I agree that right now the human rights situations in such places are more hopeless than not, with respect to the particular liberalizing influences we can even imagine to hope for, from contact with Westerners to new breakthroughs in stealth broadcast capabilities. While it is hard to overestimate the close-mindedness of the vast majority of those even slightly empowered under a repressive political system, young shoots of hope will always appear, and through them, perhaps very subtle shifts in attitude can be disseminated, no matter how small the trickle. Perhaps like lucky mutations, some notions or attitudes, some innocuous-seeming memes, can quietly spread over years, which individually are impotent and effectively dormant, but which may someday contribute to public opinion on some public case, and find a more visible foothold. And at the same time, the old guard is always dying out, and the ideological make-up of following generations always contains a chance that a relative reformer will appear among the empowered, and find once-hidden support in the consciences of some of his peers.
My favorite quote of all time is from Edmund Burke, "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Conversely, the only hope freedom ever has is for good men to do something! That will have to happen by something bothering the conscience of a few people who have some measure of influence or power. I have more abstract hope than evidence for the possibility of a civilizing influence through business dealings with hundreds of different Western businesspeople over many decades (increasingly including some brave and canny women, I would hope). It is more something I wonder about, and hope to see during my lifetime.
My favorite quote of all time is from Edmund Burke, "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Conversely, the only hope freedom ever has is for good men to do something! That will have to happen by something bothering the conscience of a few people who have some measure of influence or power. I have more abstract hope than evidence for the possibility of a civilizing influence through business dealings with hundreds of different Western businesspeople over many decades (increasingly including some brave and canny women, I would hope). It is more something I wonder about, and hope to see during my lifetime.
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