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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Brutalisation of collective feeling and behaviour in the 21st century?
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Have we changed? Are we more accepting of violence, disparity between rich and poor, instrumental violence, collateral damage, war? I think the start of more acceptance of these things was 11 Sept 2001, with an acute sense of grievance, anger, resentment building with every report of another attack or act, lately a shootup or beheading. With the attackers seeming fully 'other', less than human.
It almost seems we have seen a change is the concept of humanity and human worth, with the terrible experiences, mostly vicarious, of terrorism, than was the case before. Have we gotten used to this? (Notwithstanding our hundredfold retaliation. )
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I don't think it is especially new. I refer you to genocide in Rwanda, atrocities in Sierra Leone, nasty (or worse) behavior in Bosnia, and, going back a bit farther, lots of killing in southeast Asia.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I think it's sad, as there was a feeling of optimism that the world was becoming a better, fairer place, that world peace was a possibility, and that all people wanted it, which was flattened when the evils of the terrorist acts and subsequent conflicts and continuing murders bombarded it.
The reality of continuing brutality, and that nothing much changes in an unfair world, leaves us disappointed and cynical, more ready to shrug our shoulders than to make the effort.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It almost seems that we have seen a shift in the concept of humanity, forced by terrible acts to ascribe a different value of human lives, needing to exterminate those who attack. With any methods and without attention to nuances.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I'm not sure that we have changed. I remember Robespierre, and his famous maxim, 'virtue without terror is impotent', and before that the burning of people by Christians, the horrors of colonialism, slavery, and so on.
I can't remember who said that the West used to export violence, and is stunned to find it repatriated.
[ 03. April 2015, 19:18: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
If you look at it in the context of the whole of human history, then this is more like a return to normality.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not sure that we have changed. I remember Robespierre, and his famous maxim, 'virtue without terror is impotent', and before that the burning of people by Christians, the horrors of colonialism, slavery, and so on.
I can't remember who said that the West used to export violence, and is stunned to find it repatriated.
Wrong tense.
(italics mine)
[ 03. April 2015, 21:04: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
Steven Pinker argued a position many might find counterintuitive in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
I don't know if anyone here might have read it, but it might be worth a look, just for its different perspective on the question.
Here's the publisher's description:
quote:
In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the world of the past was much worse. In fact, we may be living in the most peaceable era yet . [...]
Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate in medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then were suddenly abolished. Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the numbers they did a few decades ago. Rape, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse—all substantially down.
How could this have happened, if human nature has not changed?
Pinker argues that the key to explaining the decline of violence is to understand the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away. Thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence.
THough we'd have to say now that wars between developed nations have almost vanished, I suppose.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
You are probably right, it is a return to normalcy. Humans are brutal.
I grew up in the 1960s and actually believed in progressivism. We all did. We thought we could build a better world, with more economic equality, more fairness of opportunity, more justice. We also put our principles into action in those days. Now we blog and facebook about what we believe instead, which I'm sure is just as effective.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
You are probably right, it is a return to normalcy. Humans are brutal.
I grew up in the 1960s and actually believed in progressivism. We all did. We thought we could build a better world, with more economic equality, more fairness of opportunity, more justice. We also put our principles into action in those days. Now we blog and facebook about what we believe instead, which I'm sure is just as effective.
It's going to be worth it to figure out why what we built was not a better world.
But in some respects, it's better -- isn't it?
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Our collective memes have changed and that can only yet improve. The trouble is that all that has gone before is still with us.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Grammatica -
I am aware of Pinker's magnum opus, but haven't read it. It seems to have been received rather coolly over here.
Here is John Gray reviewing it, also providing some more links. It was in fact awareness of this that prompted my earlier reply to quetzlcoatl.
Still, that's John Gray for you - always reliably turns up to drive a coach and horses through any whiggish self-congratulation fest.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I grew up in the 1960s and actually believed in progressivism. We all did.
I don't think this can be true, except for uselessly arbitrary definitions of "we". Wasn't the 1960s the decade of Vietnam, the crushing of the Prague Spring, the Cuban missile crisis, Verwoerd and Vorster in South Africa? The very existence of the protest movements implies that there was some pretty bad, brutal stuff around to protest about, doesn't it?
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Honest Ron Bacardi: I am aware of Pinker's magnum opus, but haven't read it. It seems to have been received rather coolly over here.
Here is John Gray reviewing it, also providing some more links.
