Name virtually any modern atrocity, from genocide to ethnic cleansing to brutal oppression of conquered peoples to capricious and wanton destruction? The past has got it. It wasn’t Sherman who invented the concept of Scorched Earth, the Romans dealt with Carthage in a similar manner. Slavery wasn’t a colonialist invention, nor, for that matter, was colonialism a modern invention.
History is a nightmare that we are trying to wake up from.
Sure, some things have changed. Biological warfare is thousands of years old, but now we have treaties and conventions to regulate such things. Most of the world would take action (or at least express revulsion) if defeated nations were made into actual slaves and set to work in the salt mines. We don’t practice human sacrifice anymore. Outside of some Sunni/Shia violence, we generally tend not to murder each other over our religious preferences. Even our representative democracies have enfranchised more people than the ancient Greeks would have ever dreamed of. Civilization has, in general, had a positive effect and a generally positive (if sometimes very slow) trend.
On the issue of whether ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are balanced, or shifting, or what have you… That’s a very complex question with no simple answer, at all. And one that’s certainly predicated on language that is highly suspect to boot. Getting rid of such language, I’d feel rather confident in stating that we have, as a species, gotten rid of many of the behaviors from our past that we now find abhorrent.
But talking about ‘good’ and ‘evil’? Ask a radical Libertarian to opine on the matter, and you’ll hear that all taxes are theft. As a communist, and you’ll hear that not sacrificing part of your welfare for other people or, even worse, believing that it would be absurd to expect people to do so? You’re likely to be accused of crimes against the people, or thoughtcrimes, or what have you.
“Compassion” vs “ego” is a rather useless dichotomy, as well. There’s nothing wrong, at all, with having a healthy ego or doing things out of self interest. Nor is compassion something that will necessarily lead to good outcomes. White Man’s Burden itself was a twisted form of ‘compassion’.
All that aside, are things, from my personal and subjective perspective, ‘better’ than they were in the past? Sure. And I still think that our species will eventually go the stars.
I agree with this, evil is becoming ‘normal’ in todays society, partly because technology allows it without total collapse, but our free society is slowly being eroded away, mainly by self interests.
I would refer you to little known tribes such as the Romans, the Mongols, the Huns, the Aztecs and so on. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Crusades or the Inquisition or slavery? Not to mention all the hundreds of wars that have been fought through the ages. The only reason that modern man appears to have a much greater capacity for evil is that ancient and Middle Ages man simply lacked the technology of our mechanized armies.
I’m curious as to what you mean by this statement. What “evils” are you referring to? What self interests are eroding which freedoms?
It’s interesting to note how certain past atrocities become exaggerated in certain minds. Take the Spanish Inquisition, which many treat as if it were the supreme evil in all of history. According to several historians, the Inquisition murdered between 1,000 and 3,000 persons in its entire history, or between three and ten people per year on average. For the sake of comparison, the state of Texas murders an average of about twenty persons per year.
Auschwitz concentration camp “processed” twelve thousand persons every day, and it was only one of literally thousands of camps in the Nazi prison system. The Soviet Union did mass murder at a faster pace than the Nazis for a longer time period, and Red China may have outperformed both of them combined.
Doubtlessly every age tries to rationalize away its crimes. But consider this. Everyone today who purchases an item that is made in China is endorsing the conditions that now prevail in China, which include sweatshops, child labor, and political repression. Most consumers find this troubling to deal with, so they simply try to avoid thinking about it at all or go into denial. In earlier epochs, there was no global economy. Most products were bought and sold locally, so there wasn’t much need for such denial.
There is no good & evil; only power and those too weak to seek it.
But cereal, I’m of the opinion that good & evil are inventions. Few if any “events” in our history are viewed universally as “evil,” there is always someone looking at the same event and thinking “Cool! This is just the thing that will make the world a better place!” Look at civilization and you will see pods of humans behaving at some level in a completely self-serving and ruthless manner. It’s always been that way, I reckon. Even those who promote causes that are commonly held as “good” (looking at Dr. King or Ghandi) are ultimately forcing others to give up something that they feel entitled to. Who’s right depends entirely on who’s ox is getting gored.
Inasmuch as humanity even matters in the umpty-billion years that critters have been looking after themselves, the good/evil scale if it must be recognized nets out to zero. Equal and opposite reactions and all that (to haul in a completely unrelated example).
Perhaps so, but it was much more obvious back then. Human cruelty seemed to be much more out in the open, and it’s easy to see that it is wrong in the context of do onto others as you would have them do to you. But we have modern day equivalents to things like torture for crimes, tax thugs shaking one down, slavery that can put a person in as much bondage but without looking like it, & making the oppressor not look like a bad guy.
See above for a short list along with much more attention to me, myself and I and F— the rest of the world.
