“The ideas of individual rights, freedom of conscience, and equality before the law—however delayed, however uneven, however drenched in hypocrisy—[… came…] from effort.
That doesn’t make our story pure.
It makes it powerful.
Because that is the nature of evolution. It does not glide. It crawls. It lurches forward, then backward, then forward again. It is built of bruises and blunders, not utopias. And yet the trajectory—the thrust of history’s arrow—has pointed toward greater dignity, broader liberty, and deeper responsibility.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Excellent post except for one thing, the perspective of non-humans. I understand you are talking about human history--HIS story, "his" being human--except that as human animals our fate is completely dependent on a flourishing natural world. Progress is a double-edged sword and we should not lump the social progress you describe so well in with another kind of progress you only allude to here.
Social progress in recognizing the humanity of all and being willing to correct wrongs like slave-trading is not the same as the kind of "progress" all the economists in the world like to champion--the endless growth of the human enterprise at the expense of the natural world, an enterprise that will end up destroying us all.
The "decrease in human suffering" at this point in time is looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Rosling's view, like that of most techno-utopians and economists, fails to see the bigger picture of that decrease in the context of the catastrophic decline in wildlife, in habitat, in forests, in clean water, in the pervasive global pollution, and the sixth mass extinction on the only planet we know supports life in the entire Universe.
The social progress you describe here is a great story of human history. I hope in a future post you might also consider the perspective of non-humans: the trees who were older than the civilizations you describe here that have been cut down; the forests decimated along with the species who require old-growth for survival; the species made extinct for nothing more than fashionable hats; the non-human animals and plants losing their homes each and every day for copper mines and lithium mines and iron ore mines and quartz mines and every other kind of mine; the rivers destroyed by tailings dam collapses and water stolen for endless green seas of alfalfa shipped all around the world as aquifers decline and decline and decline.
I hope you'll take another look at "progress" while considering the microplastics in our brains by the spoonful, shorting out neurons and clogging our veins; the PFAS and dioxins in every mother's breast milk.
Human history can only be truthfully told in the context of the natural communities that support us; communities we once revered and respected and we now treat as nothing but "resources" and "consumables" as 8.2 billion of us rapaciously take the one time non-renewable structure we call Earth and burn it for monster truck races and single use plastic.
“When the West sins, we dig up the bones, photograph them, frame them in museums, and teach our children how they got there.
When others sin, we look away—or worse, we blame the West for their shovels.” ⭐️⭐️
“reclaim the right to complexity” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The past is not a cathedral. […]
But neither is it a pit latrine.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“the soft racism of low expectations” ⭐️
“The ideas of individual rights, freedom of conscience, and equality before the law—however delayed, however uneven, however drenched in hypocrisy—[… came…] from effort.
That doesn’t make our story pure.
It makes it powerful.
Because that is the nature of evolution. It does not glide. It crawls. It lurches forward, then backward, then forward again. It is built of bruises and blunders, not utopias. And yet the trajectory—the thrust of history’s arrow—has pointed toward greater dignity, broader liberty, and deeper responsibility.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Excellent post except for one thing, the perspective of non-humans. I understand you are talking about human history--HIS story, "his" being human--except that as human animals our fate is completely dependent on a flourishing natural world. Progress is a double-edged sword and we should not lump the social progress you describe so well in with another kind of progress you only allude to here.
Social progress in recognizing the humanity of all and being willing to correct wrongs like slave-trading is not the same as the kind of "progress" all the economists in the world like to champion--the endless growth of the human enterprise at the expense of the natural world, an enterprise that will end up destroying us all.
The "decrease in human suffering" at this point in time is looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Rosling's view, like that of most techno-utopians and economists, fails to see the bigger picture of that decrease in the context of the catastrophic decline in wildlife, in habitat, in forests, in clean water, in the pervasive global pollution, and the sixth mass extinction on the only planet we know supports life in the entire Universe.
The social progress you describe here is a great story of human history. I hope in a future post you might also consider the perspective of non-humans: the trees who were older than the civilizations you describe here that have been cut down; the forests decimated along with the species who require old-growth for survival; the species made extinct for nothing more than fashionable hats; the non-human animals and plants losing their homes each and every day for copper mines and lithium mines and iron ore mines and quartz mines and every other kind of mine; the rivers destroyed by tailings dam collapses and water stolen for endless green seas of alfalfa shipped all around the world as aquifers decline and decline and decline.
I hope you'll take another look at "progress" while considering the microplastics in our brains by the spoonful, shorting out neurons and clogging our veins; the PFAS and dioxins in every mother's breast milk.
Human history can only be truthfully told in the context of the natural communities that support us; communities we once revered and respected and we now treat as nothing but "resources" and "consumables" as 8.2 billion of us rapaciously take the one time non-renewable structure we call Earth and burn it for monster truck races and single use plastic.
Thank you!