Thread: The world now and then Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
13 April, 2016 14:04
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I have been reading Tom Wright's book "Simply Good News"
As I read it, he is equivocal about whether the world has become a better place for people to live, over the last 2000 years.
I am convinced it has. My grand daughter seems to agree but puts it all down to the enlightenment etc. - which is a common view.
I know I am treading on someones threads but I think that today's world is the outcome (not finality) of the planting of the Kingdom of God by Jesus.
Does the Crew believe that there is less suffering and a better life overall for people now, than has ever been?
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
13 April, 2016 14:28
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It might seem that there is less suffering in the world when looking at it from the perspective of a country in which health care is readily available to most people.
Sadly, many people in the world don't have access to the basics of regular nourishing meals, clean water, shelter from the elements or health care.
I do put progress in some countries down to the effects of Christian values, but see this in waves rather than in a steady upward flow over time.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
13 April, 2016 14:44
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Have a look at Stephen Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature. He argues that not only has humanity become less violent, it is measurable (and he has about a million graphs to back it up). It is one of those books that you finish, and put down praying, "Oh Jesus, let Stephen Pinker be right!"
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
13 April, 2016 15:22
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I don't know about this. The problem I have is how you define "better".
I have already lived beyond my life expectancy 2000 years ago. But is that better? Or just different? What are the costs of this globally? Is the fact that I live longer an implication of a better world - or maybe a worse one.
And there are many places where life expectancy is little or no better than 2000 years ago. And there are many who would have died very early 2000 years ago, who now live a life of suffering. I am not saying that is necessarily worse, but does it make things better.
2000 years ago, I would have expected to have been threatened by my overlords. As long as I was subservient, this threat was largely mitigated. Today, I am threatened by people I have never met, and cannot mitigate this, because the threats are random.
Is this better? Is a world with more technology, with all the developments from 2000 years of religious and enlightenment development definitively better, when so much of that "progress" has an aspect that is aggressive and making the world a more dangerous place?
I don't know the answer. But I can see good arguments both ways. Sometimes I think all of the progress we have made has simply made new ways for some people to oppress others. It may be that it feels better, because I am more part of the oppressor than the oppressed.
There is a sense that the global community means that our understanding of oppression is much greater, and our possibilities of making a difference is greater, but we don't. In a world with vastly greater differences between the top 1% and the bottom 1%, I struggle to see that this is definitively better.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
13 April, 2016 15:29
:
I have the feeling that in the West, we may have passed peek good. We will have it worse than our parents when it comes to housing, health care, pensions … And our children may have it worse than us.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
13 April, 2016 16:30
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Questions like this always hinge on who you mean. No doubt, that I am better off materially than my grandparents, who lived in a slum, with an outside loo, and never had foreign holidays.
However, are the Amazonian tribes better off, now that their land is encroached by logging and oil? They may get more money, but they may lose their land in the end, hunting rights, and so on.
Also depends on your criteria, material, cultural, spiritual, and so on.
I've no idea what effects Christianity has had, for good or ill. Have a guess.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
13 April, 2016 16:39
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Pinker's book has been severely criticised by his peers.
Wright's book is considerably better and more realistic (and I am no fan of Tom Wright).
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
13 April, 2016 16:43
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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I don't know about this. The problem I have is how you define "better".
I have already lived beyond my life expectancy 2000 years ago. But is that better? Or just different? What are the costs of this globally? Is the fact that I live longer an implication of a better world - or maybe a worse one.
No, it's a better one. If I thought a better world were one where I'd died at 40 I'd logically be booking a place at that Swiss clinic. No, we know it's better, because we go to the doctor when we're ill. If we didn't think it was better having doctors, why bother seeing them?
quote:
And there are many places where life expectancy is little or no better than 2000 years ago. And there are many who would have died very early 2000 years ago, who now live a life of suffering. I am not saying that is necessarily worse, but does it make things better.
And there are many who live lives where there is considerably less suffering than if they'd been alive 2000 years ago. Chronic pain's bad enough, but it's worse without morphine.
quote:
2000 years ago, I would have expected to have been threatened by my overlords. As long as I was subservient, this threat was largely mitigated. Today, I am threatened by people I have never met, and cannot mitigate this, because the threats are random.
But also very, very small. The threat of being mistreated by overlords was very real. The threat of being blown up by ISIS is absolutely tiny.
quote:
Is this better? Is a world with more technology, with all the developments from 2000 years of religious and enlightenment development definitively better, when so much of that "progress" has an aspect that is aggressive and making the world a more dangerous place?
I don't know the answer. But I can see good arguments both ways. Sometimes I think all of the progress we have made has simply made new ways for some people to oppress others. It may be that it feels better, because I am more part of the oppressor than the oppressed.
No, it feels better because I can get glasses to overcome the fact that I'd have been half blind 2000 years ago, unable to see clearly more than a few inches. I'd have probably been savagely beaten as a child frequently just a century or less ago, made to work in an unsafe factory or sent up chimneys. As an adult I could have looked forward to more of the same, or living a hand to mouth existence in the countryside at the mercy of the harvest. Just two hundred years ago, in this country, I could have been hanged at 8 years old for petty theft. Seems a better world to me.
quote:
There is a sense that the global community means that our understanding of oppression is much greater, and our possibilities of making a difference is greater, but we don't. In a world with vastly greater differences between the top 1% and the bottom 1%, I struggle to see that this is definitively better.
Sure, it's not perfect, but it's a lot better.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
13 April, 2016 17:02
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And for the majority of the human race -- the female portion -- it is unquestionably better now. Not for all women, all over, but more now than ever before. Birth control alone has changed everything.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
13 April, 2016 18:17
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Birth control alone has changed everything.
Yes, and not forgetting that the chief body set up to promote the Kingdom of Christ has done, and still does it's damnedest to supress the use of contraceptives.
I call it a bit rich for Christianity to try and take the credit for the last 2000 years of human advancement. Take Ancient Egypt for example they look like they were pretty clued up. The first known civilisation to use condoms AIUI.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
13 April, 2016 18:32
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Birth control alone has changed everything.
Yes, and not forgetting that the chief body set up to promote the Kingdom of Christ has done, and still does it's damnedest to supress the use of contraceptives.
I call it a bit rich for Christianity to try and take the credit for the last 2000 years of human advancement. Take Ancient Egypt for example they look like they were pretty clued up. The first known civilisation to use condoms AIUI.
I just don't know how one can make such claims, except as a guess. I don't mean this purely in relation to Christianity, but most influences. How can we ever separate out all the variables, and ascribe especial significance to one of them?
They used to say that the French Revolution was caused by shifts in class structure - a guess, I think.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
13 April, 2016 18:44
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I have already lived beyond my life expectancy 2000 years ago. But is that better? Or just different?
Are you saying you would rather be dead? It's still an option if one is serious, but most people prefer life so I think the consensus is that it's better.
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
And there are many places where life expectancy is little or no better than 2000 years ago.
I don't think that is true. Life expectancy is up even in the poorest areas of Africa. Where is it no better?
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
13 April, 2016 19:46
:
Originally posted by rolyn: quote:
I call it a bit rich for Christianity to try and take the credit for the last 2000 years of human advancement. Take Ancient Egypt for example they look like they were pretty clued up. The first known civilisation to use condoms AIUI.
As I understand it, there have been about 16 major civilisations which have made little progress beyond some advanced maths and ceramics. Very little in the way of care for the individual citizen, let alone women.
According to Rodney Stark (The rise of Christianity) it was the change, started by the effect of Jesus’ life and death which has made our Western world what it is.
