I think I believe it.
Liberal winds outlast conservative walls.
However tight the scripture, however loud the bigot,
however sacred the redundancy-
Sati had to go. Widow remarriage had to come.
Feminism was inevitable. Equality and human dignity
were always the aspiration.
Sometimes I suspect it isn’t morality at work-
Just market optimization, cruelty becomes inefficient
and compassion scales better.
Reform, perhaps is capitalism discovering
empathy is profitable. Still, even if the motive
is impure, the outcome inches forward-
It's a fair bet I guess.
See, I'm a cynic in the short term but an
optimist in the long term. I see chains of
slavery disappearing, feudalism subsuming
into itself.
Customs that once called themselves eternal,
now survive as footnotes and we got better
lives now, than any medieval king at his prime.
So yeah. It's fair to reiterate as the old gods
shrink, old chains rust, old certainties crack-
And though slow, reluctant.
Rarely noble or perfect- the arc of history
bends toward justice.
But you're condemned to study, find a job and
toil hard to feed your misery, so that some
future generation can enjoy the amenities you're
currently deprived of-
Then smirk from beyond the graves when
they say the previous generation had it
better.