Aye. Depends how you look at it really. The middle class is expanding such that there won't be anyone else soon. But the poverty gap is (I believe, in real terms) widening. If applying to less people.
I do think peoples' attitudes are, in general, slowly moving in the right-ish direction. Ish. Nearly. Kinda.
What's "rational" then?
Being rational involves using a system of thinking/language which is based on or inextricably tanged with our conditioning. So our conditioning gets perpetuated by us behaving as what we think of as rational. Unless we make a rational decision to do something completely irrational (and that won't happen because we'll keep electing rational people who supposedly represent the average person but who don't really represent anybody) looks like some sort of apocalypse is the only way it's going to happen.
Innit.
When I say 'rational' like that I'm just kinda talking about how the 'rational' has been privileged since the Enlightenment. The way science/scientific thinking has come to be synonymous (culturally) with 'truth'. i.e. scientific truths are taken to be absolute truths rather than the conventional truths they really are, and that something which does not express itself rationally is not expressing anything at all.
Like, clearly, music, religion, art (though it's undergone a sort of pseudo-rationalisation) and things like that clearly mean something beyond what we can explain rationally. They hold meaning which cannot be rationalised but they are seen as being (in this context) meaningless (not valueless, just that they cannot ... lead to progress (I've not said that well)).
(science is work, meaning, truth while 'art' (broadly) is play, entertainment, distraction)
So yeah, just there's been a cultural shift toward the rational and away from anything that cannot be explained in rational language, and that's a shame because there are meanings which rationality cannot express - so we're currently (to whatever extent) incapable of expressing them/exploring the possibilities they lead to.
And yeah, I agree that rational language and conditioning are intrinsically linked. And that non-rational languages, being less rigid/digital offer us (better/easier) ways of thinking outside our conditioning., just due to the nature of the language - they're so indexical that you're kinda making up/defining your terms as you go along. 'course, they tend to be semantically inxact so you have to go to rational language to nail it down but I believe the thoughts/ideas will necessarily originate in the non-rational.
So we just need a counter-enlightenment.
<quote>women are better paid and are more likely to be in powerful positions than 20 years ago,</quote>
Although in some ways that's true, there's still a long way to go before anything approaching gennder equality is reached.
The gender pay gap in the finance sector, for instance, is 43%.
I know, I just like chucking in that statistic because it's fucking disgusting.
It's not very insightful anyway, as the main reason the gap is so big is nothing to do with gender. It still stands that the majority of top city finance positions (the huge salaries that skew the stats) are still given out to some bloke you were mates with at Eaton or whetever - gender isn't really a factor.
I reckon that if the rest of the populace (be that working or middle class) directed their efforts at challenging those systems it would have a much bigger impact on 'equality' shit.