Maybe the Church has fouled things up at times but seems to be learning better ways now.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
13 April, 2016 20:44
:
Karl - I do take your points. I was trying to question whether the things that we assume are "better" actually are.
In evolutionary terms, of course, my life expectancy is irrelevant. I have done my job, so anything else is irrelevant. If globally, my life expectancy was at the cost of others, then is that worth while? And do I know what the cost of my living longer actually is?
The significant increase in mental health issues we have seen in the West over the last decade or so might be a suggestion that life is not better for us. It is different, but until we define "better" in a realistic way, we cannot say what is better and what is not.
So yes, I do think we - those I know and associate with - have life very much better than we would have 2000 years ago. Just this week, I had someone take a look inside my stomach, while I had no memory of the process - that is a remarkable achievement. I do not question that this technological progress saves lives. But does that make life better? On a global level? Because the cost of doing that might be better spent on less well off people and allowing them to eat for another day.
I don't think the question is an easy one. It seems like an easy question, but I think Wright has a point in raising it, and questioning it. It doesn't mean that he is right, but that it is a valid question to ask.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
13 April, 2016 21:01
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I think for women it is an easy question.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
13 April, 2016 21:18
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Abso-blooming-lutely.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
13 April, 2016 21:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
In evolutionary terms, of course, my life expectancy is irrelevant. I have done my job, so anything else is irrelevant. If globally, my life expectancy was at the cost of others, then is that worth while? And do I know what the cost of my living longer actually is?
The biggest boost to average life expectancy in most places has been in the form of reduced infant mortality (anyone who's missed handing in homework knows what zeroes do to averages), which is actually a pretty huge deal "in evolutionary terms".
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
13 April, 2016 22:28
:
Originally posted bySchroedinger's cat :
quote:
On a global level? Because the cost of doing that might be better spent on less well off people and allowing them to eat for another day.
There was a news report the other day that more than half the worlds population was now obese.
It does seem to me that on balance the Crew agree that the world is becoming a better place to live.
Even the Amazonian tribes who might say that they want to live the traditional way of life seem to dress in western clothes if they can get some.
quote:
until we define "better" in a realistic way, we cannot say what is better and what is not.
'Better' seems to mean a preferable way of life to the one you have and I think the tendency is a drift towards western values which have a Christian basis.
What used to puzzle me is that so much good work is being done by people who worry little about Christianity - let alone its traditional message.
This now appears to me to be the Kingdom of God working itself out irrespective of the Christian Church. I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
13 April, 2016 22:42
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Pinker's book has been severely criticised by his peers.
The criticism, from my reading, is mostly quibbling. I think that Pinker's larger points stand.
Another take on this is Max Weber's concept of the rationalization of society. As time goes by the advance of knowledge and technology lead to societies that are organized, so that there are, for example, laws based on something approximating rational thought, and where those laws are enforced.
These advances generally lead to improvements in fairness and equity, in nutrition and healthcare, and in the reduction of crime.
However the improvements that come about as a result of these advances are mostly confined to areas that are tangible and measurable.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
13 April, 2016 22:56
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Not having read Pinker's book, how does it explain the incredible changes in western civilisation when so many others (e.g. chinese, indian, aztec or dare I say it, Islamic)have failed miserably to do anything like it?
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
13 April, 2016 23:19
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Are we talking about changes in attitudes or changes in technology?
Deep seated attitudes have only changed relatively recently. Taking the one example of improved freedom for women in parts of the world. How can this be attributed to a religious doctrine that has advocated female suppression for two Millennia?
The rapid changes in the technology, which most marvel as having improved our lot, have only come about largely through massive advances in the exploitation of oil and electronics
As my sig shows I do subscribe to a form of Christian faith following an adult conversion, so I could believe that Jesus pointing the way to a new relationship with God has, in a mysterious indirect way, been responsible for all subsequent human advancement, (everything being God's Will etc.). But looking at the near inversely proportional decline in Christianity in the very places where most recent advances have occurred makes it extremely hard for me to award the credit to this particular faith over and above other factors.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
13 April, 2016 23:54
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I think one could have made just as good a case that the world was getting inexorably better as Pinker does 105 years ago. Whether you could have 95 years ago I'm not sure. There's a risk of sampling error.
The overall thesis that the world is getting better is probably right, if we discount the possibility of environmental collapse in the next hundred years.
I think that's a large thing to discount.
On the other hand, I think there's a danger of the thesis being put to political misuse, by breeding complacency about our current short-term course. In particular, I get the impression that in some ways it is a successor to Fukuyama's End of History thesis, which basically proclaimed that neoliberal capitalism had won and history had come to a .
Just because neoliberal capitalism has come along at the end of six thousand years of improvement in the human condition doesn't necessarily mean it's entitled to take all the credit. Nor even that it's continuing the same trajectory. There's some evidence that it's putting the trajectory into reverse. It would be dangerous to give the neoliberal version of capitalism the credit for a period of growth that happened under the Keynesian post-war consensus.
Another problem that the thesis might make us overlook is that while we're I think at the longest period of continuous peace in west and central Europe and north America ever, this isn't true of the rest of the world. There's reason to think that some of the peace and prosperity in west Europe and North America is bought at the price of instability to the Middle East and Africa. It may not be the case that the same trajectory can be followed in the rest of the world as has been followed in west Europe and north America, unless west Europe and north America make some sacrifices. And the thesis, it seems to me, might encourage us to think no sacrifices need be made.
[ 13. April 2016, 22:58: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
14 April, 2016 00:56
:
Pinker's thesis is not that the world is getting better per se. This is difficult to measure. It is that the world is getting less violent and painful, which is easier to quantify. The number of people who die untimely, the number who are executed, the relative ookiness and goriness of their ends -- these can be tabulated more easily. And it could well be that if you do not die by torture your life is better, right there, putting every other consideration aside. He argues that even taking in all the widely-known bloodbaths of the last century-- the World Wars, 9-11, nuclear blasts, etc. -- we are still less violent than ever before in human history. We are deceived by these events' nearness to us in time, their attendant anecdotal power (Grandpa fought in the Great War) and by their well-documented nature -- the newsreels and photographs and in-your-face records. But analyzed numerically, we are getting better. Please God, may it be true.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
14 April, 2016 05:58
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The significant increase in mental health issues we have seen in the West over the last decade or so might be a suggestion that life is not better for us. It is different, but until we define "better" in a realistic way, we cannot say what is better and what is not.
The apparent increase in mental health issues may well be better recognition. I don't think we have any direct evidence of an increase.
I think staying alive is better in a realistic way. Violent death is also a realistic criteria for judging improvement. There are also DALYs and QALYs that can be used to compare lives saved in health economics.
What would you want from a more realistic criteria?
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
14 April, 2016 10:35
:
Originally posted by rolyn
quote:
Are we talking about changes in attitudes or changes in technology?
Surely it is changes in attitude which have made the world better. No civilisations prior to the Christian one have been taught to relieve suffering at the cost of personal sacrifice except that "sometimes a good man will lay down his life for his friend".
Certainly the links between technological improvements, say the invention of reading glasses, and attitudes are difficult to show but in today’s world it is bloody obvious.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
14 April, 2016 10:48
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The significant increase in mental health issues we have seen in the West over the last decade or so might be a suggestion that life is not better for us. It is different, but until we define "better" in a realistic way, we cannot say what is better and what is not.
The apparent increase in mental health issues may well be better recognition. I don't think we have any direct evidence of an increase.
I think staying alive is better in a realistic way. Violent death is also a realistic criteria for judging improvement. There are also DALYs and QALYs that can be used to compare lives saved in health economics.
What would you want from a more realistic criteria?
