# Why when and what made society gradually more civilized? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371 "2017-03-30T19:38:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/21 "2017-03-31T04:09:32Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > I want to know what people’s take is on the topic of society becoming more civilized over time. It’s not black and white. I’m very interested in how we’ve began to trust others and show more compassion which in return has given us what we got now. A superpower country where it’s almost impossible to starve but we continue to slaughter the masses like it’s nothing. It is an interesting question … and not black and white. People still point to Cyrus the Great of Persia, who lived more than 25 centuries ago, as a particularly benevolent ruler. The Sumerians had codes of justice 15 centuries before Cyrus. I watched the Pinker Youtube. Are his claims all true? All early civilizations practiced slavery and human sacrifice? Even if true, that behavior has to be judged in context. We still condone wholesale abuse of animals, including sentient species. The understanding, via science, of shared humanness is part of the answer to OP’s question. And many ancient rituals that seem barbaric had a beneficient purpose. I don’t know why human sacrifice was practiced but I think many ancient societies existed at the threshold where starvation was limiting population growth anyway. Some of the most horrendous massacres occurred in the 20th century. And, while slavery is illegal, there are an estimated 30 million humans enslaved right now — is that more than ever before? — many of these slaves are held in conditions much worse than the slaves of ancient societies. Yes, in many ways human society is far more enlightened than ever before. But hatreds and crimes against humanity continue. The issue is not black and white. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/22 "2017-03-31T13:46:17Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I kind of want to see this get worked up into a maxim that _‘a lack of power tends to corrupt; but toss him some power, and suddenly he can afford to be a nice guy.’_ There are none as powerful as the powerless, with nothing left to lose. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/23 "2017-03-31T14:26:23Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > 1. Lots of assumptions in the opening question, which need to be specified, of a complete reasoning is to be accomplished. More than anything else, what is assumed, is that humans were once NOT “civilized.” This is a very common assumption, but it isn’t borne out by the known archaeology. Most humans discovered have been dated to times where group living was confirmed in various ways. Ritualized burials of Neanderthals and others have been confirmed. That definition of “civilized” isn’t what the OP is asking about. I hardly think I need to cite examples of historical cultures where people lived in groups and practiced rituals but left much to be desired in the “trusting”, “compassionate”, and “true civil behavior” departments. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/24 "2017-03-31T14:59:36Z")
Robert Wright wrote two excellent books that directly and masterfully address the OP: [The Moral Animal](https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490972205&sr=8-1&keywords=the+moral+animal) and [NonZero](https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MEC3Y36CXQBYD73YZ1SY). ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/25 "2017-03-31T16:03:04Z")
While it’s hard to pin down exactly what is meant by civilized, one way to think about it is how good a life would you have if you were an average person living in whatever society you’re considering. > [@MEBuckner](#): > > On the other hand, Christianity coexisted for a thousand years or more with one hell of a lot of bear-baiting, chattel slavery, drawing and quartering, imperial conquest and exploitation, and occasional pogroms, witch-burnings, and crusades against heretics. > > There’s certainly no straight line between Christianity and society being unambiguously more “civilized” than pre-Christian civilizations. I don’t think Christianity can be linked to the rise of civilization in a direct way like this. I would much rather have lived in the pagan Rome of Hadrian and Trajan than the Christian Rome of Romulus Augustus. If I was living in 800 AD, I would have much preferred to live in an Islamic city like Baghdad or Damascus than in a Christian city like Paris, London, or Rome. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/26 "2017-04-01T00:11:06Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > Why have groups of people became more trusting and compassionate? When did society start to show signs of true civil behavior and not just esoteric pity for others? What is the factor or event that lead to us becoming more civilized? > > The people, the government, and the culture have all became more civilized over time. Is there known genetic mutations or evolution that caused people to be more trusting and compassionate? Or maybe there’s a part of psychology that explains why humans want to act this way? I know it’s just common sense that people would want to live peacefully and not slaughter each other on sight. I’m looking for a scientific/social answer explaining the process or reason why things are the way they are. IMO this is simply an absurd post. Bubble thinking at its worst. We are in living memory of the most cultured, scientific and civilized society on earth industrially murdering six million other humans because they were ‘different’ and ‘infected’ the dominate race. Barack Obama…take a gander at some working class neighborhoods in this country, especially in the blue states, and find out just how trusting and compassionate they really are. How trusting are the two political halves of America of of each other? How compassionate? Hunter Gatherer societies were far closer to your ideal than ours. So were Viking societies living in the far north. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/27 "2017-04-01T14:04:32Z")
Qin #17, I can’t find my reference so I apologize to you and the vicars. However the punishment was practiced earlier in England. Are infanticide and slavery the criteria of being uncivilized. Abortion is legal and perhaps you can explain the difference between slavery and the military draft. Crane ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/28 "2017-04-01T15:04:07Z")
