#social progress

there was really a very small amount of representation for same-sex attraction and relationships for me growing up (which i mostly had access to because my parents didn’t pay too much attention to the books i was reading or care too much about the appearance of a lesbian couple on Disney Channel). both of the shows that i’m about to elaborate on are relatively new and they have lesbian couples as the main romantic pairings. girls kissing each other in cartoons!! wow!! also, both shows have nonbinary characters, and guess what? it’s not a big deal! they just exist. casual representation is so important, and while it may not feel casual for me, it definitely feels that way for kids who see it during their most formative years. queerness will become a regular part of life, at least moreso than it was for us (*people who weren’t raised in super progressive households/communities and were exposed to a mainly heteronormative selection of fiction). and that’s really really important.

kids today have shows like The Owl House, where kids can have gay crushes on each other and being nonbinary isn’t a big deal. when i was a kid, being gay was only an option for adults (“you don’t know what you are, you’re too young to know that”), and i didn’t even know that there were more than two genders until i was, like, 12 (which was due to being in an art school where everyone was queer lol). when i did see gay people on tv, it was always a big deal and/or the butt of a joke. it was never cute and wholesome, and certainly never happening in the forefront of the story. and i think it’s important to note that i’m talking about shift from the 2010’s to the 2020’s. literally just a decade’s worth of progress in how the LGBTQ+ community is represented on kid’s tv. one decade! i get to see my younger brother grow up with a more normalized view of sexuality and gender than i did, and that’s a big deal.

i grew up on She-ra: Princess of Power (well, re-runs… it was made in 1985, and i wasn’t alive then lol), in which everyone looked like a copy paste of each other (templates of Muscled Barbie and Buff Ken with variations of outfits and hairstyles) and they were all straight. when i watched the 2020 remake, She-ra and the Princesses of Power, i was obsessed with all of the changes made. there was such a variety of body types, races, sexual orientations, and even gender identities. this show came into my life after i had discovered i was gay, but i’m so happy for the kids who might have it before and during the experience of making those realizations for themselves.

I have a dedicated Medium publication called Conscious Evolution Hub — a space designed for deeper explorations into transformation, psychology, conscious creation, and the architecture of becoming at scale.

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Warmly,

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

All men are created equal.

Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar.

There are surely more statements that summarize this thought that all people are in the end equal in worth. That they are humans and should be treated as humans. All the same. With some undeniable human rights. 

It has been more than 200 years some of these ideas have been put to paper. Some of them are only as young as the end of WWII. But they show that this idea has manifested in peoples minds and hearts.

And yes in it you can also find the true spirit of some christian teachings of viewing your fellow humans as your neighbors, someone you have an undeniable connection and a responsibility to treat as you want to be treated yourself.

It is if you want as old as humanity itself. Stuck in our minds and hearts from a time when indeed we were all neighbors in our little or further communities.

Because we are at our core in biology and evolution a communal species. That thrives and suffers together. 

Yet over thousands of years there has been the competing ideology that „Some people are better than others.“

I do not want to delve into the question why or where its origin lies. But the fact remains that todays world is shaped by the competing ideas of „Everyone same in worth“ and „Some people better than others.“

At the time of Enlightenment 200 years ago when Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and All men are created equal. were written down, it very much was a world of „Some people are better than others“. It permeated societies resulting in things like the feudal system, people neatly ordered into „good, better, best“ with the monarch at the top as the ultimate „best“. And yet it was also a time where the order of things were questioned. Where it became more than apparent that the monarch is surely not „the best“ and „the worst“ was at least worth as much as everyone else.

So the idea of everyone being equal found its way into peoples hearts and minds again and took root anew and bore fruit, and so these declarations were written.

It does not matter who people at the time saw as included in the „All“ or for whom to give „Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité“, because it is not specified in the words finding their way to the paper.

It is an idea written down. An ideal. 

It does not need to reflect the true state of things.

Except that it does.

Ever since.

It is the purest of ideals as ideals should be, not as something that is, but as something that is meant to be achieved. The blueprint reality has to be held up to, compared to and evaluated to.

Are we already in a world where this ideal has been achieved? No? Then keep working.

And this, this single ideal, idea, concept has shaped our world the past 200 years. The past 200 years this idea has battled against the prevailing concept of „Some people are better than others“. The past 200 years fights have been won. Fights have been lost. But bit by bit, decade by decade we have inched closer and closer to fit our world to the ideal.

More people have freedom. More people have rights. Less people killed. More people saved. More humane punishments. More diplomatic agreements. A mindset that is more peaceful than it has been in the past.

For 200 years there has been social change to fit our world to that ideal of „All humans are equal in worth.“ Slowly, step by step but always progressing.

200 years is just a blip in human evolution. Even social evolution. There are ups and downs, steps forwards and steps back, but it’s undeniable progress. Progress away from putting humans into categories of „better and worse“ and towards filling just one category „human“. 

And such the feather, the word, has indeed become mightier than any sword. You can not kill ideas.

200 years is just a blip in human time. So do not expect the world to match the ideal yet. It won’t. It will disappoint you. It will make you miss the progress that has been achieved. 

We are still battling the idea of „some people better“, maybe we always will. But we are making progress. We are succeeding. We are winning step by step. Even when the world looks dark and progress seems to revert, it is just a slowing and not a halt.

For the ideal of „everyone being the same in worth“ is humanity itself. It is rooted in the very core of our biology and evolution. It is planted in our hearts and our minds. And even if it withers down and falls dormant for a time. It will sprout again and again like the most loathsome, most awesome weed.

That is the true meaning and true legacy of the words

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

All men are created equal.

“Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve.”

Worst to be First III - Derek Fordjour , 2020.

American-Ghanaian

Finsbury Health Centre

Opened in 1938, Finsbury Health Centre was designed in modernist style by architect Berthold Lubetkin. At the time, Finsbury was one of the poorest areas in London, and Lubetkin believed that modern designs would be a tool for social progress, commenting that “nothing is too good for ordinary people”.