Your point about mental health resonated. It's very difficult to look back and say, oh, people were less fucked up, when in fact, there was very little recourse for them, if they did feel fucked up. It couldn't be named in a secular context.
Freud used to comment about Viennese women, who were married and sexually frustrated, that at least modern society enables them to take a lover. The alternative was silent misery, but then it became possible to give this a name, and the psychological disciplines were born, (approximately speaking, since Nietzsche had anticipated most of it).
But I think the point made by a few people about women is very striking - here we can see repression being lifted to an extent. After all, married women were non-persons in England via coverture.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
14 April, 2016 11:11
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Another problem that the thesis might make us overlook is that while we're I think at the longest period of continuous peace in west and central Europe and north America ever, this isn't true of the rest of the world.
No it isn't, but the rest of the world isn't any worse than it used to be either. An improvement in one area while everywhere else remains the same still adds up to an overall improvement.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
14 April, 2016 12:02
:
quetzalcoatl wrote: quote:
But I think the point made by a few people about women is very striking - here we can see repression being lifted to an extent. After all, married women were non-persons in England via coverture.
That's true. But it relies upon using a time-frame niftily chosen to show up the fact.
Coverture was a Norman introduction. It's original imposition was upon the Norman ruling class, and on such of the Anglo-Saxon underclass that had any resources that had not been appropriated. The further you went down the hierarchy, the less it meant.
But then came the regularization of the law and its application - a long process that you could probably say started with Magna Carta, but took off following the collapse of feudalism. And that meant more and more that coverture got applied to the situation of all women. In this respect, probably the worst time to be a married woman was probably 1881, the year before the Married Women's Property Act.
In the longer run, we would have to consider the position of women in Anglo-Saxon society (no coverture), Romano-British society (probably depended on which kind of marriage you had opted for), and pre-Roman Celtic society (hard to tell, but it appears to be much more equitable than most till recently).
So in the long term, the argument about repression in the context of the right of married women to manage their own civic affairs depends very much on the timeframe you put around it. There has been no long-term march towards the sunny uplands. Indeed, there have been centuries of marching backwards.
The reason for holding forth on this is that the grand narrative can all too easily obscure the fine detail of what is going on, but it is the fine detail that is what we experience in our own lives.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
14 April, 2016 12:21
:
Good points, HRB. It also depends on how much one applies the theory of patriarchy, i.e. that men have generally controlled women, women's bodies, women's sexuality, and so on, since the year dot.
I don't know enough about it in historical and anthropological terms, to say whether or not this is an over-generalization, and whether, for example, it has been untrue in some societies at some times.
I suppose one interesting factor today is that it's possible to have a theory of patriarchy, although again, it depends on how it's applied. But probably some feminists would see this as consciousness raising, or consciousness having been risen!
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
14 April, 2016 12:26
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Pinker's thesis is not that the world is getting better per se. This is difficult to measure. It is that the world is getting less violent and painful, which is easier to quantify. The number of people who die untimely, the number who are executed, the relative ookiness and goriness of their ends -- these can be tabulated more easily. And it could well be that if you do not die by torture your life is better, right there, putting every other consideration aside. He argues that even taking in all the widely-known bloodbaths of the last century-- the World Wars, 9-11, nuclear blasts, etc. -- we are still less violent than ever before in human history. We are deceived by these events' nearness to us in time, their attendant anecdotal power (Grandpa fought in the Great War) and by their well-documented nature -- the newsreels and photographs and in-your-face records. But analyzed numerically, we are getting better. Please God, may it be true.
I share your desire that it may be so. But contra Freddy, the critiques of Pinker's thesis are pretty weighty. I'm not sure what the outcome of considering both together might be. It's a work in progress as far as I am concerned.
But in any event, I agree with you that Pinker's thesis is not about the world being a better place, full stop. It is in respect of one (very important) area of improvement. ISTM that most people have been answering some question other than in the OP in one way or another. So maybe 2/10 for effort alone.
His argument is a form of narrative that has been around for a long time. The academic areas of History of Ideas and Intellectual History have quite a bit of literature on it. His main departure is to back it up with statistics, thereby attempting to make it empirically demonstrable. So any critique will need to address those areas.
However, I have to say that we've been long on assertion so far. That's not going to get us anywhere, and actually is disrespectful of Pinker's approach. Moreover, the original OP asked us to comment on a choice of two views - Pinker's, as discussed above, and Wright's, which if I understand it, is that progress is possible, in certain areas, but is not guaranteed.
[ 14. April 2016, 11:28: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
14 April, 2016 13:43
:
I get the impression that some have read Pinker‘s “THE BETTER ANGELS……..etc“. I have no wish to immediately start ploughing through his book, but I am genuinely curious, - does he suggest why all other major civilisations (e.g. chinese, indian, aztec or dare I say it, Islamic) have failed to initiate the technological advance we see today?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
14 April, 2016 14:36
:
No. Because the book isn't about technology or its impact. It's about violence and pain. Which of course technology can help you with, both for better (anesthesia) or for worse (atomic bombs).
One of the theses of his book is that we no longer approve of violence and torture. It used to be that torturing people, or animals, was an entertainment. Bull-baiting, dogfights, setting slaves to kill each other in the arena, watching a hanging with drawing and quartering -- all fun! Let's go, and bring the kids! Agony and bloodshed did not elicit sympathy and empathy. It elicited "C'mon, sock him again!" Nor did Christianity (for a long time) ameliorate this much.
We don't feel that way any more. The social disapproval now is overwhelming, to the point where people who want to do bullfights have to argue in favor of it. Executions are on the decline. Vegetarianism is on the rise. We are a kinder, more sympathetic species now, and this is good.
I was in Sausalito, CA some years ago. It is on San Francisco Bay, and there was a man fishing from the dock. He caught a fish, quite a big one, and pulled it out. He seemed about to hit it on the head and take it home for dinner. (I believe there was a companion with whom he was discussing this plan.) All of a sudden the townspeople gathered around. Ominously. There were spectators, many of them, and they were not there for the death. They were there to indicate that that fish had better be released and tossed back into the water. I don't think that the fishermen would have been strung up from the nearest lamp post, had they dared to kill that fish. But the feeling of the community was unanimous. You could fish from our dock. But you couldn't kill the fish.
I will point out that this is in northern California, which may not be like where you and I live. But consider how very, very different this community feeling is, than it would have been at any point in our past.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
14 April, 2016 15:51
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
I used to think that - a combination of my socialism and the idea that we are building God's kingdom on earth - but I stopped belioeving it when thatcher came to power in 1978 and undid all the improvements we had mae - and again when the coalition came to power in 2010.
For every step forwards, it seems we fall back too.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
14 April, 2016 17:36
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Another problem that the thesis might make us overlook is that while we're I think at the longest period of continuous peace in west and central Europe and north America ever, this isn't true of the rest of the world.
No it isn't, but the rest of the world isn't any worse than it used to be either. An improvement in one area while everywhere else remains the same still adds up to an overall improvement.
It does. But it doesn't mean that the process that leads to improvement in one area is necessarily going to lead to an improvement in every area.
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on
14 April, 2016 17:56
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
I used to think that - a combination of my socialism and the idea that we are building God's kingdom on earth - but I stopped belioeving it when thatcher came to power in 1978 and undid all the improvements we had mae - and again when the coalition came to power in 2010.
For every step forwards, it seems we fall back too.
Crikey - so Hiroshima, Hitler, Stalin and Mao failed to dent your optimistic view of history, but a few years of old Maggie blew it away?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
14 April, 2016 18:20
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I get the impression that some have read Pinker‘s “THE BETTER ANGELS……..etc“. I have no wish to immediately start ploughing through his book, but I am genuinely curious, - does he suggest why all other major civilisations (e.g. chinese, indian, aztec or dare I say it, Islamic) have failed to initiate the technological advance we see today?
