Currents of history

People often ask me how I maintain my optimism in face of setbacks and a despairing world.  Call me over-analytical but here is what I think.

History is like time - it never stops.  Maybe history is time.  But it never stops.  So, it does irk me when I see descriptions that we are the pinnacle of history, that we have arrived at the destination of our distant ape-like ancestors, that we are now the best that the human race can & have achieved.  I suspect most people know that it is not true but I guess it is very innate in humans to want to be on the stage of their life with themselves as the principal actors.  

When I see movies, documentaries or photos of WW1 biplanes, it seems to me rather quaint and vintage, primitive even.  But when you think about it, it was the state of the art at that time, like a Mars rover is to us in 2021.  We only think it is primitive in relation to our reference point, which is the here and now.  Somehow we do not view it from the vantage point of the where and when of the pilot in that biplane.

You know, some 10,000 years ago, the largest human unit was the village of some 30 families, whose main worry vis-a-vis other human units is that neighbouring village up the river, eyeing their food supplies and their woman.  We are now in an age where political units are 3, 30, 300 million citizens, sometimes more, defending ourselves against other giant human units.  We look upon that tiny village by the side of the river as vintage,  quaint and yes, primitive.  Their quarrels with that village upriver seems so petty to us.  We have advanced and civilised ourselves so much from them, so obviously better, more advanced, more fulfilled.  It is probably ok to be a visitor to that village but no way we are going to comfortably live in that village of 10 millennia ago.

But if we stop and think how will people of 10,000 years from now, maybe in a mining community in the asteroids, will view us today.  They will probably view us as vintage, quaint and yes, probably very primitive.  We are the them, squabbling over the planet's resources with vintage nuclear weapons like survivors in a inflatable rubber dinghy fighting with harpoons over a lone fish that has landed on deck.  Our future selves can't see themselves in our seemingly never-ending uncivilised wars from whatever vantage point they have.

I am not denigrating our current condition.  I pay tribute to the countless and selfless individuals in our common human history who have advanced us to where we are today.  But I think that advance has not yet ended - it continues on inexorably towards a goal we have no foresight to see but have dreams to reach.  That same ingenuity that has taken humans so far will take us that much further still.

Yes, there will be starts and stops along the way, and some detours too.  But just as fund managers describe the stock market as on a broad uptrend even if day-on-day there will be ups and downs, the course of history is progressive in the long run.  Standards of life, as in material well-being and sense of empowerment, has increased in most of human history and are today, much better for the average human than that of kings in the not too distant past.  Well, in absolutely terms anyway if not in relative terms.  And they will continue to be better in the future of the human story.

So, in the midst of despair over the inevitability of oppression of today, of the turmoil between and within nations, I retain a sense of optimism.  It is not just because of the possibility of improvement in the near future but in the inevitability of improvements in the long run, despite the also-inevitable setbacks that periodically punctuated and will continue to punctuate that progress.

So, is it fatalism to think that we are predestined to a glorious future?  No, first, not everyone defines progress the same way and the outcome of the interaction between people with different definitions is fundamentally uncertain.  So the path itself is inherently unpredictable.  Also, we are talking about the whole of humanity not individual civilisations, which will hit the dust with no discernible long term damage to the overall human story.  Of course, it is possible for humanity itself going extinct but that point is as moot as dead people feeling no pain.

The course of human future is determined by individuals pushing it along the way.  Some people pushes it so far forward that they get institutionalised into history books, very often through great, sometimes ultimate sacrifice.  Others actually hold back progress because their definition of progress is rather different - of course they may not have to hindsight to realise it and are probably thinking they are pushing humanity forward.  The majority contribute to human progress but giving their assent and dissent of varying degrees in various ways - assent more that dissent.  Everyone, pushing progress forward, holding it back, middlingly receiving, is in a range, rather like those in a bell curve.

We are all part of that bell curve - progress doesn't exist without us.  Though there is enough of us to ensure humanity as a whole will progress, how fast and how painless depends on how many of us gets involved.  So, while the upwards trend of human progress is inevitable, how it happens, how many setbacks, how often & how long our fellows will view life through oppressed eyes is really down to us.

So, where do I think we will be 10,000 years from now?  This will of course be my personal opinion, and none of us in 2021 has the foresight or hindsight to verify it.  But I do see the inevitability of humanity travelling to the stars.  I cannot see it otherwise.  And I cannot see us travelling to the stars as Americans, Chinese, Russians or as Christians, Muslims, Jews but as a single human race free from the temporary identifications that divides us.  We would have conquered disease, inequality, war and need, maybe even death (once we figured out what it actually is).  It will be more Star Trek, humanity striding out to explore the galaxy, rather than Star Wars where humanity still fights with retro weapons.

It will turn out likely to be rather different from what my vintage, quaint and primitive mind can conjure up but well, it is my dream and I intend this dream to shape whatever I do to propel my life and humanity forward.