A population changing beliefs faster than old people die

[Steel]

Given the progress of social issues, a particularly high profile current example is gay marriage, I currently have the feeling that broad social change is actually nearly impossible. Almost all progress and change in a populations thoughts and views is achieved via turnover of the population, with peoples views being baked in by the time they reach adulthood. Establishing a change of opinion requires a proper survey of peoples opinions, and so may be difficult to perform for older issues, and a vocal opposition minority can become proportionally louder as they dwindle removing the appearance of progress as well.

I'm wondering, historically, about instances where large populations of people had sizeable percentages of individuals change their opinion on a topic over the course of their lifetimes. Particular examples might include:

Gay rights (incl. marriage)
Civil rights
Universal sufferage
Slavery
Evolution

For each of these concepts there are no rational objections (to equality of people) or the science, and yet each encountered centuries of opposition, eventually being overcome in the consensus of the population (I hope). Once the seed was planted for these ideas, did support grow faster or slower than we would expect purely from the old idea literally dying out? We see that gossip and rumours can spread overnight, but the rate at which concepts propagate is much lower, and the rate at which a new concept can displace an existing one is glacial.

What proportion of instances of populations changing ideologies were positive or negative, and were the changes in opinions down to overwhelming rational evidence or due to rhetoric without substance?

The rise of fascism in Europe could be seen as a (counterproductive) social ideological change, and the economic conditions of the early 20th century allowed demagogues to push these ideologies.

[Broomstick]

I think you've left off equal pay for equal work (related to civil rights), birth control, particularly hormonal birth control, and sex outside of marriage.

[Steel]

Those are all good examples, thanks.

I wasn't intending to form an exhaustive list of times where logic did not prevail, more to get any examples of major social change where logic did win out. Climate change is another one, although there might still be time for that to become a good point, despite the fact that early proponents have been dead for a century or so, as I would count something as a win if it ever significantly outstrips replacement to become the dominant idea.

Is this question just a selection bias issue? There have been numerous fast changes to views in society, but we only remember the ones that took a long time to push through? Wars and economic crises seem to be the only situations where there is major social change ie a large majority experience direct personal pain as a result of a thing, and therefore there is any incentive to change.

[Starglider]

The rise of fascism in Europe could be seen as a (counterproductive) social ideological change, and the economic conditions of the early 20th century allowed demagogues to push these ideologies.

I don't think the original rise of fascism was a regression, so much as a more secular evolution of existing monarchism and patriotism. The basic themes e.g. racism, obedience, superiority of the nation and strength through conformity were already present in turn of the century Europe. Contemporary resurgances of facism are of course regressions.

[Broomstick]

You can have massive social change without requiring the existing/older generation to die off because not everyone who is old is closed-minded or resistant to change. Not everyone is dogmatic. Not everyone is fanatically attached to the current system. Some people are willing to listen to logic and reason.

[Steel]

I'm not trying to say that old people are the problem. I'm trying to get at the percentage of people who will ever change. From what I can see the proportion of people who will change their ways is low and the proportion who will change on rational evidence is smaller still.

So rather than be all depressed at the impossibility of change, I'm looking to find examples of change, as well as see what is actually effective in promoting change.

[Purple]

I'm not trying to say that old people are the problem. I'm trying to get at the percentage of people who will ever change. From what I can see the proportion of people who will change their ways is low and the proportion who will change on rational evidence is smaller still.

So rather than be all depressed at the impossibility of change, I'm looking to find examples of change, as well as see what is actually effective in promoting change.

Which, when you think about it makes perfect sense. People despise change as a default. This is seen nowhere better than in my field of work. When it comes to software people prefer a bad and buggy program that they are used to than a good working one that they have to re learn from scratch. The same applies much more intensely to societal changes. So in order to make them change you have to go beyond just convincing them that the current situation is wrong. You have to go the extra mile and convince them that the new state which you intend as a replacement will be better for them personally. And this is exceedingly difficult to do when you are trying to argue for the rights of a group that the other person does not belong to.

[Lagmonster]

You can have massive social change without requiring the existing/older generation to die off because not everyone who is old is closed-minded or resistant to change. Not everyone is dogmatic. Not everyone is fanatically attached to the current system. Some people are willing to listen to logic and reason.

That's a bit defensive; not all old people are closed off, but it's easy to see that most people are progressive relative to their parents, and conservative relative to their grandkids. You and I once disagreed somewhere when I joked that people have a 'limit' on the number of things they'll be progressive about, and once they hit that limit, they stop. I was semi-serious about it only when considering how, as I've aged, the number of changes I and my peers have been willing to make slows down and eventually stops in some places.

I have this theory that the middle class has an insidious way of making people lose guilt. We're comfortable as hell but we are still scared that we're one bad day away from slipping down the rungs, and we're taught that there is a constant pack of ravenous wolves coming up the ladder behind us, so the urge becomes to spend your mid-life fearfully kicking downwards. When I was in my early twenties, running around with no idea what I would be doing with my life or how it would go, the financially secure middle-aged guys with house and career and family in hand seemed to me like barriers, the people I'd have to wrest jobs and freedoms from in order to live my life the way I wanted. Now, I *am* one of those guys, and the young people are coming to me with a laundry list of changes ("You want access to secure middle-management jobs? Yeah, well, I'm still using mine for another fifteen years."), and the challenge is to forget that you have two kids and a mortgage and car payments and offer a hand downwards.

It's very hard to change when life is good. I've made a shitload of modifications to my behaviour in the past 40 years, scrubbed a lot of words from my vocabulary as I've aged. Doubtless I will be asked to make more, but I'm less motivated each year, and I can see the same effect among my peers, and evidence of the final ossification of social flexibility in my parents' generation.

[Steel]

Which, when you think about it makes perfect sense. People despise change as a default.

People despising change does not just "make sense" prima facie. It may happen that this is the case, and throughout history it may be, but I'm seeking to ascertain the extent to which there is arbitrary resistance to change purely because it would be change and not just assume it is the natural state of things.