I would say that he suggests that all civilizations are impacted by these changes - some more, some less.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
14 April, 2016 18:36
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
One of the theses of his book is that we no longer approve of violence and torture. It used to be that torturing people, or animals, was an entertainment.
I agree that this is a truly remarkable development, and one that is emphasized in the book.
One thing that strikes me, however, is how the progress in these areas is limited to things that are tangible and measurable. Violence and cruelty are sensitive to exposure - and once exposed people find ways to oppose them.
The same is true for hunger, disease, fraud and theft. Once they are detected and exposed people do everything they can to eradicate them.
One measure of a developed economy is the extent to which the above issues have been successfully dealt with.
But there are deeper, less tangible issues that have enormous effects on our well-being. Things like our relationship with God, sexual morality, our success in finding friendship, and forming intimate relationships, are things that do not seem to get better in a more organized society. In many ways the developments that bring about so many obvious improvements seem to do the opposite in these areas.
I'm not sure how Wright deals with this aspect of how society has changed.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
14 April, 2016 18:53
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
But there are deeper, less tangible issues that have enormous effects on our well-being. Things like our relationship with God, sexual morality, our success in finding friendship, and forming intimate relationships, are things that do not seem to get better in a more organized society. In many ways the developments that bring about so many obvious improvements seem to do the opposite in these areas. [/QB]
I think it is OK that we are dealing with the low-hanging fruit first. If you are about to be drawn and quartered (and the entire town is gathering around to enjoy your agony, passing the popcorn and bringing the lawn chairs and the frisbees) then the concerns you mention are less relevant. To go back to the OP, I think it is fair to say that we are indeed better than we were two thousand years ago. We can do better yet. But we are better now.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
14 April, 2016 20:25
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
But there are deeper, less tangible issues that have enormous effects on our well-being. Things like our relationship with God, sexual morality, our success in finding friendship, and forming intimate relationships, are things that do not seem to get better in a more organized society. In many ways the developments that bring about so many obvious improvements seem to do the opposite in these areas.
I think it is OK that we are dealing with the low-hanging fruit first. If you are about to be drawn and quartered (and the entire town is gathering around to enjoy your agony, passing the popcorn and bringing the lawn chairs and the frisbees) then the concerns you mention are less relevant. To go back to the OP, I think it is fair to say that we are indeed better than we were two thousand years ago. We can do better yet. But we are better now. [/QB]
These things vary from country to country, so you'll need to refer to your own histories elsewhere. But you mentioned hanging, drawing and quartering, which was an especially barbaric English method of execution. Probably the most insanely sadistic that can be imagined, up there with crucifixion. And as it's one we have to be honest is part of our history I hope you won't mind if I address it.
But in the words of the English Legal History website - quote:
The legal history of capital punishment in the United Kingdom is an interesting one and ranges across many centuries from the extreme of having no crimes strictly punishable by death to a multitude and back to none.
Which makes my point really. When it came to capital punishment, we were in a poor way by the 18th century. It took us around six centuries to get there, but we managed to move from no crimes punishable by death to 220 of them at peak. Including "being in the company of gypsies for one month". In fact it was one of my unsung heroes, Samuel Romilly, who deserves a lot of the credit for starting to push things in the opposite direction. He only managed to get rid of two of them, but he changed the mood of the country. It won't be a big surprise that he was a supporter of William Wilberforce in the abolition of slavery. However, the point is that if you were writing in, say, 1800, the narrative of improvement in violence inflicted by the state, in terms of executions, would have been bleak indeed, and entirely running in the wrong direction.
And the other narrative about the crowd baying for blood is a lot more complex too. A more realistic assessment would acknowledge that if the criminal was unpopular for some reason, then yes, that could happen. But things could easily run the other way. If this was a political execution of a popular figure, the whole thing could result in a riot. Executions could be high-risk events for the powerful as well as for the victims.
Mary Tudor took the throne as a popular monarch. The country was broadly fed up with the austerities of Edward VI. But Mary became Bloody Mary and the country grew weary of the executions. And even though Elizabeth I was far more canny, some of the executions of catholic priests under her reign are recorded as going down very badly with the populace.
This is only one area of violence of course. I'm only trying to point out that - as before - when you look at the evidence in more detail, some of these assumptions of movement in one direction look rather shaky. And they are contingent on the timeframe you choose to examine them in.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
14 April, 2016 22:23
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
In the longer run, we would have to consider the position of women in Anglo-Saxon society (no coverture), Romano-British society (probably depended on which kind of marriage you had opted for), and pre-Roman Celtic society (hard to tell, but it appears to be much more equitable than most till recently).
And the experience of women in China. I read a history book that explained how despite all the depredations and oppression of Maoist China it nevertheless seems likely that the lot of women improved dramatically from second class, non-professional, foot-bound, domestic servitude under imperial China to communist equality.
I thought it was a very striking point and I have to admit had not really occurred to me before.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
14 April, 2016 22:53
:
That's probably right, mdijon. I was particularly addressing quetzalcoatl's point about coverture, which of course would not apply to China.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
15 April, 2016 01:04
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I think it is OK that we are dealing with the low-hanging fruit first.
I think that is the right way to look at it.
Interestingly, this was the kind of benefit that Rome brought to the world when Jesus was born. I think the "Life of Brian" points this out eloquently.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
15 April, 2016 09:42
:
Originally posted by Freddy quote:
I would say that he suggests that all civilizations are impacted by these changes - some more, some less.
.......Sorry I can't make head nor tail of this answer to my question which asked if Pinker's book explained why previous civilisations had failed to make the technological leap of the Christian one.
quote:
But there are deeper, less tangible issues that have enormous effects on our well-being. Things like our relationship with God, sexual morality, our success in finding friendship, and forming intimate relationships, are things that do not seem to get better in a more organized society. In many ways the developments that bring about so many obvious improvements seem to do the opposite in these areas.
I think that you have come near the truth here.
Tom Wright takes a conventional view of personal salvation in the book but fails, I think, to make the most important connection.
That is that we are creatures of nurture far more than nature. So a change in society can occur, but only over many generations.
Without a conviction of the truth about ourselves, nothing will ever start to change. As is evidenced by the fact of the kind of stasis that was the only result of civilizations prior to Christian.
I believe this is the whole point of Jesus teaching about salt, yeast, light etc. changing society for the better. And more poignantly, at this time of year, about a seed falling into the ground and dying.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
15 April, 2016 11:02
:
quote:
.......Sorry I can't make head nor tail of this answer to my question which asked if Pinker's book explained why previous civilisations had failed to make the technological leap of the Christian one.
shadeson - I presume you mean the current technological paradigm? (I don't think you should overlook the historical pre-eminence of other cultures' technical achievements which in their time eclipsed those of our current culture.) If so, it's an interesting question, but you are probably asking it of the wrong writer. In fact you probably need to ask it of historians and philosophers of science.
I can't remember whether Pinker touches on it - he does sometimes go off-piste in the book, but I originally read a borrowed copy so can't look it up. But as Brenda Clough said, the book is about something else.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
15 April, 2016 11:24
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Originally posted by Freddy quote:
I would say that he suggests that all civilizations are impacted by these changes - some more, some less.
.......Sorry I can't make head nor tail of this answer to my question which asked if Pinker's book explained why previous civilisations had failed to make the technological leap of the Christian one.
Thanks for clarifying. I thought you meant current ones.
I don't think that Pinker really gets involved in comparing cultures. He mainly starts from the premise that declining violence follows the increase in knowledge and technology, so he goes with that in whatever form the progress takes.
