A Revolution in Humanity…Fully Underway
You’re probably reading this on your computer, iPad, or smartphone. We drive somewhere new and we get precise directions, with traffic, via GPS. We carry music, movies, and truckloads of files in a gizmo no bigger than our thumb. We store thousands of books and read them off of small pads, in an instant, we find any bit of information we desire to know through the internet, and we can talk by phone to almost anyone from almost anywhere – with live video included if we like.
These technological miracles are part of our everyday lives; such revolutionary inventions as the television, telephone, air travel, microwave ovens, and even rocket ships are so…twentieth century. They’re like background noise to us now. But we are aware of them, and when I mention these technological breakthroughs, most readers will recognize and appreciate them immediately.
But there’s a much more revolutionary transformation that we enjoy today that most of us have no awareness of whatsoever…a revolution in our very humanity, a revolution that bodes well for our very existence. The chances are you’ve never heard of this, in part because of another technological development: television news.
When we watch the news on TV, we see the worst that humanity has to offer.
When we watch the news on TV, we see the worst that humanity has to offer; all of the most awful things that over seven billion people have done to each other. Seven billion people. There’s a lot of “awful” that can happen within a number like that, even when most of them are being more kind, loving, rational, and accepting than at any time in human history.
We see it in real time, piped right into our living rooms, as though it’s happening right there in front of us. On some level, our nervous systems don’t know the difference; we take it all in as part of a larger narrative about how awful, how dangerous the world is…and how heartless and cruel humanity must be. The revolution that I’m talking about is a revolution in empathy – what Steven Pinker, in his book, The Better Angels of our Nature, calls, “The Humanitarian Revolution.” I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
In the midst of this time, Thomas Paine said hopefully: “We have it in our power to make the world over again.” I think he would be very pleasantly delighted with just how well we’ve done. But in order to appreciate this, we have to see clearly just how horrific we used to be. It’s nearly impossible to comprehend the acceptance and even the delight with which our fellow humans of just a few centuries ago viewed the most horrific of tortures and abuses. The horror of such commonplace acts of intentional and humiliating violence as breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, the “cat’s paw,” impaling, “Judas’s Cradle,” and leaving one to die in a cage, are so sadistic and vile that I cannot bring myself to describe them here.
But I can guarantee, they are far beyond anything almost anyone ever sees or experiences in the modern world. These were not secretive activities played out in some dungeon. They were public spectacles, watched gleefully by the general population, looked forward to as we might look forward to an exciting sporting event or new movie release. The struggles and screams of the victims were cheered as we would a touchdown, goal, or delightful performance.
And the victims were not generally monsters who had committed some heinous crimes against humanity. Many of us who are good, law abiding folks today would be guilty of far worse behavior. Somehow, within the span of about two-hundred years, these practices, in addition to slavery and a host of other inhuman practices, went from delightful commonplace spectacles or widely accepted realities of everyday life, to a shocking and abhorrent rending of the social fabric. To the point where most of us would be viscerally sickened at the mere thought of any detail I might describe here.
As to what it was that brought this revolution about…according to Pinker, you’re doing it right this very moment. You’re reading. With the advent of the printing press and the spread of literacy, people began to write and read a wide range of books and pamphlets. They took in the perspectives, the inner thoughts, of their fellow human beings – people with whom they had no bonds of kinship, people who they would never have empathized with before.
You might be thinking, “Yes, we came a long way, but look at the deterioration of the culture, the terrorism, the mass murders. What happened?”
Remember the TV news? We see the worst of everything among seven billion people on a daily basis. That means that if somebody’s a one-in-a-million guy in terms of his sadism and/or sociopathy, there would be seven thousand people just like him…somewhere. That’s awful, but it’s a far cry from such behavior being commonplace and accepted.
But there has been a counter current, a counter enlightenment, propounded by such self-styled “humanitarians” as Rousseau, Marx, Stalin, and Hitler. Fascism, communism, and other anti-enlightenment political philosophies were (and are) seen by their adherents as great advances over the freshly evolved classical liberal ideals, and they did slow down the progress of the Enlightenment, muddying the water of humanity’s journey toward greater humanity.
Don’t buy the narrative of human depravity and decline.
Those philosophies still hold popular appeal in universities and the media (that same media that flourishes on the narrative of violence and decline). But don’t be fooled by the impressions you get from the evening news. Don’t buy the narrative of human depravity and decline. We are still in the midst of a transformation in human culture. A revolution in empathy, a revolution in flourishing…a revolution in our very humanity. Look for it; it’s right there to be seen behind the curtain of popular narrative.
About the Author: Joel Wade
