Elderly progressives hating 'woke' people and policies?

One of my grandmothers was complaining about the 'woke agenda'. 

     This isn't an uncommon viewpoint for anyone, let alone an elderly individual. However, this viewpoint doesn't match her life, both work and personal.

     (Being 'woke' refers to: issues of social justice; having a sense of what's right; and changing the world to reflect this fair society.)

Different Issues, Same Agenda

Yes, the precise issues might be different between my grandma's progressive thoughts and those of the present day.

     But the underlining drive and attitude? Wanting social justice doesn't end just because you've worked on what applies to you most. You can't dismiss one arm of social justice just because it doesn't relate to your life personally. 

     Social justice is wanting a fair society. But it's not a fair society if you only let certain issues reach fairness whilst denying others the same platform.

A Progressive Work Life

Let's look at my grandmother's work life.

     Before retirement, she spent most of her life working in social care. This meant she thought the state not only had the right to intervene in someone's life if it was of poor quality (health, happiness, safety, cleanliness etc), but that this service should be free. 

     Alongside this, she would protest over issues of women's rights. In particular, she was focused on equal treatment, respect and promotion in the work place. She thought women were just as capable as men so their opportunities for advancement (and their interactions with colleagues/bosses) should be the same as men.

     These are both liberal, progressive policies. Both are clearly driven by a sense of social justice, a sense of what is right, a desire for a fair society.

A Progressive Personal Life

Let's look at my grandmother's personal life.

     Her unmarried, romantic life partner was an immigrant. So, she clearly accepts an immigrant's right to live and work in her native country. 

     Also, she thought going against social norms such as marriage was an acceptable thing to do. (In this particular instance, living with a man she was neither married to nor ever would marry). 'Ruining her reputation' didn't matter: love did. 

     These are liberal, progressive attitudes. Both clearly originate from a sense of social justice, a sense of what is right, a want for a fair society.

A Progressive Life in Every Aspect

All four of these are liberal, progressive policies and attitudes, born of social justice. 

     She knew what she thought was right: not only did she live by her ideals but she went out of her way to change the world to be a better, fairer place. She did this at work and at home.

     Clearly, my grandmother is a progressive person with progressive policies. So how does she not realise her whole life has been the 'woke agenda'?

     This sentiment can apply to many elderly progressives. This isn't to say they're bad people. Rather, it's just an honest look at the contradiction between what they say now and how they've lived in the past.

Are there unicorns on Indus Valley Civilisation seals?

Remains from the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation (on the northwest Indian subcontinent) include seals decorated with a creature (IVC creature). Some claim it's a unicorn, even though it doesn't look like a unicorn. The 'justification'? It has just one visible horn.

Bovine

The IVC creature is quite clearly bovine in nature, especially in regards to the head, dewclaws and dewlap. 

     Unicorns, whether the modern horses or the classical horse mixed with goat, deer and narwhal, aren't bovine at all. So to call a bovine creature

a unicorn doesn't make sense. 

     Also, the IVC creature has a long back with short legs: if it were a unicorn/horse, the legs would be far longer in proportion to the back.

Admittedly, the bovine tail of the IVC creature does match the tail of classical unicorns. 

     However, classical unicorns had lion tails and, in medieval art, lion tails look like bovine tails. Hence there isn't an actual link between bovine tails and unicorns. 

     Thus the IVC creature having a bovine tail can't be used as evidence that the IVC creature is a unicorn.

One Visible Horn

The seal creature is labelled a unicorn because the seal depicts it with one horn.

     However, the IVC creature also only depicts one ear, eye and nostril. This doesn't mean the creature only has one of these features. Rather, one is visible (the near side) and the other is hidden (the far side). 

     Horns, just like ears, eyes and nostrils, usually come in pairs. So why would it be assumed that the IVC creature has one horn simply because only one horn is depicted? 

Let's head up some incoming criticisms.

     This doesn't mean every pair of the IVC creature has to be partly hidden. The four legs are clearly in a walking position. So of course the far legs can't be hidden by the near legs.

     Nor does this mean every singular thing depicted is part of a pair. Namely, the tail. Animals almost always have just one tail, so it's safe to say the IVC creature has just one tail, too. If it did have multiple tails, an effort would have been made to depict such an unusual feature.

Of course, this doesn't mean the IVC creature can't have just one horn. 

     (Perhaps the farside horn was broken off.) So, as 'unicorn' means 'one horn', the word 'unicorn' could be used as a descriptor, but not as a name. 

     After all, 'unicorn' as a name already has an image, an image which the IVC creature does not resemble.

Conclusion

So, is the IVC creature on the Indus Valley Civilisation seals a unicorn? No. It's bovine, not equine, so it can't be a unicorn. Plus the single visible horn doesn't mean the creature only has one horn, so naming the creature after a feature it doesn't have lacks sensibility.

Why are meerkats called 'slender-tailed meerkats'?

Meerkats, a species of mongoose, are often labelled 'slender-tailed meerkats' in zoos. But as there's only one extant meerkat species, why use a specifier like 'slender-tailed'? 

It turns out that, in the past, a synonym for the yellow mongoose was 'red meerkat'*. Overtime, red meerkat was dropped and yellow mongoose became the species' exclusive name.

After this, slender-tailed meerkats were thus the only meerkat species. This meant the 'slender-tailed' moniker could be largely dropped because there was no need to specify between different meerkat species. 

However, a species' name in rarely changed in zoology without a very compelling reason. Seeing zoos following the principles of zoology is hardly a surprise!

*(Yellow mongoose/red meerkat: same species yet different colour? In mammals, yellow and red are both produced by phaeomelanin. As such, these colour terms are both used to signify their phaeomelanin origin rather than the colour itself. 'Recessive yellow' and 'recessive red' in dog colouration are synonyms, for example. Hence the colours in yellow mongoose and red meerkat aren't referring to different things.)