You may want to reject this proposition out of hand. After all, murderous prejudice abounds in the world. And people of racial and religious minorities would not be quick to declare a breakthrough in their acceptance by the larger societies of which they are a part. There is even evidence that in many areas, intolerance is hardening, particularly (though not exclusively) in matters of religion.
However, in the last 60 years, the notion (for example) that non-white peoples were inherently inferior has gone from being a generally accepted one to a fringe view, publicly espoused by a loud but relatively small number of violent (and of course, still dangerous) people. That said, many people, perhaps even a plurality of citizens in Western nations, may only reluctantly or grudgingly accept the idea of equality of non-whites, or of others from outside their racial or religious grouping. But most people, even if they harbor private prejudice, believe in coexistence and theoretical equality, if not full acceptance of others not like them.
I want to emphasize that I am not contending that anything like equal treatment for all citizens has been attained in this country, or any other. But the shift in ideas I am describing has, I believe, genuinely occurred. Proof of it lies in the universal outcry against people in Western countries who publicly insult other racial groups. Those who publicly express racist notions do not always suffer the lasting consequences they deserve, but the revulsion against them is general and forceful. That such a negative reaction against racists would be seen at all is a relatively recent development.
I would hope that we all would welcome the continuation of trends that led to removing completely any stigma associated with race, religion, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation.
Western societies are also well advanced in the process of removing the stigma that used to be associated with certain behaviors and actions and their consequences. I am referring to things that in some cases were once the stuff of scandal, but that are now seen as unremarkable: divorce, adultery, certain kinds of public behavior, etc. These all involve some sort of personal choice, to a greater or lesser degree.
Such stigma should of course be distinguished absolutely from the kind I have just described. For purposes of argument I am trying to avoid judgement as to whether these actions would be wrong in any particular instance. Instead, the thing that should be noted is that many behaviors and acts that were formally stigmatized (even if you accept that it was because of society's hypocrisy) either did harm to others or had the potential to do so. This is without regard to the intentions of those carrying out the actions. Adultery, regardless of what brings it about -- a 'loveless' marriage, for example, almost always is injurious; divorce, even if it is the most sensible and humane solution in certain instances, and results from no one's original bad intention, will cause harm to the children who are obviously not parties to the case. One could continue the list.
If we somehow able to consider the harm caused by an act without passing judgement on the person who commits it, we can take a more measured view of the ramifications of that act. In my case, I try to be compassionate as possible towards individuals, and to avoid harsh judgements, so long as it is not a question of an actual crime. Yet I am able to understand why, for thousands of years, certain behaviors and acts that nowadays are seen as inevitable were once stigmatized. The social stigma, for as much as it may have been unfair and hypocritical, was a powerful disincentive to do things that could weaken the fabric of society (the word itself of course means 'permanent mark' or 'stain'). It was more potent than a legal statute could ever be, because it carried with it the threat of ostracism.
All the empirical evidence shows that laws, by themselves, are not adequate inhibitors of behavior. Neither, it would seem, is the general (and therefore, vague) disapproval of the public. People are too apt to attribute behavior to extenuating circumstances, and even to take delight in certain kinds of exhibitionism, or to simply resign themselves, for 'public outrage' ever to be a strong enough deterrent. Societies have always fallen back on stigma as their ultimate protection.
It seems to me that the purpose of stigma was not primarily to punish individuals, but to preserve societies and their institutions. I believe they were quite possibly effective in doing so. I hold this belief as something distinct from my own personal views on social stigma, which are more in accord with contemporary thinking.
An opposing argument -- and I think it is a strong one -- is that stigma crushed individuality, and was also imposed selectively, and therefore unfairly. Women adulterers were punished more severely than men (and in most societies, they still are). Divorces also reflected far worse on women than they did on men, regardless of who may really have been the one to harm the marriage. People would resign themselves to stunted lives rather than pursue a course that might lead to greater fulfillment, because of their fear of being stigmatized. Stigmas attached to personal actions could therefore be as unjust as the ones attached to race, religion, and so forth.
There is one category of behavior --public coarseness -- that needs to be considered separately. If coarse behavior and gratuitous incivility were at one time kept to within tolerable levels, it was because societies had agreed-upon standards for what constituted 'decent' individual behavior. I don't think it mattered, in a sense, that these standards may have been artificial, or even arbitrary; what did matter is that almost everyone in the society believed in them. People who violated the general standard of acceptable conduct risked the opprobrium -- in a sense, they risked being stigmatized --of their peers and larger community. No one can plausibly argue that this is truly the case any longer. I am not saying that people nowadays are more depraved than previously, but that society, having discarded standards that could apply to all persons, regardless of their station or their circumstances, finds itself confused about when to pass judgement on acts that might be against the general public good.
As societies develop and 'traditional' behavior norms are discarded (even if some of these norms, arguably, held together the social fabric), they enter an ambiguous phase. In our society, we expect much less of our citizens as regards both their public and private social conduct than we did at one time. By removing the stigma from most (obviously, there is, fortunately, still a stigma attached to the most heinous crimes) behavior, we have given ourselves unprecedented freedom of action. The benefits of this freedom do seem to come at a price, however. We have to make far too many moral choices completely on our own, because the larger society no longer provides a frame of reference.