Looking after one self over that of the people around one is the end of freedom IMHO. We can see small examples in very trivial cases. At one time smokers would be polite and ask those around him if he can light up, he was mindful about the people around him. Then it bacame much more self centered, the person had a right to smoke but disregarded his responsibility to his fellow man, lit up without regarding those around him. Now smoking is being banned in many places. We can see a similar situation with cell phone usage while driving, Your use of the phone is for your self interest at the cost of society through distracted driving, so laws are set up because people are not responsible with their freedom and self centered instead of caring for fellow man.
I don’t believe this was ever the case, at least not in the order you’re claiming it is. Forty or fifty years ago it would likely never have occurred to a smoker to ask the people around her/him if it was okay to light up.
But for every such example I can name 100 past examples of atrocities nobody thinks about anymore. Cities were routinely pillaged, their citizens slaughtered and tortured by the thousands, or the tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands; the women lucky enough to be young and attractive might be carried off for use as sex slaves, while everyone else would be murdered.
The account of the destruction of Carthage by Roman troops reads as bad as anything the Nazis did. Virtually all the citizens were tortured to death, buried alive, roasted or crucified; “lucky” ones were enslaved. This sort of thing happened again and again and again.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s more good and less evil in the world today than ever before, at least on a percentage basis. Until a few hundred years ago, at least in recorded history, there weren’t ANY civilizations, anywhere, that would be considered decent and civilized and not cruel by the standards assumed in the world’s better countries today.
It is also helping to modernize a society and improve their overall standard of living.
I find this comment naive and innacurate. Which epochs are you referring to? The Romans? The Spanish? The Brittish Empire? There has always been international trade and a “global economy” such that the technology of the time and the knowledge of what was “global” would support.
If these are the types of “evil” actions that offend your delicate sensibilities I would consider yourself lucky to have been born in this day and age.
Africans commit genocide by the hundreds of thousands against each other and kids in this country are concerned by the “evils” of people not being polite. Sounds to me like you need a taste of what true evil is.
Sadly you did not get my point, smoking in public is not the evil, it is the loss of personal freedoms due to selfishness. The freedoms that prevent modern societies from committing such atrocities as you mention.
Free and open societies tend to get rid of the more brutal evils, and if kept free it unlikely to use such evils for population control. Little things like smoking I used as a example of how selfishness is eroding our freedoms (we want the freedom without the civic responsibilities) which paves the way for making laws to limit our freedoms, which increases the ‘police state’ which makes it more likely to oppress people.
So the evil is the selfishness of the smoker who wants to smoke where ever he wants without regards to his fellow man. This leads to the evil of the ‘smoking-nazi’ police force, and it’s corresponding increase in police power. Yes it’s a little increase, but it’s only one of many examples that do add up. A stronger police force can more easially oppress the people by force.
Another likewise example is the speed limits, and the current system where speed limits are set so that normal drivers doing nothing unsafe, or really nothing wrong can be pulled over (because the speed limits are set assuming people will exceed them by 10 mph or so, so they are 10mph lower then the should be). This is clearly evil. The more honest way of doing it is set the speed limit at the absolute limit that you want cars to travel at which is reasonable for the roads under ideal conditions and fine if they are caught over that. This elimiates the evil that you can be stopped for no reason.
Loss of freedoms lead to a greater chance of a police state which lead to a greater chance for unchecked power to oppress people.
Ah, little lad, you’re starin’ at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of Right Hand-Left Hand - the story of good and evil? (He rises and flexs the fingers of his left hand) H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. (He raises his right hand) L-O-V-E. You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends! The hand of love! Now watch and I’ll show you the story of life. These fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warrin’ and a-tuggin’, one agin the other. Now, watch ‘em. Ol’ brother Left Hand. Left hand, he’s a-fightin’. And it looks like LOVE’s a goner. But wait a minute, wait a minute! Hot dog! LOVE’s a winnin’? Yes, siree. It’s LOVE that won, and ol’ Left Hand HATE is down for the count!
The examples you provide are so insignificant as to be laughable compared to the real threats to freedom. All societies have rules and regulations and you might not agree with many of them. Comparing citations for smoking in a bar with rounding up people and executing them based on their ehtnicity is insulting and disingenuous.
I think the greatest threats to freedom today (in the US) is an attitude of willfull ignorance combined with self-entitlement. Thanks to the media, never in history have people who have done nothing, achieved nothing thought so highly of themselves by virtue of simply being born. The threat is that ignorant, selfish people who feel they are entitled become frightened and angry when those entitlements are taken away or threatened. And that is how wars and genocides are started.
Making more and more things illegal does not mean that the police can be more and more brutal when enforcing any given law.
People who light up in public places are usually just told to take it outside by the management or passersby. If they persist, the cops may show up and issue them a citation. That doesn’t sound very nazi-like. And I’ll bet the cops would rather not have to deal with these sorts of violations.
There aren’t laws against smoking in public places because people have become too impolite to ask to light up, but because it didn’t use to be considered a problem, now it is.