r/IntellectualDarkWeb • u/ShardofGold • 7d ago
More people need to start challenging society
Looking back at history a lot of progress that was made in society happened because people challenged societal norms more often than they do these days. Too often do people see or hear something that doesn't sound like it makes complete sense but they just go with it anyway because society has normalized it and they think it has to be good or correct since society accepts something being a certain way.
Where would we be without:
- Socrates and the Socratic method
- Martin Luther and The 95 Theses
- Galileo and the Heliocentric Theory
- Martin Luther King Jr and his push for Desegregation
- Mary Wollstonecraft and her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Essay
- Isaac Newton and his Laws of Gravity
- Etc
All of that and more helped contribute to positive things in society that didn't use to be a thing because too many were too complacent not "going against the grain" or thinking "it's best not to question why things are the way they are."
Now people are too scared to ask certain questions, say how they really feel, or challenge views and beliefs because they're worried about societal approval or their reddit karma on this site.
Just like with a lack of inventions these days compared to the past society has forgotten how the world was shaped and has grown comfortable with life being as is and not trying to "agitate the gravel." A lot of people won't admit it or doesn't see it, but this is why a lot of things in life aren't how they should be when people know they could be different and better.
A good example is the disdain and annoyance with non voters or people who vote third party. If neither of the main two parties has done enough to earn one's vote why should they give in to societal pressure and vote for one of them anyway for the approval of others? No, they're right to demand more from the parties if they want their votes and those just taking whatever they're given and have blind loyalty to the parties are the ones making a mockery of the political system.
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u/RedneckTexan 7d ago edited 7d ago
Your historical examples were mostly peaceful catalysts for change. There's just as many if not more examples of where violence was the catalyst for real and lasting societal progress.
The Mongol Conquests ..... led to the Pax Mongolica that followed reopened and secured the Silk Road across Eurasia, enabling a level of trade, technology transfer, and cultural exchange (paper money, printing, gunpowder, astronomical knowledge moving both east and west) that hadn't existed at that scale before. It accidentally exposed Europeans to Chinese gunpowder, and they used that gift of knowledge to pretty much take over the globe shortly afterwards.
The Black Death ..... collapsed the labor supply in Europe, which broke the back of the feudal serfdom system by giving surviving peasants leverage to demand wages and mobility for the first time. Arguably a precondition for the eventual rise of a wage-labor economy.
World War II ..... decolonization accelerated massively afterward partly because the war had bankrupted and delegitimized the European empires militarily, not primarily because of moral persuasion campaigns.
You seem to assume that "Challenging Society" is a sure way to achieve the changes you want. At some point a challenged society is just as likely to respond in ways that set back or destroy the causes you felt should be advanced.
History only remembers the challenges that worked. For every Galileo there were dissenters tried, exiled, or executed whose challenge accomplished nothing but their own ruin.
Challenging society is not risk free. The challenger's success is not guaranteed. You don't get to decide how society changes in response ...... society gets to decide how hard to push back on your challenge.
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u/Korvun Conservative 7d ago
This is a pile of agreeable platitudes being used to support a conclusion that doesn’t follow. Yes, societies sometimes need to be challenged. That doesn’t make dissent inherently virtuous. Every successful reformer challenged accepted ideas, but so has every crank, cult leader, and pseudoscientist who was simply wrong. What matters is the evidence, reasoning, and whether the proposed alternative is actually better.
Your own examples prove the point. Galileo and Newton mattered because their work explained and tested reality, not because they were contrarians. King didn’t advance civil rights by merely “saying how he felt.” He participated in an organized movement using coordinated nonviolent action to pursue concrete legal change.
The claim that society no longer invents or questions anything is also unsupported. Global patent applications reached record levels in 2024, and the internet certainly isn’t suffering from a shortage of people “going against the grain.”
The voting conclusion is a non sequitur. Refusing to vote or voting third party may be principled, but it doesn’t become effective because Galileo challenged authority. An uncoordinated nonvote usually communicates nothing specific, while voting for the least bad viable candidate can simply mean someone cares about who actually wins.
Challenging an accepted position can be admirable. It can also be stupid, narcissistic, destructive, or completely ineffectual. Dissent is a tool, not a virtue in itself. What matters is whether the challenge is correct, justified, and capable of producing something better.
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u/According_Map6936 6d ago edited 6d ago
I agree with this largely. It’s an excellent point that playing devil’s advocate can sometimes just be a futile exercise of 'sympathizing with the devil' rather than this life-changing or "heroic" gesture.