He doesn't seem to contest Pinker's numbers, more the philosophy behind his explanations.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Grammatica -
I am aware of Pinker's magnum opus, but haven't read it. It seems to have been received rather coolly over here.
Here is John Gray reviewing it, also providing some more links. It was in fact awareness of this that prompted my earlier reply to quetzlcoatl.
Still, that's John Gray for you - always reliably turns up to drive a coach and horses through any whiggish self-congratulation fest.
I can see by this that I'd be in general disagreement with John Gray's evaluation of the Enlightenment project as well.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I have read Pinker's book. It is one of those works which you finish and immediately pray, "Oh God, let this book be true."
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
The level of brutality has increased in some areas, but also our perception of it has altered and there is less tolerance for it. An example is the current spate of revelations about historic sexual abuse here in the UK. Regardless of the institutional wriggling and misinformation campaigns, in the end there will be no hiding place.
This is an evolutionary process. I think that the generational effects of two world wars, a cold war and several genocides have hit the current psyche and there is a partly subliminal realisation that this is not right. And that our fathers and their fathers have lied to us in various ways or allowed themselves to be lied to. I think humanity collectively is starting to make a choice between Good and Evil.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Honest Ron Bacardi: I am aware of Pinker's magnum opus, but haven't read it. It seems to have been received rather coolly over here.
Here is John Gray reviewing it, also providing some more links.
He doesn't seem to contest Pinker's numbers, more the philosophy behind his explanations.
Perhaps in retrospect I should have cited someone else other than John Gray! He does rather tend to max out on counterexamples which lends a rather contrarian tone to some of his writing.
But to respond to your point - I think his argument is rather that the statistics are meaningless. Effectively there are two strands to this. Firstly, that you cannot derive the conclusions from distributions of the type involved (a technical argument which you have to read in the link to Nassim Taleb's work*). Secondly, that the whole argument is scientifically ill-conceived. If you are to posit a thesis that the world is becoming less violent, you need to develop a consistent criterion that you can measure both currently and historically. In both respects (or so I understand the argument to run) the analysis fails. The counterexamples are for illustration purposes.
Grammatica - I have a couple of observations on your points as well but am out of time. I'll try to grab a moment later today.
(* Taleb published the best-seller "The Black Swan" which in essence covers highly significant but improbable events, as luck would have it just before the crash of 2008 which was a good illustration of how we as humans rationalise such things post-hoc. The misuse of statistics in this case is a cognate area.)
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Grammatica - I have a couple of observations on your points as well but am out of time. I'll try to grab a moment later today.
Will await, but as I am in the same position, any reply may be delayed.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
I think there are two confounding factors here.
One is the rise of global news media - if there's a major act of violence in any of the "open" societies in the world, it's brought to our attention as a definite present happening.
The other is a social levelling. Once upon a time, English gentlemen were Christians, and played cricket. And if life was pretty brutal amongst the lower orders, or among the pagans in distant lands, well that was just to be expected because they're not as civilised as we are. If no-one important got hurt it wasn't really news.
That sense of social class - within the nation and a parallel sense of a small club of civilised nations in a world of savages - has vanished. And mostly that's a good thing. But it means you have to be careful that you're comparing like with like when making historical comparisons.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
But are we not more tolerant of brutality? We think it's more acceptable?
People have raised past generations. In the 1960s we specifically said it was not acceptable, whether napalm in the morning or police dogs biting brown people for wanting the same rights as the beige people in the afternoon.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
But are we not more tolerant of brutality? We think it's more acceptable?
Compared to whom?
quote:
People have raised past generations. In the 1960s we specifically said it was not acceptable, whether napalm in the morning or police dogs biting brown people for wanting the same rights as the beige people in the afternoon.
So what's to say that the generation of the 60s wasn't the exception? Prior to them we've got the generations of WW1 and WW2, and prior to them there's all sorts of shit from slavery to civil wars. And after the sixties generation we've got, well, now.
Of course, even in the 60s the peaceniks weren't entirely representative of the whole generation. And let's not forget that the leaders of today are the exact same generation as the kids of the 60s and 70s who were most into peace and love...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I'm sorry, non-prophet, but I think that anyone who doesn't realize that previous eras were pretty violent, and tolerant of brutality, needs to take a long cold look at history. If anything we are better today.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
There's some misunderstanding, probably a good measure my fault to be posting while cooking and watching the world curling championships all at the same time.
