Just a few personal thoughts relevant to that which we're discussing:
Part of the problem, I believe, is that those who are seeking to overcome perceived biases or limitations in their societal worldview are often - indeed, I'd go as far as to claim usually - guilty of the same blindness themselves. The very fact that societies and cultures are so fragmented and diverse means that people who view themselves as "progressive" are instead (I'd claim) often just reinforcing the assumptions, biases and attitudes inherent in their own long-established subculture or ideology, constructing the idea of an entrenched norm that they perceive themselves as challenging or subverting - or at the very least perceiving where others don't. And often their perspective makes use of the same underlying ingredients anyway, and from a third or fourth viewpoint, or from a genuine outsider's perspective, looks simply like a new wrinkle on a old fabric, a new approach to an old line of reasoning.
There's a strong desire in many people to challenge and change, which can often be very positive, as most Star Trek fans would surely appreciate (the need for self-reflection and growth) - so long as true self-reflection is really what's occurring, and it's not just a case of constructing an ideological package (or having it constructed for you), aligning it against another ideological camp, real or imagined, and then pushing for yours against theirs. The group dynamics of naturally tribalistic people no doubt comes into play, here - it seems there has to be an enemy that one is arrayed against, someone "less moral" to prove yourself against. Cooperation and relational aggression are intimately entwined in most people, and politics and struggle seem difficult for most to avoid. Two powerful instinctive urges - for conformity (membership and immersion in the group), and for individual status within that structure. The tribe and the self.
I've maintained that the vast majority of people are conservative by nature; the ones who label themselves such are simply the honest ones (there are exceptions, naturally). Academia is full of people who like to perceive themselves as provocatively challenging established thought structures and discourses when in fact they
are the established discourse (or
one of them, more to the point), and the image they present of a society rooted in certain assumptions is more often as much a construct of their own ideological biases, the perceived truth their affiliations and teachers demanded they observe, mixed with some genuine observations on other sub-groups and ideological positions, which may in fact be less powerful and influential than their own. They also dislike it when someone else turns around and views them with the same distaste or judgemental moral commentary that they apply to others.
Understanding is a three-edged sword, but all too often people think that the sharper edge is whichever one they're embracing. They don't understand that other people might look on
them as backward, or foolish, and lacking in self-awareness, just as they perceive whichever group they're opposing. Often people fight against the perceived or projected idea of what other people think rather than what they do. And the greatest enemy is never the outsider, it's the neighbour who isn't in your ideological camp. The tribe that is really two tribes, in direct competition because they're occupying the same niche.
And of course, other people will look upon
my perspective here and see it as strange or even hypocritical; after all, at least a few readers would observe in my own perspectives and behaviours the exact things I'm criticizing here. Such is always the way. "Chaos cannot be mastered".
) as I can remember. Started with my interest in dinosaurs & prehistoric life as a child, my father had interest in the past American empires of the Maya, Aztec & Incas, which I also like. That fed into my interest in all history (was great getting dates in high school) from continent arrangements to ancient empires to the old west. Wish I'd used my interest to make a career out of it but still read & watch things history related. Eventually I hope humanity will learn from its past but that's something different. 