Slavery- involuntary servitude brought on by being kidnapped The Draft- voluntary servitude brought on through the democratic process. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/29 "2017-04-01T15:23:53Z")
Obviously you’ve never been drafted. Your rights as a citizen are revoked and you are sent to do the bidding of your overlords. There is nothing voluntary involved. Crane ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/30 "2017-04-01T22:05:00Z")
There is no doubt that we are indeed living in the most ‘civilized’ era known to man. The reasons for this are many: the rise of a strong, stable, central governing authority with an absolute monopoly on violence, the rise of ‘individual rights’ and humanitarian ethics, the rise of global commerce and global interconnectedness, feminization (giving more attention to the wants and interests of women)- to name but some. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/31 "2017-04-01T23:44:26Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > . . . a strong, stable, central governing authority with an absolute monopoly on violence, the rise of ‘individual rights’ and humanitarian ethics . . . And, better yet, a healthy balance between these two concepts, which are essentially contradictory. We’ve worked out a fairly good meeting point, where the needs of the many are weighed against the needs of the few (or the one) and the result is a compromise, favorable (or perhaps merely _least unfavorable_) to all. There is some danger to all of this, of course, as there are many seeking to push (or pull) the balancing point toward greater consideration for the public good…and greater consideration for private good. Such battles can never really be won…but they can be lost. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/32 "2017-04-04T02:17:18Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Are you saying you don’t believe in social advancement? Are you some variety of moral anti-realist? Reactionaries disagree with its goals and don’t characterize it as an advance, but recognize the effect. I’d expect future societies to see our current culture as backward, and I’d probably agree with them. Never heard of “moral anti-realism,” so I can’t answer about that. My view is very very simple. Having studied a GREAT deal of history (that’s the stuff based on writings), as well as anthropology and archaeology and philosophy, I have never yet seen any evidence to support a claim that human beings have changed in any fundamental way in the last ten thousand years or more, in relation to what this thread is about. It’s extremely easy to see what I’m talking about every single day on the news. Notice how at the same time as some people are talking about caring and loving and mutual aid, that there are a lot of other people cutting peoples heads off, raping, stealing, taking unfair advantage of the handicapped and on and on? ``` The only thing that HAS changed over time, is the extent of the ability of human institutions to exert real control over humanity. There is zero difference between Pax Romana, and the periods of relative peace modern people have seen. There have been as many times of peace and cooperation in the known past, as there has been in modern times. Often a lot more of it than now. ``` There’s nothing “antireality” about this, it’s only “anti-reality” to claim otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/33 "2017-04-04T02:41:04Z")
I suggest an alternative question. Ask instead “Why, when, and What made humans more able to present the ILLUSION of being more civilized than they obviously really are?” That way, we could review and discuss the technological advances which made it easier to corral people who misbehave, and make it a little easier on the ones who actually DO want to be compassionate and all that. We could also discuss the vastly more complicated study of the evolutions of organizational concepts and methods, which contribute intermittently to making it easier for most people to cooperate, than to treat each other with suspicion and hostility. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/34 "2017-04-04T04:45:27Z")
I would say reductions in mortality generally (due advancements in medicine, and agriculture) played a part. If you are around death in everyday life, and you don’t expect all your children and siblings to survive, that has to change how you treat human life generally. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/35 "2017-04-04T13:02:12Z")
Who says humans are civil now? More like hidden behind a guise of respectability perhaps. I might propose that a group of neanderthal probably showed more kindness and compassion than modern society, and with out the smoke and mirrors ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/36 "2017-04-04T14:11:09Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > Who says humans are civil now? > More like hidden behind a guise of respectability perhaps. > > I might propose that a group of neanderthal probably showed more kindness and compassion than modern society, and with out the smoke and mirrors Who’s to say the Neanderthals didn’t kill off the Denisovans… ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/37 "2017-04-04T15:03:01Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > IMO this is simply an absurd post. Bubble thinking at its worst. We are in living memory of the most cultured, scientific and civilized society on earth industrially murdering six million other humans because they were ‘different’ and ‘infected’ the dominate race. > > Barack Obama…take a gander at some working class neighborhoods in this country, especially in the blue states, and find out just how trusting and compassionate they really are. How trusting are the two political halves of America of of each other? How compassionate? > > Hunter Gatherer societies were far closer to your ideal than ours. So were Viking societies living in the far north. No, you’re wrong. Even counting all the government backed atrocities, genocides and world wars, the 20th century was the least violent in recorded history, and probably ever. “Civil” might be matter of opinion, but “less