"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I would like to believe it, but I don't
I understand it to be the wish of my friends on the progressive left, but it is not a description of history. Progressives believe in progress. They want to believe that time is on their side.
I see history as characterized by ebbs and flows. Nothing really changes because the character of our species does not change. "Civilization" does not change us. Judeo-Christian religion doesn't change us. Nobody's religion changes us. Humans are social animals, so we seek power and status. We pursue self-interest. We fear the ambitions of others. That hasn't changed since Thucydides spelled it out.
Romans built roads and aqueducts and created a "civilized" society, but when they conquered Carthage they killed nearly everyone and enslaved the rest. Genghis Kahn put the sword to millions of people. Stalin and Hitler killed millions as acts of policy.
Humans conquer lands and remove the defeated people. Ethnic cleansing isn't new. It is what humans do. Jews and Palestinians in Israel both have the same problem, which is that in the world of phone cameras and television there is no polite and invisible way to do a good, thorough job of ethnic cleansing so that their homeland is theirs and free of the conquered people.
Throughout history if the former occupants of conquered lands survive in some form it is because there is another deep instinctual part of the moral universe that does not change. Men find women sexually attractive. Some descendants of the conquered people survive as the children of women and girls who were plunder. The tribe survives.
Is this cold and ugly? Yes. The arc of the moral universe bends toward humans being the species that we are.
On Memorial Day we reflect on the warriors in that perpetual struggle. For good reason we fear the honor, self-interest, and fear felt by other groups. Putin wants Ukraine's oil, fertile soil, and position on the Black Sea; he wants Russia to be great and proud again; and he is afraid of NATO. So of course he invaded Ukraine. If Ukraine survives it will be because it organized itself to defend against an enemy. Tribes and countries that fail to do that don't survive.
I don't consider my farm at the base of the Table Rocks to be stolen land. It was conquered land. Previous occupants had conquered it from one another over the millennia. I find arrowheads in tilled soil after a rain. It is land worth taking. What is better than fertile land along a river where the fish come to you so plentifully that as recently as 1940 one could stand at riffles and scoop them up with a pitchfork and throw them into a wagon?
White Americans took North America from Indigenous people. That wasn't "progress," and it certainly wasn't an arc bent toward justice. It was a moment of history's ebbs and flows. White people had diseases and guns. But history oscillates. The story is never over. Descendants of those indigenous people -- cousins of the people there in 1855 -- are at the southern border now. Many of them have been here for decades and I see them at Costco, mothers with big families in tow.
I am OK with this. Humans come and go. I have my turn. The land is won or lost with contraception now, not guns.
My sense of patriotism bends toward inclusion. The United States described in the Declaration of Independence was a sham. The modern USA finally came into existence in 1964 and 1965 with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Black people and women entered the political world. Black people in the South could finally vote; women could enter the professions. It was a revolution and it took hold and grew to include LGBTQ and grew for 50 years.
But history oscillates. Women, Blacks, Asians, the non-religious, and immigrants from Latin America "won." It wasn't a final victory. We are in a counter-revolution.
The soldiers in this war are civilians, but they still wear special hats and carry flags. The wars continue.
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11 comments:
People do live longer and less die by violent means than in the past. Human nature does remain violent and selfish but technology has made it easier to level the playing field. A woman’s brain is more important than a man being physically stronger most of the time isn’t it? I’m afraid your portrayal is accurate, but I want to resist your thesis anyway.
Life evolves, and It’s not all bad. Even women can vote now. Through the 1950s, White guys could lynch Blacks with impunity, but not anymore. We’re making progress.
Today is Memorial Day.
In 2018, on the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, Trump was in France and scheduled to attend a ceremony outside Paris honoring fallen American WWI soldiers. He decided to skip it, supposedly due to weather. Other world leaders attended, but not the President of the United States. His former chief of staff, John Kelly, has confirmed that he referred to our troops as “suckers” and called the fallen “losers.” He publicly disparaged POWs and gold star families.
Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, and this is what it’s degenerated into. We’re at another crossroads.
