Ultimately, life is not getting better
Yes, materially, our advancement is unprecedented, but that's far from the whole story
There’s a viewpoint that resurfaces every few years - or maybe it’s been a constant undercurrent throughout the last few decades - that merits serious consideration. It is that, if one takes the broad view of history’s sweep, we can see that the last two and a half to three centuries have been exponentially better for humankind than all that came before, and that life has gotten better at a faster clip of late.
Victor Davis Hanson and Ben Shapiro have written on this. Hanson reminds us frequently that a mere thirty years ago, the idea that everyone, from people on welfare to billionaires, would carry on their persons a flat rectangular device giving them access to information about anything and everything in an instant, was the stuff of fantasy.
Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy are perhaps the sunniest of those who embrace this perspective, and the case they present is cogent indeed. By far, fewer people are impoverished or deathly sick than at any previous time in our species’ existence. Wars break out with less frequency all the time.
When one expands the scope, the case becomes even stronger. Since 1700, we have seen anesthesiology take the agony out of surgery and dentistry. Food preservation techniques have been refined. Transportation has gone from travel by foot and horse to supersonic jets. Communication has gone from conversation and letters to email and mass media. Nation-states have replaced empires and kingdoms. The heating of buildings has gone from fireplaces to electronically controlled furnaces.
This list is partial, of course, but the point is surely made by now.
One obvious level of the counterargument is that humankind has been coming up with ever-more destructive means of waging conflict. Stockpiles of hydrogen bombs around the globe attest to that.
I think, though, yet another level must be brought into the conversation for it to really present a full picture.
A former pastor of mine, with whom I’m also buddies, put it thusly: In the past twenty years max, we have upended basic assumptions about what a human being is that had been foundational for ten thousand years.
We’ve redefined not only marriage, but the terms “male” and “female.” This has had a profound impact on what we regard as a family, the fundamental building block for societal organization.
It’s to the point at which one’s educational prospects or job are in jeopardy if one insists on adhering to what was universally regarded as normal ten years ago.
In the United States, the last several Supreme Court nominations have turned into savage conflagrations over the question of whether the “right” to exterminate fetal Americans would be upheld.
Throughout the West, and really the world, the understanding of the nature of freedom has been so grotesquely distorted that politicians couch their arguments for being elected on seeing that government will keep life’s vicissitudes at bay. The argument that health care is a right, which by definition it can’t be, gets not only a respectable airing, but gets codified into law.
The coarsening of Western culture has accelerated to the point that vulgarity is far more common than refinement. No one is interested in dignity anymore. We don’t produce art of consequence anymore.
The West has been defined for centuries by the centrality of a Judeo-Christian view of the cosmos. That’s unraveling now.
Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in 2009. And one-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known as religious “nones” – have seen their numbers swell. Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up modestly but significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make up 5% of U.S. adults, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009. Members of non-Christian religions also have grown modestly as a share of the adult population.
Even within what’s left of American Christianity, two forces, at odds with each other, are rapidly eroding its essential message. On the one hand, the eschewing of doctrine regarding the above-mentioned notions of gender, sexuality and family is tearing long-established denominations apart. On the other hand, a sizable swath of the faith has cast its lot with the charlatan who is currently president of the United States, on the grounds that, despite his utter lack of character, he’s capable of pointing the way to a reversal of the rot besetting the nation.
This, then, is the backdrop against which today’s elections take place in post-America. The question before us is the degree to which they matter. Granted, if the scenario in which the White House and both chambers of Congress go to the Democrats, the rot’s acceleration will have the backing of government power like never before. But, given the trends and developments cited above, the current political balance has not had any affect on the rot’s continuance.
The phrase “Make America Great Again” rings hollow because, without mass repentance and the cultivation of grace-extending hearts, it’s too late. No improvement in GDP, manufacturing employment numbers, uptick in home sales or diversity in workplaces is going to do the trick.
We reached the peak of our living up to our birthright some time ago and have been in decline ever since.
As is the case in our individual lives, we cannot rescue ourselves. Until we get off our high horse and surrender to our Creator, this will be our lot.