Personally I am happy to attribute all of it to the work of God in Judaism and Christianity - and in fact to His work in all world religions.
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on
15 April, 2016 11:26
:
quote:
originally posted by Freddy
But there are deeper, less tangible issues that have enormous effects on our well-being. Things like our relationship with God, sexual morality, our success in finding friendship, and forming intimate relationships, are things that do not seem to get better in a more organized society. In many ways the developments that bring about so many obvious improvements seem to do the opposite in these areas.
Of course, such things are hard to quantify. We might know that Old Noll and Charles I had loving and intimate relationships with their respective wives, Henry VIII and George IV not so much, but this doesn't really tell us much about the totality who were historically silent. The fact that between 3% and 10% of adult women living in Victorian London seemed to have engaged in, at least part time, prostitution, suggests that things in the garden weren't particuarly rosy, (though London, of course, isn't the world, and great port city will always be overrepresented in the prostitution stakes).
I think it extremely likely that things on the personal intimacy scheme haven't changed that much, or, if they have they have changed for the better, but the perception is altered by the amount of data available now as opposed to then. We have to be as careful to discount the "Eastenders" effect now as we are to discount the unofficially censored historical records of those with a vested interest in presenting their society as more moral than it really was.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
15 April, 2016 11:48
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I have been reading Tom Wright's book "Simply Good News"
As I read it, he is equivocal about whether the world has become a better place for people to live, over the last 2000 years.
I am convinced it has. My grand daughter seems to agree but puts it all down to the enlightenment etc. - which is a common view.
I know I am treading on someones threads but I think that today's world is the outcome (not finality) of the planting of the Kingdom of God by Jesus.
Does the Crew believe that there is less suffering and a better life overall for people now, than has ever been?
Can I just take us back to the OP?
My interest was initially engaged by the suggestion that Pinker's book may address some aspects of this. I haven't read Wright's book, but if he is indeed expressing equivocation on whether "the world is a better place", that's not really disagreeing with Pinker. For all I know, he may agree with the thesis that levels of violence have been falling.
But on the subject of The Enlightenment -
quote:
My grand daughter seems to agree but puts it all down to the enlightenment etc. - which is a common view.
Yes, it's often heard, though rarely backed up with facts. For myself, I would want to acknowledge the positives, but we shouldn't just airbrush away the negatives as well. And there were plenty of them. I don't raise the fact to start a debate, but simply to say that if you want to address the relative levels of suffering, happiness etc. pre- and post- some event or paradigm shift, then just looking at the good whilst ignoring the bad makes no sense at all. Your answer can only be "better" because your way of investigating it has pre-determined the matter already.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
15 April, 2016 12:20
:
On the issue of bloody spectacles, I am reminded of this section in St Augustine's Confessions:
quote:
13. He, not relinquishing that worldly way which his parents had bewitched him to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study law, and there he was carried away in an extraordinary manner with an incredible eagerness after the gladiatorial shows. For, being utterly opposed to and detesting such spectacles, he was one day met by chance by various of his acquaintance and fellow-students returning from dinner, and they with a friendly violence drew him, vehemently objecting and resisting, into the amphitheatre, on a day of these cruel and deadly shows, he thus protesting: Though you drag my body to that place, and there place me, can you force me to give my mind and lend my eyes to these shows? Thus shall I be absent while present, and so shall overcome both you and them. They hearing this, dragged him on nevertheless, desirous, perchance, to see whether he could do as he said. When they had arrived there, and had taken their places as they could, the whole place became excited with the inhuman sports. But he, shutting up the doors of his eyes, forbade his mind to roam abroad after such naughtiness; and would that he had shut his ears also! For, upon the fall of one in the fight, a mighty cry from the whole audience stirring him strongly, he, overcome by curiosity, and prepared as it were to despise and rise superior to it, no matter what it were, opened his eyes, and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he desired to see, was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he on whose fall that mighty clamour was raised, which entered through his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and beating down of his soul, [...] For, directly he saw that blood, he therewith imbibed a sort of savageness; nor did he turn away, but fixed his eye, drinking in madness unconsciously, and was delighted with the guilty contest, and drunken with the bloody pastime. Nor was he now the same he came in, but was one of the throng he came unto, and a true companion of those who had brought him there.
Which suggests to me both a.) Even in Roman times some people thought bloodthirsty sports were immoral, but also b.) If any of us were magically transported to that time, we might find we have more bloodlust in us than we want to admit.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
15 April, 2016 12:59
:
I suppose that many Christians want to see Christianity as implicated in modern progress, since presumably the 'God of history' leads somewhere, or has a goal, a direction. Fair enough, but it seems a bit lame to me to say that there has been progress in the West, the West has been mainly Christian, therefore the root of progress is Christian. Or maybe that is too crude a summary.
It sounds like post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
15 April, 2016 15:48
:
There is another way to think about this. Before you can do it, you have to imagine it. (Alan Moore, the comic book writer, has said that all wars are firstly a failure of the imagination. Fiction writers have the specific task of imagining it, and holding it up so that the rest of us can look at it and try it on for size.)
So: what Jesus did was to hold it up. Love your neighbor. Don't sit down and enjoy that Samaritan's misery, but help him. Neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free, but a family of God.
It might not have been utterly novel -- you can probably dig up an older iteration of these concepts somewhere in classical writing. But Jesus was the first one to run it up the flagpole in a major way. You can't be a Christian without at least paying lip service to what He said. You can imagine it.
And once we could see it, and try it on, we gradually became able to do it. And so this may account for our dim and halting progress in the past two millennia. Because we have indeed progressed, yay, go us!
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
15 April, 2016 16:20
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose that many Christians want to see Christianity as implicated in modern progress, since presumably the 'God of history' leads somewhere, or has a goal, a direction. Fair enough, but it seems a bit lame to me to say that there has been progress in the West, the West has been mainly Christian, therefore the root of progress is Christian. Or maybe that is too crude a summary.
It sounds like post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Put like that, I agree. The problem is that it's difficult to dissociate things done during a time when most people pledged allegiance to Christianity, and which are because of that, with things done in the name of Christianity which would have been done anyway. It works both ways of course.
I think it gets easier when you look at individual examples such as founding of almshouses, the Samaritans, etc. etc.
However, the matter of the teleological view of history, which is intimately associated with what this thread is all about, is by no means confined to religious types. It can be very dangerous. There's a very interesting discussion on this subject, and its close colleague utopianism, if anybody is interested in pursuing it, in John Gray's "Black Mass".
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
15 April, 2016 16:47
:
Well, there is the old idea that the idealist is the most dangerous person in any society, as they can easily start to force you to agree with them, and then punish you, if you don't. Of course, politics is full of such movements, as well as religion.
It's customary to quote Robespierre at this point, so here goes, 'virtue without violence is impotent; terror without virtue is something something something'.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
15 April, 2016 17:17
:
Put the word "potentially" in that first line and we have agreement. We still need idealists for other things, such as supplying heads to be lopped off.
More realistically, we also need idealists for positive purposes.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
15 April, 2016 17:57
:
Robespierre also said that no-one likes armed missionaries, yet that's what he became in a way. It's so tempting, just a little extra persuasion, coercion. After all, we are bringing civilization to the unwashed, and one day, they will be grateful (and dead).
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
15 April, 2016 18:10
:
Robespierre is poison now of course. But he was a conscientious man who always lived modestly. A confirmed pacifist, a man who devoted much of his effort to the defence of the poor, and an opponent of capital punishment. Until he got into power. He genuinely believed the noble ends justified the means.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
15 April, 2016 20:31
:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl quote:
but it seems a bit lame to me to say that there has been progress in the West, the West has been mainly Christian, therefore the root of progress is Christian
I know this is all a bit off topic, but a quick check shows many civilisations lasting far longer than the Christian era barely getting beyond some good mathematics and stone buildings.