Not saying prior eras weren't brutal, saying that we had progressed positively, and that we are reverting. Going animal. The view from here is that things were definitely better in the decade we call call the 1960s, but in actuality ran from about 1965 to almost 1980.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
I don't really agree. I think you will get just as many people against napalm and against biting brown people as in the 60s, if not more. I don't know how you could find the true figures, but I can't think of a single person I know who would be in favour of either. I know you are just using those things as examples, but I think it will be true across the board for other kinds of brutality.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Not saying prior eras weren't brutal, saying that we had progressed positively, and that we are reverting. Going animal. The view from here is that things were definitely better in the decade we call call the 1960s, but in actuality ran from about 1965 to almost 1980.
I don't think anyone living within range of the IRA would agree with your last sentence.
Surely the fact that police brutality is in the news so much is a good thing; if it was regarded as acceptable and normal it would not be newsworthy.
I remember a journalist noting that if, reportage of crime was truly representative of crimes committed, there would be no coverage of the James Bulger case at all.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Not saying prior eras weren't brutal, saying that we had progressed positively, and that we are reverting. Going animal. The view from here is that things were definitely better in the decade we call call the 1960s, but in actuality ran from about 1965 to almost 1980.
I don't think anyone living within range of the IRA would agree with your last sentence.
On further reflection, I don't think many women or gay people or others now legally protected from discrimination would either.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Grammatica - a reply (of sorts) eventually!
But firstly - quote:
It's going to be worth it to figure out why what we built was not a better world.
But in some respects, it's better -- isn't it?
Yes, I'm sure it is in some ways. I hope nothing that follows gets regarded as denying that.
I'm not sure where to start this argument to be honest. It's more about a sense of unease. The criticism in my earlier post, which is a technical one - stands. This is something else.
I've just been reading a paper by the philosopher Mary Midgley, in which she takes a stand against the concept of the "meme". Not only does she object to it on the basis that it is an entirely unwanted new entity that does nothing that existing understandings can convey, and so fails Ockham's razor. More seriously, it obscures the work that such persistent ideas and their propagation do in culture. So maybe let's try that one.
Pinker's narrative - at least as reported - follows a fairly classical form, as do certain other contributions here by some shipmates. Namely, that we are progressing towards a more morally and culturally enlightened state. And the evidence for that is processed in reference to current norms and mores (presentism). Such an approach is called whig historiography.
As such, it fits into the classical form described originally by Butterfield (Whig history) - (Butterfield's original paper on whig history). It could be argued that this is all old hat so far as historians are concerned, but it still seems not to have made it outside that area of study. It's opposite is conservative "tory" historiography, which as AJP Taylor says quote:
"Toryism rests on doubt in human nature; it distrusts improvement, clings to traditional institutions, prefers the past to the future."
Whig historiography conversely - quote:
is a form of liberalism, putting its faith in the power of human reason to reshape society for the better, regardless of past history and tradition. It proposes the inevitable progress of mankind.
The problem with the latter approach is its partial nature. Has architecture continuously improved? Has music? Even in some of the areas cited by other shipmates, it remains unclear what evidence exists to prove this glorious progress. Certainly by selecting your evidence carefully, you can conjure up trends. That sort of sampling technique will get any scientific paper instantly rejected.
It is not that progress has not been made in some areas. It is rather that this progress is pressed into service to support a narrative that progress is deemed inevitable - allowing perhaps for the odd setback here and there. Indeed in its extreme forms, where we are now is deemed the most enlightened position until tomorrow.
The arguments against such a view are based on the empirical data. If the 20th century was the most enlightened as compared with preceding centuries, how do we explain the catastrophic loss of WW1, the destruction of cities in WW2 and the death of so many civilians? The Nazi purges? The holocaust? The Stalinist purges? The Maoist purges? The killing fields? Those alone run into hundreds of millions, and fit no easy analysis. Those are one hell of a collection of bumps in the road! But they get airbrushed away.
Bluntly, these approaches are both secular salvation narratives. I'll leave off critiquing the equally problematic conservative one here for reasons of brevity. They are of course the classic narratives of the culture wars. The USA may have made the culture wars their own, but we Brits need to confess our guilt in inventing this stuff.
So what do these narratives serve in the propagation of cultures? That's a very big question, but I strongly suggest they are both first-world narratives. The one we are looking at comforts and assuages the guilt of the comfortable. That's why I'm uneasy about these totalizing narratives that too glibly serve obvious external purposes.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Grammatica - a reply (of sorts) eventually!
But firstly - quote:
It's going to be worth it to figure out why what we built was not a better world.
But in some respects, it's better -- isn't it?