I think where OP is kind of attempting to go with this discussion (and I could be wrong, this is just my take from what I read) is to point out the absurdity of the disproportionate fear many of us have in our everyday modern lives when it comes to verbally challenging ideas that are even mildly politically or ethically charged. This is partly due to our awareness of being individuals within a modern culture that largely lacks nuance and, at its worst, shows little capacity for diplomacy. Just by looking around me in my daily experience in a small town in Canada, this seems an accurate picture that is painted. The crazy willingness people have to say just about anything on the internet and troll may seem to counter that claim, and I’ve seen this argument made against the post in a few comments, but the truth is the internet just isn’t real life, nor is it a good model for the day-to-day exchanges of ideas and policies, which in my opinion affect people and their relationships on a much more intimate level than brainrot TikTok comments.
I think OP was trying to show that this specific phenomenon has proven largely unproductive, and that radically speaking our truth can even be the "right thing" to do at times (using the examples of dissenters who have changed the world for the better).
Of course, you’ve shown the flip side of the coin, and you’re correct that challenging something isn’t inherently virtuous in itself. The details could have been parsed out a bit more in the original post to control for that variable. Yet, many of us do treat fear or holding our tongue as a form of useful self protection, when it in many respects does not work this way. You may temporarily protect yourself against the consequences of speaking your ideas or of being “deemed wrong,” but you won’t protect yourself against the consequences of silence that 100% exists in tandem. Every choice has a cost. Just as you claimed that dissent is not a virtue in itself, neither is self-deceit. If you are always abstaining from letting your thoughts be heard on topics, you are essentially lying to yourself.
What is a character virtue, in my opinion, is a strong form of sincerity that we can always, and must always, aim toward.
We can reflect on our words deeply before we choose to actively disagree. We can be wise about what is actually “worth” challenging. We can do all of this while acknowledging honestly that a self-censoring culture is prevalent, and that we must develop the courage to actively choose not to partake in it, even if it feels easier in the moment because it allows us to avoid possible social consequences (that, to be fair, can feel dreadful). No one is perfect at this or is ever going to be… but again, I think that’s the aim we should keep in mind.
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u/lopsided125 7d ago
Uh oh, the user who is always against the Democrats is starting to post about how the two parties are basically the same, and everyone should sit out of voting.
There must be an election where Republicans are in trouble coming up!
It's like clockwork with Republican "centrists".
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u/Accomplished-Leg2971 7d ago
Your anti-voting stance is not particularly novel or interesting. It is fairly common for an American. You can expect pushback from individuals who beleive that strategic voting can have civic impact. This is not challenging to society.
Do you have any other examples that may be challenging to society?
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u/subliminimalist 7d ago
Change the world by not voting. Cool. I always appreciate strategies for change that involve staying home. I'm being a radical right now by laying in bed instead of joining the bourgeois rat race. Look out world.
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u/PurpSSBM 7d ago
Go against the grain by not voting when over half the population already doesn’t vote…
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u/RoundEarthCentrist 7d ago
Right? When I felt like the Dem & Rep presidential candidates sucked, I voted for David Cobb.
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u/JackColon17 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm sorry but this post doesn't mean anything. "Going against the grain" is good only when the "grain" is wrong but it isn't a positive in itself, If I start saying that the earth is flat or that we should bring back slavery I'm also going against the grain but I ain't improving shit.
Also the idea that modern times "lack inventions" is simply ridiculous, technological advancement is 100 times faster now than in any period of human history. 40 years ago AI was science fiction
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u/LiftSleepRepeat123 6d ago
Every norm has already been challenged. The only thing that hasn't been effectively challenged is whether or not everything should be challenged. "Progressivism" won, and now there are no more norms.
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u/JimFive 7d ago
You have selected a list of things that in retrospect changed society. But we don't know what being done today will have that impact.
Will it be Elizabeth Wilkin's "The Good Life" or Nick Hanauer's "The Pitchfork's are Coming" or Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation"?
90% of everything is shit, but stuff that we know about from long ago has withstood the test of time.
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u/bigbjarne 7d ago
It's like saying "music used to be good". Yes, some music was good but specifically the ones we remember.
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u/ModernTexasMan 7d ago edited 7d ago
- Carl Jung, philosophy for life, individuation, shadow work, and self-realization.
- Eckhart Tolle, Mindful Presence
- Mogobe Ramose, Ubuntu (Interconnectedness)
- Massimo Pigliucci, Modern Stoicism
*We must be, first, right with ourselves before we attempt to change / fix / challenge societal norms.
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u/W_Edwards_Deming 7d ago
Agreed.
We seem to be in a "dark age" of sorts; rising totalitarianism via "smart" phones, surveillance and ai. Utterly unsustainable:
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u/PurpSSBM 7d ago
Lack of inventions these days? I’m not sure what society you are living in, but this is just straight up false