Overton's Broken Window

How 2008's politically moderate positions became far-right fascism

A buddy and I were discussing the state of moral decline that America is currently experiencing. The rate at which we are exposed to, accept, and whole-heartedly endorse new depravities is impressive, and is greatly enhance by the latest technologies. Discussing the particularities of our decline, we landed on the example of gay marriage. We were both young teens when gay marriage was legalized, and can vaguely remember debate on this issues. As we were talking I was struck by the realization, that the legality of gay marriage is no longer up for political debate, and any politician platforming against gay marriage would be deemed a far-right neo-Nazi.

The irony, and this is easy to forget, is that initially Obama platformed against the federal legalization of gay marriage. He repeatedly stated that he believed marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Obama did reversed this position just a few years later, probably for the same reasons he initially held the position - political expediency, but the point is not what Obama did or did not personally believe. The point is that in 2008 the state of national public opinion was such that a Center/Left politician could publicly denounce the federal legalization of gay marriage and still get the majority vote. Public opinion has shifted such that that would be impossible today, the federal legality of gay marriage is no longer up for political debate. Younger Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha kids might not be able to comprehend that this was ever up for debate, it is simply assumed. The shift has been so rapid that these same center-left opinions in 2008 would be called far-right fascism today.

This phenomena of shifting political opinion can be described by the sociological concept of the "Overton Window". The Overton Window is the range of opinions that are deemed acceptable for public discourse. Beliefs and Opinions that fall outside of this range, for better or for worse, are deemed fringe, radical, or absurd. The Overton Window can shift over time and opinions that were once deemed fringe can become the majority opinion.

Distorted Windows

The last two decades of political discourse has taken place in an intensifying pressure cooker which has rendered many peoples common-sense barometers all but useless. We must step out of this "2007 to present" Insta-pot in order to recalibrate to sanity. I think we sometimes forget how much religious, political, and social ground has been lost since the advent of the iPhone. We are constantly inundated with ideas and sentiments that frankly do not map to reality. A fresh perspective - or refreshed perspectives - are going to be necessary if we are going to maintain any connection to reality and our common human heritage. We must look backwards and learn the generational wisdom from those who observed the world as it really was.

Our techno-world has been instrumental in distorting our view of reality. Technological advancements have allowed diverse and strange philosophies to be propped up as legitimate, having an appearance of truth. Technological advances in infection prevention and cosmetic surgery have made it possible to surgically remove the phenotypical male and female elements of the human body. The self-castration of the auto-eunich does not delegitimize male and female, nor does it cease to make him male. Surgically removing your genitals or constructing new ones does not change your chromosomal structure or your body's production of large/small gametes, nor does it undo thousands of years of apparent wisdom about masculinity and femininity, but it is sufficient to construct a caricature of truth. In 40 years we may be able to surgically append gills to the human ribcage in order to satisfy the species dysphoria of a teenage "Otherkin", yet this does not turn man into fish.

But what happens when a majority of people say that it does?

“'I am a woman trapped in a man's body'. My grandfather died in 1994, less than thirty years ago, and yet, had he ever heard that sentence uttered in his presence, I have little doubt that he would have burst out laughing and considered it a piece of gibberish. And yet today it is a sentence that many in our society regard as not only meaningful but so significant that to deny it or question in in some way is to reveal oneself as stupid, immoral, or subject to yet another irrational phobia"

Carl Trueman - Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

Shattered Windows

As we continue on this timeline of a large contingent of people fundamentally rejecting reality, we are seeing a large contingent of people who are riding the pendulum back to the other side. Public discourse is no longer two sides with roughly similar world views debating about what is true given a shared set of assumptions. Public discourse has polarized into multiple dominant irreconcilable worldviews. Overton's window has shattered and there is now no longer one range of acceptable public opinion, but multiple different windows with different world views and different ranges of what is acceptable. The opinions deemed moderate by one group are completely outside the window of the another group. This fracturing and polarity has largely removed the possibility of discussion between disparate groups. What are we to do when one group - metaphorically speaking- truly believes man can become fish, and the other doesn't? Each group sees the other as not just wrong, but deeply detached from reality - if not insane.

How does a culture/society/nation/any-formation-of-people hold together with this level of disagreement. With no shared identity and no shared belief structure I am afraid that there is not enough glue to keep the structure together. I am not sure what an inflection point looks like, but as public opinion fragments - so does the public.

This is not meant to be a piece solely about transgenderism, as this principle of Overton's broken window applies to many areas of our political discourse. Gender ideology is easy to criticize as an analog for the platonic form of the rejection of truth. Acceptance of these truths indicate a completely inverted worldview, but we must remember that the inversion of truth and beauty did not start with gender ideology, it has merely been brought to a point of maturity. Gender ideology is a symptom of years of moral degradation; resenting the symptom without seeking to heal the cause is an exercise in futility.

This is true of the shattered window as well. We should not seek to reconstitute The Overton Window into a unified range artificially. To sacrifice truth for the sake of cohesion is more damnable than symptomatic social upheaval. The window has splintered because our worldviews have splintered. The path to reconciliation is not concession to falsehoods, but converting people to truth.

We must continue to practice and evangelize truth.