Yes, I'm sure it is in some ways. I hope nothing that follows gets regarded as denying that.
I'm not sure where to start this argument to be honest.
Nor am I, I think. You are probably right to say that the argument is usually framed as a competition between overarching historical narratives. And yes, people who choose one or another of these might do so, more on the basis of their subjective dispositions, or possibly (I might say) their cultural world-views, than with the plausibility of the historical narratives themselves.
But a closely related argument might have to do with whether actions in the here and now should be taken (or not), and our responsibilities (if any)for taking those actions.
Now I think that at least some of the time in these arguments, a (factual) claim that we are (or are not) making progress toward a better state of things becomes a justification to take, or not take, action in the present. "There will always be wars; why bother negotiating a cease-fire?"
But deciding whether in fact the long arc of history bends toward justice may be less relevant than recognizing the moral duty to take action in the now.
Of course any action has to be expressed in a concrete situation and that concrete situation has to be understood responsibly as well. Facts aren't irrelevant and there's no point in going off half-cocked and making matters worse.
It's not simple, in other words.
We might all agree that a person could recognize a duty to take action to relieve suffering after a hurricane or typhoon, even if suffering from windstorms has been a fairly consistent feature of life in that geographical area. We might also agree that this person needs to ascertain the facts, vett the charities before contributing to them, make the most useful kinds of contributions, and so on.
All this shows we might recognize a duty toward the victims of a non-moral evil, even if the non-moral evil itself were bound to repeat.
Could there be similar duties of action toward the victims of moral evils, the evils human beings themselves cause? I would think so, and some are, for example, recognized by the UN Charter,
But what if moral evils are inevitable in human history? What if peace agreements are broken with the same regularity that hurricanes develop off the Cape Verde Islands in August? Well, perhaps we still have to negotiate peace agreements where we can, and make things temporarily and locally better.
I would think it would be the duty of every person in public life to do all in their power to make life better and more secure for the people of their nation. That duty might remain even if the long arc of history did not bend toward justice. Even if our efforts were doomed to be temporary only, I would think the duty would remain.
A side note, and I suppose it's an obvious point, but "Whig history" and "Tory history" seem to be concept fairly specifically bound to a particular nation. What if one is neither a Whig nor a Tory?
But in any case, I am not sure how relevant either narrative is to our own duty to act, if you see what I mean.
So for me the question about the Grand Narratives tends to drop out as irrelevant. The world may not be getting (overall) worse, which is where we began. On the other hand, it may not be getting (overall) better, though I'd say that in certain respects it has gotten better. We would still have a duty to act in concrete situations whether or not we could expect success.
[code]
[ 07. April 2015, 15:50: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I agree with that 100% Grammatica. I'm not sure there's much else to say now.
Save for a comment - quote:
A side note, and I suppose it's an obvious point, but "Whig history" and "Tory history" seem to be concept fairly specifically bound to a particular nation. What if one is neither a Whig nor a Tory?
It's just the context of their original appearance I think. We don't have whigs any more and barely any tories save as a synonym for members of the conservative party (not quite the same thing). Moreover, most people who use the term point out that not everyone in those parties thought that way. I'm sure you could trace similar tendencies in other cultures. I've never tried and wouldn't immediately know where to look. Save for the already noted parallels in US culture of course.
Possibly a rebrand is in order, but the term is definitely in regular use still over here.
[ 07. April 2015, 19:36: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Whig history etc and the various terrible wars in the 20th century are beside the point of the topic aren't they? The topic was the progression, it seemed, to a vision and practice of something better in the last 40 years or so in the 20th century, and the subsequent degradation of it. Thus, the persecution of social and racial groups, the reduction of discrimination, etc prove the point. We were doing better and moving toward better in out optimism for the future. Now, we're heading toward a pessimistic future of an overheated planet full of terror. So it seems.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
no prophet - that discussion was about the applicability of these longer historical narratives. The whig thing was just for illustration purposes as it happened to present itself in Pinker's book.
It's certainly the case that some things have gone backwards. I don't disagree with you at all on that. My comment would be that you were naive to think it was all going to go well indefinitely. And to turn that right around, to point out that there are quite likely things that are close to other peoples' hearts that in the long run will be seen unequivocally as progress, and which you are missing now. They may not be in your country of course.
But yes, things can get worse. History suggests they can get very bad indeed. But two steps forward and one back still nets out at one forward.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
But yes, things can get worse. History suggests they can get very bad indeed. But two steps forward and one back still nets out at one forward.