One man walks on the moon, while another lives in the jungle.
Which reality describes the human condition?
They both do, and everything in between.
We progress in spite of our animal nature, as well as because of it.
But we progress just the same...
I’m afraid I must agree with you about dominion and conquest.
Let me offer a little context on MLK’s statement. He was a theologian and pastor first, so his perspective was eternal, i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven. He saw this life and world as temporal and flawed, but still worth fighting for equality for everyone based on their sacred personhood. While his quote about the ‘arc of history’ appears to be offering hope of justice in this life, he believed that true justice would only come in the next life, by the perfect and eternal judge (a view many readers here dismiss or find worthy of ridicule). But that didn’t stop him from fearlessly leading his crusade for racial justice. He understood the veil between this life and the next to be very porous.
He knew that a vast majority of Americans considered themselves “Christian” and he bet he could use biblical language to convince enough of them that racial equality was right, that it would force politicians to legislate for it. And he was right for that time.
Of course people throughout history have misused biblical language and religious dogma as a bludgeon for dominance.
Progress is real, but it is a slow and painful process. Typically, people in power want to keep it that way. So the people with less or no power must fight for it.
When I think of justice and progress, the song title "It Don't Come Easy" comes to mind.
(Song written by Ringo Starr and George Harrison, released in 1971)
Peace comes out of the barrel of a gun. When you are strong enough to deter predators, you get peace. When you are not, the predators begin to circle.
When the state is strong enough to enforce its monopoly on violence, you get peace. You can also get tyranny in that case; a democratic state is the best way we know of to not have that happen.
When the state’s monopoly on violence deteriorates, you get local warlords, gangs, etc filling that vacuum. What happened in the “liberated zone“ in Seattle a couple of years ago is a recent example of that. The idiot mayor of Seattle at that time predicted it would be a “summer of love“. That’s not how it turned out.
There is always going to be some gang in charge. The best we can aspire to is to have that gang to be a professional military and police force controlled by a functioning democracy.
Not that long ago, the Democratic and Republican parties were referred to as the Republocrats. People complained there was too little difference between them. Not anymore.
Now the Democrats still operate as a democratic republic based on principles of equality and rule of law, while Republicans make a mockery of truth, justice and democratic principles in their attempts to establish a White, Christian theocracy. The Civil War was a clearcut case of good vs evil, and we’re getting there again.
As you note, Peter, human behavior keeps repeating itself in varying times and places because human nature doesn't change. That certainly means that depicting the course of history as a moving point means that it doesn't trace a steadily upsloping line. But neither does it trace a circle. I would say that it keeps looping but on an upward trajectory toward expanding consensus about what it fair. That may in part be because of technological improvements, as one of your responders commented. When there is material abundance, there is less need for violent struggle. But that there now exists, for example, an near universal consensus that slavery is impermissible marks a growth in moral awareness. A denial of moral progress is as partial an interpretation of human history as is a denial of repeated human failure.
I firmly believe that we are currently experiencing a significant human evolutionary shift. It's clear that not all of us will be able to keep up with the changes, particularly with the emergence of AI. Those who claim to understand AI don't truly comprehend its inner workings. I am uncertain about how AI will function once it contains all online religious teachings, college courses, access to the Dark Web, detailed robotics programs, comprehensive computer programming manuals, military course syllabi, strategy and tactics, game theory, robotic manufacturing capabilities, and knowledge of industrial manufacturing techniques. AI systems are already operational, and it is highly probable that interconnectivity will become a reality.
The actions we take in the coming years will provide the answer. The question remains: will AI embrace the wrathful God of the Old Testament or the more merciful teachings found in the New Testament?
Note: This comment was recreated with the help of A.I.
The greatest test of the historian or other cultural observer is to distinguish between changes which are but components of long-familiar cycles and changes which represent evolutions—or devolutions—in absolute terms.
A conservative believes that human nature will prove red in tooth and claw regardless of material outlay. A progressive believes human will, get along, naturally, if the basic components of existence are provided for equitably.
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