Throughout all the different events and eras of history, the one thing that remains consistent is human behavior. In this class, we have already recognized a lot of patterns between 1968 and 2020, but the one that stands out the most is the inherent tendency of humans to be selfish.
This can be demonstrated by the hypocrisy that we have talked about in the lives of ‘68ers, where they were fighting for a movement that seemed so unselfish, all the while using it to make their own autobiographies more interesting. Once they grew up and became the age they told themselves never to trust, many of them selfishly changed from fighting for their ideals to going into politics and becoming a very influential part of the system they had previously tried so hard to take down. While this does not describe all ‘68ers, it is a pattern that can be noticed in many of their behavior. Similarly, during all of the protests and social media campaigns of 2020, I have personally seen many people use the movement for personal gain, particularly looking for praise from others on social media. Many do not actually care about the people they seem to be fighting for; rather, they care about how people will look back on them and being on the “right side of history.”
Another prime example of this tendency is the discussion we had about the “white slavery” argument and the pattern that it seems to be used so much more during times where black Americans have been demanding equality. We are all at the center of our own narrative, so a lot of people try to relate to the hundreds of years of African American oppression in the U.S. by convincing themselves that their ancestors went through something similar. Many people cannot handle not being able to understand the suffering of black Americans and having little to no attention on themselves, so their way of trying to relate to the movement or take back attention is to bring up the “white slavery” argument.
The actions of protesters in ‘68 as well as 2020 show that selfish motives do not always result in bad outcomes. They can motivate people to do the right thing and fight for real change, but the common theme amongst everyone is that they do the things that they think will benefit themselves (or their legacy) in the long run. I think that this human tendency is the main cause of history repeating itself over and over, and I wonder what it would take to ever change it.
I completely agree with your post about this idea that people are selfish and will continue to be until the end of time, and that actually makes me rather sad. Not because it is untrue, but because of how true it really is. I am someone who tries to see the good in others and believe in the idea that people are inherently good, but when it comes down to it, people are made and raised to be selfish, which is not necessarily always a fault of theirs I think. It could be because they were rather spoiled as a child and told that they were the best, the smartest, and had everything handed to them. This, I believe, is a way to “make” someone grow up to be selfish. While I don’t think children should be neglected by their parents and never have any praise about the good things they do, I think there are many who are given too much and praised too much for things that that don’t need praising. This can lead to them growing up thinking everything they do and think is the correct way to do and think about things, and this can lead to them being rather upset and demanding that things be changed when someone is not doing things their way or thinking the same way as them. While this can be a good way to get a cause moving, the reasons they are doing it for are incredibly selfish, and can make it so it is difficult for others to see why they should stand with the cause other than the fact that it would make the selfish people happy. That, to me, doesn’t seem to be a reason I would want to advocate for a cause.
Your take on motivations of people within movements is quite interesting, yet disturbing at the same time. Perhaps what makes it the most disturbing is how unfortunately accurate it seems to be. As you said, selfish motives do not always result in bad outcomes because they can result in people that otherwise would suffer from privilege hazard (i.e. the phenomenon that makes those who occupy the most privileged positions among us so poorly equipped to recognize instances of oppression in the world and to view them as ‘other people’s problems’) to not only recognize the injustices in the world but to help fight against them. Nevertheless, the tendency of those same individuals to grow up and switch sides is evident and your question as to how we can change that is a difficult one to answer seeing as though it feels like an inherent part of human nature to be selfish and self-serving. The biggest issue is the sense that race becomes something that only people of color have, gender becomes something that only women and nonbinary people have, sexual orientation becomes something that all people except heterosexual people have, and so on. The burden consistently falls on the minoritized to call out the systems of injustice with the hope that people in power will fight for their side, whether it is in self-serving attempts or not. Can we correct this, and how much do we want to?