I have a flashbulb memory of the first time I saw Netscape. Growing up in Alaska, I was running Lynx, my father had been using the internet for work since the late 80's My first account was in late '89 early '91, and I had, of course, been on a BBS, but I had always imagined the internet to be peripheral to society. Very helpful for those who had a need to deal with the frustrating interface. Then I went to College, and saw Netscape Browser 1.22 coming down a T1 directly to that computer lab, and I realized that communications in Alaska was about to change. Now there was a GUI that was going to make the internet no longer too annoying for use, and everything would be available to rural geeks like me.
I, obviously, had no idea... Now, we really need to think about how the ready access to knowledge should affect education. A lot has changed since we went through the system, but on a fundamental level, we are still changing and tinkering with a Victorian idea of what an educated subject of the Empire should know and do, knowing that most of the subjects won't have easy access to the libraries of London.
The argument regarding fundamental extremism is as follows;
1) It is rooted in a social thing that uses religion, not a religious thing that uses society. This is important, as it suggests religion will change with society. I agree with this premise. I think that as society evolves, Islam will make more of the fact that women had the right to hold property in ancient Baghdad, long before the same could be said in the West (keeping in mind that in the 80's, it was still hard for a woman to get a business loan without her husband in the United States).
2) Much of the conservatism as we see it is a structural protection of men's role in society. You can see this in what happens to the role of women when an agency like ISIS takes over a region.
3) Feminism is a forgone demographic conclusion. When women started having babies at 16 and raised them until they died, there was work for them to do within society. Now, assuming the woman is the primary caregiver, if she has 2 kids, 2 years apart, and is their primary caregiver until 18, that is 20 years, or less than a quarter of her expected life.
As birth rates drop, the conservative role for a woman becomes less and less defendable. Feminism, the argument goes, is a forgone conclusion as women have more "free time" within their lifetimes. Conservative ideology becomes harder to defend in society, and since society is using religion to preserve conservative ideology, as that changes, so too will the use of religious imagery and fundamentalism.
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Date: 2014-08-02 03:29 pm (UTC)I, obviously, had no idea... Now, we really need to think about how the ready access to knowledge should affect education. A lot has changed since we went through the system, but on a fundamental level, we are still changing and tinkering with a Victorian idea of what an educated subject of the Empire should know and do, knowing that most of the subjects won't have easy access to the libraries of London.
The argument regarding fundamental extremism is as follows;
1) It is rooted in a social thing that uses religion, not a religious thing that uses society. This is important, as it suggests religion will change with society. I agree with this premise. I think that as society evolves, Islam will make more of the fact that women had the right to hold property in ancient Baghdad, long before the same could be said in the West (keeping in mind that in the 80's, it was still hard for a woman to get a business loan without her husband in the United States).
2) Much of the conservatism as we see it is a structural protection of men's role in society. You can see this in what happens to the role of women when an agency like ISIS takes over a region.
3) Feminism is a forgone demographic conclusion. When women started having babies at 16 and raised them until they died, there was work for them to do within society. Now, assuming the woman is the primary caregiver, if she has 2 kids, 2 years apart, and is their primary caregiver until 18, that is 20 years, or less than a quarter of her expected life.
As birth rates drop, the conservative role for a woman becomes less and less defendable. Feminism, the argument goes, is a forgone conclusion as women have more "free time" within their lifetimes. Conservative ideology becomes harder to defend in society, and since society is using religion to preserve conservative ideology, as that changes, so too will the use of religious imagery and fundamentalism.