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on
15 April, 2016 22:18
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl quote:
I know this is all a bit off topic, but a quick check shows many civilisations lasting far longer than the Christian era barely getting beyond some good mathematics and stone buildings.
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundamental has changed.
For a large part standing on the shoulders of giants.
Exaggerated with a bit of chronological superiority where e-mail, webpages, google, facebook, ... each count as their own advance, but even the steam engine is sufficiently long ago to be the 'steam engine'.
In addition there are lots of things that give big feedback, it's much easier to have education if you can eat. It's a lot easier to avoid reinventing the wheel if you can google it. And certain mathematics are useful to get to Newfoundland let alone the moon.
As to why us, you can't avoid the I,C,S words either. Obviously they've worked in both directions, (shores of tripoli, and all that).
But those feedback factors mentioned above, once it's the Hindu's starving to send the grain (indirectly) to Christendom's universities* (rather than on more regional levels), then who do you expect to reach the moon first.
Also climate and other effects, in particular western europe has good weather (relatively) and got off lightly with the mongols (unlike say the Islamic world and China), while still getting the tech swapping from the east (and previously the middle east).
*ok it's more complicated than that, it's Indian's starving to grow opium to sell to the Chinese...
[ 15. April 2016, 21:19: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
15 April, 2016 23:25
:
I recently read a book that dated the scientific revolution to the fact that Columbus discovered a new continent where there wasn't supposed to be a continent. And it was that that made people start thinking that there might be knowledge to be gained that nobody had known before.
The author was unconvinced that Christianity had any causal role to play in starting the scientific revolution off. Though it occurs to me that Christianity is the only major world religion in which the central revelation is confessedly a new revelation and not a retrieval of ancient wisdom.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
16 April, 2016 03:45
:
I avoided this thread but the Columbus reference provoked me. It's all about frame of reference. If European or European descended, the party may be on. If not, you're not invited. The economic system promoted since the 1970s has been reported as increasing rich and poor gaps within developed countries, and between countries.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
16 April, 2016 04:12
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I recently read a book that dated the scientific revolution to the fact that Columbus discovered a new continent where there wasn't supposed to be a continent. And it was that that made people start thinking that there might be knowledge to be gained that nobody had known before.
That's such unmitigated crap it hardly warrants a response.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
16 April, 2016 07:17
:
Hmmm...seems to me that we've got a really tangled skein of yarn here--maybe several tangled-together skeins that picked up all sorts of detritus, had Neapolitan ice cream spilled on them, lay at tide's edge on a remote beach for a couple centuries, and picked up enough more detritus to start a cargo cult. Then someone sprinkled confetti on the whole thing, sold it to a wealthy tourist, and retired to Vermont.
--People did good works before Christianity.
--People came up with clever things before Christianity. Some examples:
"5 Advanced Ancient Technologies That Shouldn't Be Possible." (And no, not ancient astronauts.)
Ancient technology (Wikipedia).
--ISTM that, if Christianity's true, it applies to *everyone*, whether they hunt with flint-tipped spears, live in a palace, or drift around in the Int'l Space Station.
--Some of the ideas on this thread are entirely too self-congratulatory--on behalf of Christianity, Western civilization, modern times and technology, and sliced bread. Rather like humans saying that humans are the peak of all Creation.
--There's a theory that Columbus was Jewish, and converted to save his hide. So you could credit Judaism, at least as much as Christianity, for his explorations.
--Columbus was hardly the first explorer. Humans, by nature and circumstance, go elsewhere--due to curiosity, low food supplies, war, natural disasters, etc.
--Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
--This really sounds like some sort of Golden Age theory. (Wikipedia)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
16 April, 2016 08:07
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I recently read a book that dated the scientific revolution to the fact that Columbus discovered a new continent where there wasn't supposed to be a continent. And it was that that made people start thinking that there might be knowledge to be gained that nobody had known before.
That's such unmitigated crap it hardly warrants a response.
Why? (Other than that I'm trying to summarise a chapter of a book in one over-complex sentence?)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
16 April, 2016 08:09
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
There's a theory that Columbus was Jewish, and converted to save his hide. So you could credit Judaism, at least as much as Christianity, for his explorations.
The Columbus argument is from someone who doesn't credit Christianity.
(Wikipedia doesn't mention anything of Columbus having Jewish background.)
[ 16. April 2016, 07:12: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
16 April, 2016 08:29
:
"christopher columbus jewish" search at duckduckgo.
First article: "Christopher Columbus’ Jewish Roots Examined By Historians" (HuffPost).
FWIW, Dafyd: Sounds like you're assuming it has anti-Christian roots, rather than having heard/read anything about it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
16 April, 2016 09:44
:
Golden Key wrote:
quote:
--Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
Yes, this one baffled me. I suppose smartphones were intended by God after all, I wish he'd improve the batteries.
There is a common argument that science took off in the West, because there was the premise that God had a goal for humans, and therefore nature could be seen as the book, wherein that plan was written.
It's an interesting idea, although somewhat guessy.
You could actually reverse it - that science took off once it was free of superstitious stuff. Quote, 'I have no need of that hypothesis', (Laplace), now reckoned to be somewhat apocryphal.
Well, the supernatural just gets in the way, doesn't it? I think Newton suggested that God intervened to keep the solar system stable, but that was shown to be unnecessary by Laplace.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
16 April, 2016 09:51
:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
People came up with clever things before Christianity.
Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
Are not these the exceptions that prove the rule?
My belief is that social change powered the dramatic advance of technology in the Christian west, and social change is the prime result of Christian teaching. This despite the natural tendency of anyone in power (and I include "Christian hierarchy") to suppress anything that weakens it.
Technological advance is obviously not the aim of Christian teaching but a side effect.
quote:
ISTM that, if Christianity's true, it applies to *everyone*, whether they hunt with flint-tipped spears, live in a palace, or drift around in the Int'l Space Station.
That statement seems so vague and garbled that I can't make a reasonable reply, except to say that you at least have to know the news before you can act on it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
16 April, 2016 09:57
:
Technological advances are also powered by the development of capitalism; still, I suppose you could argue that Jesus foresaw leveraged finance, so 3 cheers for him, now I know why my mortgage was so **** expensive.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
16 April, 2016 10:06
:
I think that anyone can argue "progress is because of [my favourite world view]." I don't see much value in this.
Posted by M. (# 3291) on
16 April, 2016 10:23
:
Tangent on GoldenKey's link about ancient technologies. Apropos of nothing, really, but last time I looked the Lycurgus cup was in the British museum.
M.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
16 April, 2016 10:42
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW, Dafyd: Sounds like you're assuming it has anti-Christian roots, rather than having heard/read anything about it.
I'm assuming that the argument is Christian-neutral because I've read the book.
I think we're really talking past each other.
I read a book (Invention of Science) by David Wootton. He thinks the scientific revolution was started off by Columbus discovering America. He does not think Christianity had much of an effect either way.
I don't have an opinion either way on Columbus being Jewish. If Columbus had been Spanish I would have thought it highly likely - a lot of interesting Spanish people probably did, but he wasn't Spanish; he was Italian. The Huffington Post article looks terribly flimsy to me. There's an awful lot of mights about the evidence - it's almost at William Shakespeare didn't write the plays levels.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
16 April, 2016 13:37
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Noting of course that the rocket technology used in Space exploration by the U.S. was liberated from the Nazis at the end of WW2.
