is good. Television scripts, movie scripts, the way characters talk. Richard Dawkins makes this point about you could pinpoint to the decade when a novel was written based on the words that are used to describe Jews, blacks and women. And you know, but no one said, okay, we're going to pass laws to say you can't use these words to describe Jews, blacks and women. We all just changed the way we talk about other people in a way that's more liberal, that's more all encompassing, that's more egalitarian in that sense. And it's not clear how exactly that happened, just incrementally, little bit by bit. You know, it's just it's like trying to figure out when a word started to be used. It's like it's really hard. 9-11 or gays. I remember in the late 90s, there was a couple of atheists that wanted to quit using the word atheist and call us the brights. We are the brights. And of course, that didn't stick. It was pretty obvious to what the, you know, what the antonym to the brights were, the people that believe in God, they're the dims. Right. Okay, so the dims are not going to be fond of that. Yeah. Oh my God. So that never took off, you know, by trying to change language by fiat from the top down. Okay, here's the new rule. We're all going to use this word. That doesn't work. It's just expanding our consciousness, expanding the moral sphere, just including more people in your honorary circle of friends and family members or honorary family members or people that you will treat with respect. That has been happening just tiny bits every day, a little bit here and there. And over the decades, you see it when you look back at the numbers like Steve Pinker does. But it's hard to pinpoint the day that that happened.