Are we more or less humane than we were 50 years ago?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Humane: marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals (Merriam-Webster.com)

Are we (human beings in the developed world) more or less humane that we were 50 years ago?

Let me clarify a little. I’m asking if culturally you believe there have been significant shifts in the cognitive/emotional components that influence how people feel about each other. I’m not asking if we love family/friends more or less, I’m asking about general benevolence and the feelings of connectedness/responsibility people have to each other in the greater world. Are we more selfish? Insulated? Indifferent?

We certainly live in a less violent world. No doubt we are more aware of the plight of people who suffer and vastly more knowledgeable about global injustices (thank the interwebs for that). To me these are political and social gains but not indicators that humans feel more connected to one another.

I would argue we are less emotionally connected to others as a direct result of over-communication by means and methods that have supplanted traditional communication. While our interior worlds have expanded through technology, our emotional senses have become blunted through the overstimulation. Therefore our desire and ability to effectively care about others has become greatly diffused. We are less aware of each other (strangers, passersby, neighbors, etc.) because we are more invested in relationships and communication on our own terms. As a consequence of existing in our interior worlds we tend to be less aware of others we come into contact with or prone to seeing them as impediments or nuisances. Our fixation on being in contact with others has made us indifferent to people that don’t occupy our bubbles…

Forgive my lack of eloquence, it’s late. And I realize I am painting with a broad brush…

Discuss.

(If this needs to be moved to Great Debates, sorry for the heavy lifting :)).

2

All this may be true - we may be less able to connect individually. But looking at the big picture, we’re almost definitely more humane than we were 50 years ago. Just ask women, racial minorities, homosexuals…

3

Overall, yes. Individuals vary, sometimes vastly, but there are a number of ways in which society as a whole has improved since 1962. A number of them have been mentioned, so instead of just repeating them I’ll add an increased awareness of child abuse as a problem (as opposed to the idea that parents have a more-or-less completely free hand in raising their children) and an increased awareness of bullying as a problem (which goes hand-in-hand with the improvements already mentioned by Rodgers01).

Technological advances have resulted in a massive reduction in cruelty. Laparoscopic procedures alone save thousands of hours (at least!) of collective pain and suffering in people who, back then, would have had to undergo much more invasive procedures. (I’ll get ripped into for this I know it. My contention is that it’s possible to be cruel with the best of intentions, but the cruelty still causes an emotional callus to develop over time. What kind of mentality do you need to set a speed record in amputating a limb without effective anesthetics?)

4

Thnx for “letting” us discuss.

American society is now, as a whole, more humane. Children and women used to be as chattel. Blacks and gays weren’t even to be considered. It’s somewhat different now but nothing was given from the goodness of anybody’s heart; it’s been fought for with sacrifice and perceverance and blood. We now enjoy the fruits of others’ labors. And it’s the law.

That being said, today people sit with other people while talking to somebody else. Two people sit down at an eatery and both pull out their laptops.

So basically we’re doing better. But we need to look back up and relate.

5

Less violent, I suppose, but in the US at least the selfishness meme has moved into high gear. Fifty years ago, people seemed content to pay considerably more in taxes to help the poorest. And the eagerness to start wars wasn’t as strong.

On the other side, gays were all closeted, women a blacks were certainly held down. The idea of a black or woman president was unthinkable. So it is a mixed bag. Although I think that the main motive behind the birthers is the belief that there is something profoundly wrong with a black in the white house.

6

The Law of Conservation of Compassion forces us to have only a given amount of empathy in the social system. That empathy can be directed to different targets, but the total amount remains constant.

7

Which racial minorities and where? Those from the Middle East (or of Middle Eastern descent) who have immigrated (or were born) in the US and Canada and France and England? They may have a different view about that. Not to mention that religious intolerance(s) have not exactly settled… are people big fans of the Jews yet? Of Muslims? Shia and Sunni’s? At least in Canada, aboriginal populations were given an apology for the Residential School system in 2009–then the person who issued that apology went on to say the country has no history of colonialism and this year heavily celebrated the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Again, those people might have a very different view about how they are treated, given that (in Canada) they have a higher suicide rate than the rest of the country, higher rate of drug use, of poverty, are less likely to hold full-time employment, and are steadily losing their languages.

Are homosexuals really doing that well? Or is it that people who would have been on the fence or closeted about their tolerance to these things are simply more open about it? It seems like the same people in similar numbers are still doing similar things. Maybe the outward violence has pushed back a bit? I don’t think that’s a measurement of being more humane, though.

Women, well… they aren’t doing that great. It has just become more complex.

What about animals? No need pointing to all the videos showing abuse against animals. Factoring farming kills over 60 billion animals a year globally for food. And though there aren’t many statistics about specifically how much of the meat is thrown away, still over one third of the global food supply is wasted despite huge amounts of starving people.

Meanwhile the poor certainly aren’t finding better circumstances, corporate greed has skyrocketed in the last decade (too many examples to name, but the US has an especially long record with that), war now has unmanned drones–etc, etc.

It would be really difficult for me to believe the world is more humane even if people appear more tolerant generally to some issues.