I think we enter murky water when we try to analysis that which is or isn't good for human progress. IMO it is a tad simplistic to attribute all such progress to one individual who went down in history as being God's only Son.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
16 April, 2016 13:38
:
I'm not sure that I've ever read any history of science that dealt with anything called "supernatural". They tend to deal with earlier beliefs in other ways entirely. Having just looked it up, as far as I can see it first puts in an appearance in Thomas Aquinas, though that is of course in the context of scholastic philosophy. Its modern usage doesn't seem to appear until around the mid-1500s.
Which might just be another geeky fact, but the point to be drawn from it is that it is difficult to avoid the observation that it looks like a construct of the modern era and our way of thinking. Its hard to see how something only conceptualized long after the development of rigorous empiricism (Friar Bacon, mid 13th century) could be what hindered the development of scientific methodology. Not to mention that Bacon was - er - a friar.
Nice try though. Next theory please.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
16 April, 2016 13:53
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Noting of course that the rocket technology used in Space exploration by the U.S. was liberated from the Nazis at the end of WW2.
I think we enter murky water when we try to analysis that which is or isn't good for human progress. IMO it is a tad simplistic to attribute all such progress to one individual who went down in history as being God's only Son.
Well, there's this thing called "paradigm shift". See under Thomas Kuhn or philosophy of science, Wikipedia, etc. If we are talking about scientific progress, then the observation is exactly that it does involve pivotal moments.
I'm not arguing for it here - that would be a bigger thing to attempt. But I don't think this particular objection is sustainable, at least according to current thinking. Which come to think of it, is itself empirically testable.
Though if you are saying that the simplistic part is the absence of other factors that also need to be in place, then I agree.
I do think the rocket to the moon exemplar isn't a particularly good choice, though. Personally I think it looked more like a bit of international willy-waving. Putting useful satellites into orbit might have been a better example, though it doesn't have quite the gee-whiz factor.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
16 April, 2016 16:12
:
The other way to think of it is the longer view. We have a civilization. Why did the velociraptors not have a civilization? For all we know they were great poets, dramatists of genius, songsters more glorious than any human opera troupe. Some achievements do not last and leave no record.
So imagine cultures, species even, stepping up to the plate and hefting the bat. They have their innings, for good or for ill, and then they fade and it's someone else's turn. Some hit the ball farther than others. Finally, we happen to really get it up and out there.
Is that due to any particular virtue or specialness in us? Or is it because somebody eventually had to get the bat onto the ball at just the right angle to get a good hit?
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
16 April, 2016 18:07
:
My remark about sending rockets to the moon was only off the cuff - it could have been heart transplants.
As I have said "Technological advance is obviously not the aim of Christian teaching but a side effect"
Social change has preserved technological change which in other civilisations has seemed to be still born. Since technological advance is exponential this does explain the dramatic advances in the Christian era. My aurgument remains that the social change effected by Christian teaching is ultimately the reason for today's advanced technology.
However, I would be interested to be told of any books that give another explanation.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
16 April, 2016 18:55
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
However, I would be interested to be told of any books that give another explanation.
I too am a fan of the idea that religion is the real cause of technological and social progress. However there are plenty of other points of view.
Among those alternative explanations, my favorite is the one advanced by Jared Diamond in his 2005 best seller "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
Wikipedia sums up the book this way:
quote:
The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (including North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops.
I found the book persuasive and fascinating, nor do I think that it contradicts the positive impact of Christianity on the development of society and technological advance. It simply becomes one of the "positive feedback loops."
Among the many interesting observations made in the book are his comments about the long term effects of the domestication of large animals. It just so happened that Eurasians had easily domesticated animals in their environment - something lacking everywhere else. These animals changed everything. How strange is that?
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
16 April, 2016 20:32
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I do think the rocket to the moon exemplar isn't a particularly good choice, though. Personally I think it looked more like a bit of international willy-waving. Putting useful satellites into orbit might have been a better example, though it doesn't have quite the gee-whiz factor.
I suppose me making the point that warfare has the habit of creating heightened ingenuity, the Mother of invention and all that, doesn't exactly steal credibility from the effect of Christianity. It being no stranger to conflict both internal and external.
It is though interesting to view the geography of technological progress and wonder why places like Africa, which has had plenty going for it, hasn't advanced at the same pace as somewhere like N. America.
Industry and order does undoubtly of have something to do with it. Maybe I'll accept Christianity for all it's faults and squabblings has, to a large degree, fostered the ordered work ethic which lead to European supremacy and it's spread.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
16 April, 2016 20:52
:
Another theory, which is as good as any other, is that it has to do with finance. The systems that allow you to lend at interest, and be more or less assured that the other party doesn't abscond with your money, allow all modern finance. With loans, you can build big business.
I would hesitate very much indeed, to attribute any of this to Christianity. If Jesus showed any interest in the advance of technology, the progress of civilization, or the generation of world wealth, He contrived to entirely avoid mentioning it in His earthly life. I believe this tendency could entirely be laid to propinquity -- the disaster you know best is surely the worst, and the empire or era or civilization you are in is surely the greatest.
Posted by A Sojourner (# 17776) on
16 April, 2016 22:34
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Noting of course that the rocket technology used in Space exploration by the U.S. was liberated from the Nazis at the end of WW2.
I think we enter murky water when we try to analysis that which is or isn't good for human progress. IMO it is a tad simplistic to attribute all such progress to one individual who went down in history as being God's only Son.
Well, there's this thing called "paradigm shift". See under Thomas Kuhn or philosophy of science, Wikipedia, etc. If we are talking about scientific progress, then the observation is exactly that it does involve pivotal moments.
I'm not arguing for it here - that would be a bigger thing to attempt. But I don't think this particular objection is sustainable, at least according to current thinking. Which come to think of it, is itself empirically testable.
Though if you are saying that the simplistic part is the absence of other factors that also need to be in place, then I agree.
I do think the rocket to the moon exemplar isn't a particularly good choice, though. Personally I think it looked more like a bit of international willy-waving. Putting useful satellites into orbit might have been a better example, though it doesn't have quite the gee-whiz factor.
If you want two examples of techological change which have radically changed society for the better. The bicycle and the washing machine.
The Bicycle gave ordinary people (and especially women) a freedom of mobility that was previously unheard of. For middle class women in particular it actually meant that they were allowed to wonder without a man in a way that would have been scandalous a decade or two earlier.
The Washing Machine has been even more revolutionary. Before it washing clothes was a time-consuming task which would have eaten large portions of a woman's day (and it was almost always women who washed the clothes.) The arrival of the washing machine meant that woman who may have once been stuck washing clothes for much of the day suddenly had a lot more time on their hands whether for work, study or play.
It's the unglmaourous inventions which have truly revolutionised the way we live for the better.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
17 April, 2016 01:24
:
A Sojourner, my late mother would definitely agree with you as regards to the washing machine. In her married life she went from washing my oldest brother's nappies (diapers) in a stream, using a copper to heat the water to wash the clothes, to a non-automatic washing machine for the youngest son's nappies. Then finally an automatic machine (after all the offspring were long over the need for nappies).
I don't think Christianity caused any of this, but on really cold mornings she frequently blessed the inventors.
Huia
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
17 April, 2016 01:34
:
Luther's comment: Other men laugh at a man hanging out his son's nappies to dry, but God smiles with pleasure.
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
17 April, 2016 01:50
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
I used to think that - a combination of my socialism and the idea that we are building God's kingdom on earth - but I stopped belioeving it when thatcher came to power in 1978 and undid all the improvements we had mae - and again when the coalition came to power in 2010.
For every step forwards, it seems we fall back too.