violent” is factual. The world is far less violent than it was even 30 years ago, let alone 100 or 1000. > **[History and the Decline of Human Violence](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/history-and-the-decline-of-human-violence/)** > > In a magisterial new book, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues that humanity's "better angels" are triumphing > [@](#): > > Statistics aside, accounts of daily life in medieval and early modern Europe reveal a society soaked in blood and gore. Medieval knights—whom today we would call warlords—fought their numerous private wars with a single strategy: kill as many of the opposing knight’s peasants as possible. Religious instruction included prurient descriptions of how the saints of both sexes were tortured and mutilated in ingenious ways. Corpses broken on the wheel, hanging from gibbets, or rotting in iron cages where the sinner had been left to die of exposure and starvation were a common part of the landscape. For entertainment, one could nail a cat to a post and try to head-butt it to death, or watch a political prisoner get drawn and quartered, which is to say partly strangled, disemboweled, and castrated before being decapitated. So many people had their noses cut off in private disputes that medical textbooks had procedures that were alleged to grow them back. > **[The world is actually becoming more peaceful — believe it or not - The World...](https://theworld.org/stories/2014/09/29/believe-it-or-not-world-getting-more-peaceful)** > > New research suggests that, despite this summer's headlines, the world is actually more peaceful today than in recent history. > [@](#): > > Pinker points out that during World War II, the human population lost 300 of every 100,000 people each year. During the Korean War it was in the 20s, before dropping into the teens during the Vietnam era. In the 1980s and 1990s, it fell into the single digits. For most of the 21st century it’s been below one war death per 100,000 people per year. > > There has been an uptick globally as a result of the civil war in Syria, doubling from 0.5 per 100,000 to 1. But Pinker says “you can’t compare 1 with 15 or 25 or 300.” Everywhere else in the world, the stats are still trending downward. The same is true for homicides. > > “If you get your view of the world from the news, you’re always going to think that we’re living in violent times,” Pinker says. “Because if anything blows up, if there’s any shooting anywhere in the world, it instantly gets beamed across the globe. News is about stuff that happens. It’s not about stuff that doesn’t happen. And as long as violence hasn’t gone down to zero, there will always be enough incidents to fill the news.” ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/38 "2017-04-04T19:40:41Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > IMO this is simply an absurd post. Bubble thinking at its worst. We are in living memory of the most cultured, scientific and civilized society on earth industrially murdering six million other humans because they were ‘different’ and ‘infected’ the dominate race. As numerous people have pointed even taking into account the atrocities of WW2, and other massive crimes against humanity of the modern era, the number of people killed by violence was far lower than previous eras. The intent of the holocaust was nothing particular special in human history, peoples have been trying to wipe out other peoples (and religious groups, races, tribes, etc) for as long as such concepts have existed. What changed is the ability modern technology to organize and carrying out such crimes (and the growth in population that meant there were more people to kill). But even taking that into account, far fewer people (as a percentage of the population) have have been killed that way in the modern era than in previous eras. > [@madsircool](#): > > Barack Obama…take a gander at some working class neighborhoods in this country, especially in the blue states, and find out just how trusting and compassionate they really are. How trusting are the two political halves of America of of each other? How compassionate? Yeah, compared to goings on under [President Peirce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas), or [President Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre), political discourse is incredibly compassionate. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371/39 "2017-04-04T21:22:37Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > BO#1, > In the 1800s it was popular for the Church of England to disembowel heretics and quickly set fire to the intestines of the alive and conscious persons. The event drew large crowds. Were they civilized? This is completely incorrect but the practice of hanging, drawing and quartering in the UK, is actually a good illustration of what is meant by the OP. For most of British history hang drawing and quartering was the accepted punishment for treason (against the secular monarch, not heresy against the church). While there may have been debate over whether a particular victim deserved it (e.g. William Wallace in another regime have been treated as common or garden rebellious vasal prince, not a treasonous subject deserving of HD+Q). It, however, was accepted that hideous execution by the state was both acceptable and suitable for public entertainment. By the time the last hanging, drawing and quartering was carried out it in the late 1700s that was not case, society was scandalized and considered a barbarous throw back to a bygone violent age (and led to it being banned in the 1790 treason act). By the 1800s the idea that someone would be hung drawn and quartered in the UK would be laughable, but public execution existed until that too was abolished in the 1860s. By the 20th century no one could imagine a public execution but capital punishment continued, until that too was abolished in the 20th century. Yeah its a simplified view and plenty of barbarous things were carried out by the British state (particular against non-white foreigners a long way away) after they abolished hanging drawing and quartering, but the statistics support the fact that society became less violent over those years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-when-and-what-made-society-gradually-more-civilized/783371.md?page=1)