Thank-you for the clarification.
However, can I truly reassure myself that it is indeed, net at one step forward? I fear one step backward, or more.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Have we changed? Are we more accepting of violence, disparity between rich and poor, instrumental violence, collateral damage, war? I think the start of more acceptance of these things was 11 Sept 2001, with an acute sense of grievance, anger, resentment building with every report of another attack or act, lately a shootup or beheading. With the attackers seeming fully 'other', less than human.
It almost seems we have seen a change is the concept of humanity and human worth, with the terrible experiences, mostly vicarious, of terrorism, than was the case before. Have we gotten used to this? (Notwithstanding our hundredfold retaliation. )
I disagree, I think in many places we've become much more sensitized. A lot of problems that we bother to pay attention to now, I think, wouldn't have been noticed before.
Perhaps also it's reached a point where it's the ones who don't have that kind of empathy stick out instead of feeling "normal."
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
The Whig theory of history is usually blamed on Thomas Babington Macaulay. Macaulay didn't believe that progress was inevitable - he was aware, for example, of the fall of the Roman Empire and held (rightly or wrongly) that China had stagnated for centuries. Macaulay's view of progress was that, by and large, things had got better in Britain since the Norman Conquest and if representative institutions, the rule of law and the free market stayed in place things would continue to get better, in Britain. Inasmuch as other countries followed that lead they would get better too. Now that may, or may not, be a defensible thesis but it is not a glib assumption that every day and in every way things will get better or better.
I'm less au fait with Pinker's latest magnum opus but I did see the statistics which led Pinker to conclude that the An Lushan revolt in China was more devastating than the Holocaust. Three problems struck me. Firstly that Pinker takes no account of the time scale. An atrocity which kills x number of people in 12 months is more serious than an atrocity which kills x number of people in 12 years. Secondly, Pinker insists on treating deaths as a percentage of the global population, which effectively rigs his figures so that nothing short of a thermonuclear war in our era would count. In any event, death is something we experience as individuals. I'm sure that it was no consolation to the victims of the Shoah that the increased population of the US since independence meant that their deaths represented a lower proportion of the global population. Thirdly, there are limits to the extent to which statistics are helpful in these things. Historians differ as to whether the census statistics as to the population of China, during the An Lushan revolt, were a reflection of mass slaughter or the merely that large numbers of peasants decided to duck out of the tax system.
So broadly speaking I prefer Macaulay because his theory of progress is contingent upon certain specific conditions whereas Pinker is content to surf on an indefinite zeitgeist.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Have we changed? Are we more accepting of violence, disparity between rich and poor, instrumental violence, collateral damage, war? I think the start of more acceptance of these things was 11 Sept 2001, with an acute sense of grievance, anger, resentment building with every report of another attack or act, lately a shootup or beheading. With the attackers seeming fully 'other', less than human.
It almost seems we have seen a change is the concept of humanity and human worth, with the terrible experiences, mostly vicarious, of terrorism, than was the case before. Have we gotten used to this? (Notwithstanding our hundredfold retaliation. )
Who are "we"?
You are expressing the attitude of a minority, a section of the Western middle- class soft-left, not that of all humanity world wide.
I would have thought that those who carry out 9/11, the indiscriminate shootings, and the online beheadings, are the ones who are most egregiously treating their opponents as "the other' and "less than human".
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The view from here is that things were definitely better in the decade we call call the 1960s,
Bullshit.
I demonstrated against the Vietnam War, not because I supported that arsehole Ho Chi Minh and his neo-Stalinist thugs, but because I believed (and I'm still not sure whether I was right) that they represented the lesser of two evils compared with the sufferings being imposed on the Vietnamese people by the continuation of the war.
Many of my fellow demonstrators, however, supported not only Ho, but Mao, history's worst mass murderer, whose icon they often displayed on their walls.
And precious few of them have since protested against the Hanoi dictatorship, despite the fact that they themselves would find it intolerable (probably a bit of racism here; Asians don't miss liberal democracy like we would?); in fact, some of them are happy to treat Vietnam as a cheap, trendy holiday destination.
The Sixties anti-war movement was far from being some sort of moral high point from which we have since declined.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
In the 1960s you could find in the newspapers the job listings divided into Men, Women, Colored Men, and Colored Women. It was a grand decade -- if you were a white man.
In the 1960s it would have been illegal for me to be married to my husband, in the state (Virginia) that I now live and work in. (He is white.) A number of laws about adultery, sodomy, etc. were still on the books as well.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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