I put it down to the neoliberal ideas which started to get a hold in UK politics under Callaghan and have been with us ever since through all administrations.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
17 April, 2016 02:01
:
Dafyd--
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW, Dafyd: Sounds like you're assuming it has anti-Christian roots, rather than having heard/read anything about it.
I'm assuming that the argument is Christian-neutral because I've read the book.
I think we're really talking past each other.
Yes, sorry. I read your comment about (IIRC) "the author does not credit Christianity" as referring to the Columbus theory, rather than the book you cited.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
17 April, 2016 02:09
:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
Tangent on GoldenKey's link about ancient technologies. Apropos of nothing, really, but last time I looked the Lycurgus cup was in the British museum.
I looked at the article last night. There's a link in the cup section to the British Museum. Don't know if the article writer was wrong about it being at the Smithsonian, or maybe the BM lent it out?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
17 April, 2016 15:14
:
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
I used to think that - a combination of my socialism and the idea that we are building God's kingdom on earth - but I stopped belioeving it when thatcher came to power in 1978 and undid all the improvements we had mae - and again when the coalition came to power in 2010.
For every step forwards, it seems we fall back too.
I put it down to the neoliberal ideas which started to get a hold in UK politics under Callaghan and have been with us ever since through all administrations.
I find this interesting, in relation to ideas about 'the God of history', or whatever name it is given, the God who has a plan in history, or who directs history.
I suppose if you support neo-liberalism, then you could argue that this is God-driven. Well, aren't there Christians who see capitalism as the acme of historical progress?
It all seems to become rather chaotic to me as an explanation of history, but I suppose you might be able to discern God's plan working in the chaos. Auschwitz was a strike by the anti-Christ maybe, and then 70 years' peace in Europe a blow against the anti-Christ? It's just a bit cartoon-like.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
17 April, 2016 22:03
:
Many thanks for all the points of view. It does appear that most would prefer (given an informed choice) to live today rather than a few generations back. Certainly I don't see technology as the great advantage - though it has done a lot to make the world a more caring community. And this happening without organised religion which I think is now left a bit floundering.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
17 April, 2016 22:24
:
shadeson--
How has technology "done a lot to make the world a more caring community"?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
17 April, 2016 22:32
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
shadeson--
How has technology "done a lot to make the world a more caring community"?
Technology, in the form of media attention as video, audio, and written accounts, has done a lot to expose less-than-caring behavior.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
17 April, 2016 22:35
:
Possibly television and mobile communications?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
18 April, 2016 00:49
:
I am sure everyone reading this is old enough to remember 9-11. The power of TV and cell phone and internet made that a world event. I remember going to London that October. I speak like an American, and people stopped me in the streets of London to offer me condolences.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
18 April, 2016 02:31
:
I think that the revolution will not be televised just like the one that never really happened wasn't in 1971.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
18 April, 2016 09:00
:
Everything is televised. Even the recent earthquakes were being filmed on mobile phones as the buildings fell upon them.
Posted by shadeson (# 17132) on
18 April, 2016 09:13
:
Possibly the poet is NO PROPHET because I think the last line should read "The revolution is live".
The hidden fact of a revolution that started 2000 years ago has resulted in a tree which is so big that the roots cannot be seen from the top. But "the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches" and will continue to do so. Religion or no religion.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
18 April, 2016 09:24
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
shadeson--
How has technology "done a lot to make the world a more caring community"?
Technology, in the form of media attention as video, audio, and written accounts, has done a lot to expose less-than-caring behavior.
And given new means for less-than-caring behavior. Ask all the people who've been bullied online. People who've been scammed. People whose loved ones have been recruited to do bad things. People who've had news cameras shoved in their faces, in the middle of trauma. People who've been stalked. People who've had their identities stolen. People who've been trafficked.
Media can be used for both good and bad purposes.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
18 April, 2016 11:33
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Media can be used for both good and bad purposes.
No argument. Yes it can.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
18 April, 2016 11:34
:
I think there’s more to it than television coverage. Social media has changed the game in other ways.
Having grown up in the UK prior to the IRA ceasefire, I’ve been exposed to my fair share of terrorist incidents. Like many British people, I can be fairly calm and unruffled in the face of terrorism. It’s a fact of life, if it’s not your day, it’s not your day etc.
However, the Paris attacks of 13 November felt very, very different to me to anything I’d known before. The reason was that everyone was following the full horror in real time on social media. I mentioned at the time how on that night facebook geolocalised all their Parisian users via their smartphones and sent out an automated message, “x was in the danger zone, check they’re ok”. (I know this because we were indeed at a party 300 metres away from the cafés that got shot up and my husband’s smartphone did exactly this without his knowledge or consent.) We travelled home with a Canadian friend who had never been in an incident of this kind before and he was completely terrified. I think he would have been less traumatised had his phone not been beeping the updated death toll at him every two minutes.
This got lots of concern and sympathy but a lot of it felt very mawkish to me. I’m not sure it’s healthy.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
18 April, 2016 15:59
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Everything is televised. Even the recent earthquakes were being filmed on mobile phones as the buildings fell upon them.
That's not a revolution. That's plate tectonics. It's what we don't see that is significant. We see Brussels and Paris but not Aleppo or Ankara: barely anything that we did which created the vacuum which created ISIS.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
18 April, 2016 16:23
:
Our forefathers made the same complaint. Victorians feared how these sleazy news sheets degraded discourse and made people fascinated with ooky adulteries and murders. Broadsheets and police news sheets catered shamelessly to prurient tastes. Did it do you any good to know of these things? was the cry. Women and children are exposed to awful events!
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
18 April, 2016 23:09
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Golden Key wrote:
quote:
--Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
There is a common argument that science took off in the West, because there was the premise that God had a goal for humans, and therefore nature could be seen as the book, wherein that plan was written...
You could actually reverse it - that science took off once it was free of superstitious stuff. Quote, 'I have no need of that hypothesis', (Laplace), now reckoned to be somewhat apocryphal.
Seems to me that the human race as a whole has made some progress against the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse in the last 50 years. And even more if you compare the present with 500 years ago.
And whilst organised Christianity may not seem to have done much to help the process in the last 50 years, I guess we're saying that technology is cumulative, so whatever set western civilization off on its scientific/technological journey can claim much of the credit ?
Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on
19 April, 2016 11:20
:
Even for the things that are not better at an individual level you now have somewhere to go or ask advice or get some redress.
That was not the case in the past.
I am thinking particularly of sexual assaults and various types of "coming out". The individual today probably goes through the same doubt, uncertainty, pain, angst etc as everyone in my day and before, but they need not be alone in their suffering now. There are internet sites, forums, telephone hotlines and knowledgeable, supportive and helpful people behind them.
Awareness, acceptance and the public discourse are much more free and open than was the situation, say, 40 years ago "when I were a lass". Even if your own family's or friends' reactions are less than postive you have sources of help and support outside that circle
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
20 April, 2016 11:42
:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
And this happening without organised religion which I think is now left a bit floundering.
While organized religion is no doubt floundering in the West I think that we tend to over-estimate the importance of the West to the rest of the world. The Western populations make up less than 15% of the global community. Europe and America are world leaders in many respects, but religious faith is not necessarily any longer one of them.
Bibles continue to be the number one world-wide best seller year after year and Christianity continues to expand with no sign of let-up.
Meanwhile, the assertions of Thomas Friedman's 2005 best seller "The World is Flat" are more true than ever. The playing field is rapidly being leveled.
We might assume that this leveling is inevitably a secularizing influence. This is unquestionably the reason for the rise of radical Islam. But I tend to think that Christianity will only continue to grow.
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