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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.