What is it About All These "ISMs?"

I was reading this morning and it occurred to me we’ve created a lot of “isms.”  You know all those really cool things people like to opine on.  We have Feminism, Popularism, Nationalism, Globalism, and of course Racism.  All of these “isms” seem to be good things to have opinions on, but at the same time, none of them seem to have a universally agreed definition that applies to all members of society.  Why is that?

For example, there are “feminist” women who believe women should be equal to men, but can’t define what equality actually means.  Should men and women compete in sports whereas of today women would seem to have a disadvantage when it comes to strength and speed, or should there be similar competitions for men and women with equal prizes?  Why don’t women golfers make the same money as their male counterparts, even though revenue from their events seems to be lower than in the men’s tournaments?  

But then we have feminists who think women are superior to men and it is only through the chauvinist nature of society that women are prevented from showing that superiority.  Which feminist is right or is there no right?

The same can be said about Popularism.  Who can truly define what the legitimate popularist movement is?  On the one side, we have a minority of hardcore conservatives who believe the Trump movement was a popularist uprising.  On the other, we have a minority of hardcore radicals who believe ANTIFA and BLM represent the populist uprising.  Of course, the Democratic party, the party of hate, has long played this game on how best to divide the country to maintain its power, while the Republican Party, the party of greed, has stumbled about trying to keep up with their political opponents.  From a strictly legal perspective, I’ve got to put my money on the legitimacy of the Trump movement as being more mainstream since most Trump supporters are not destroying the towns and cities, they live in.

Is nationalism good or bad?  I was brought up thinking it was good.  I joined the military to see the world and protect the nation (actually in that order) and thought I was doing a good thing.  Now I’m told nationalism is bad and we should all agree globalism is the way to go, although it doesn’t appear to hold worldwide appeal, at least in places like China.

Finally, what is up with Racism?  We didn’t hear a great deal about how racist we all were, at least us white folks, until President Obama decided to choose sides in isolated local events was a good thing.  Now with the transmogrification of Critical Race Theory into a social justice standard it is widely accepted that only old white conservative males are racist and everyone else just wants to get along peacefully.  Although somewhere along the line the inner-city youth may have missed the memos since they seem to beat up and kill a lot of people who are not old white conservative males.

So my real question is, is the world better for discovering all these cool “isms?”