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I know people like that exist today, but in ancient/medieval times, why was it so easy for nearly everyone living during said times to relentlessly kill, rape, destroy, enslave others, etc. etc. without hardly anyone feeling the least bit bad about it? Do you think people back then just weren't capable of being able to empathise or sympathise at all?
I think history books/movies put a huge emphasis on fights and wars
And very little emphasis on societies where people got along and work together to survive
Easy. People lacking the instinct for child-rearing won't produce viable offspring and their genetic material isn't passed on. Mammals are crazy hard-wired to protect their young - or even the young of other mammals. There's a reason we go "Squee!" over kittens or puppies.
A tribe that wishes to survive will protect children, pregnant women and women of child-rearing age. Men? We're nature's disposable unit. If a tribe loses 5 men to sabre-toothed tigers, the remaining men will just have to impregnate a few more women tp keep up the birth rate.
Yes, exactly my point. Tenderness for the vulnerable for whatever reason must have always existed in sufficient amount to propagate the human race for all these millennia. Without someone watching out for the safety of a human child for a considerable amount of his early life it would certainly die before replacing itself.
Tending an infant or a toddler is a pretty selfless act and can be darned miserable for any amount of time. I doubt anyone who was doing it was motivated by "thinking in the long term."
Human nature never changes. Only culture changes. I am sure your average Mongolian or Assyrian or Viking baby was born with similar traits of empathy and sympathy as your average American baby is born with today. After that, your culture either nurtures or represses that tendancy. Most of us living in the world today and primarily Western nations, don't survive by "might is right" anymore. So we have the luxury of developing a high level of empathy and sympathy.
Back in the day when people often lived in survival mode, just trying to achieve day-to-day subsistence, empathy and sympathy would be a pure luxury. To some extent even those people knew if they helped others in need, there was a better chance they would be helped by others in their time of need. So empathy and sympathy would act as socializing survival traits back in the Middle Ages.
But by and large, when you are in survival mode, you are really looking out for #1 and just trying to keep from starving or dying from exposure or having someone bigger and stronger kill you and take your stuff. Empathy and sympathy only go so far when you are in survival mode, which by the way was the default condition for 99% of people living on the planet earth before the 1700s, with a few exceptions. It might have only been 90% living in survival mode in ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, India or Rome. But is still the vast majority struggling to subsist in a brutal world where might makes right.
Human nature never changes. There is no reason why people who were above subsistence level back in ancient times or the Middle Ages wouldn't have similar empathy and sympathy to modern man, unless they lived in a culture where it was flat beat out of them, such as Sparta.
I agree in part, but it is a bit more complex I think. The U.S. didn't do more than token independence of the individual until slavery and indenture were abolished. It did intentionally break the hold of any nationally approved church or the extension of the Roman Catholic or Anglican church into positions of legal and political power. I agree with you there completely. We probably owe a debt of gratitude to Rhode Island on that.
Where your premise gets a little squishy is in the area of culture and enculturation. In the early towns of New England and many other areas, you were allowed to live there only as long as you held to the community standards. People were regularly expunged for not fitting in, for loose morals, or for simply being a pain. In some ways, those towns and villages were closer to laxly enforced communist or socialist enclaves, where if your crop was abundant, you were expected to keep your neighbor from starving or lose standing in the community and the ability to trade with others.
The westward expansion loosened the reins, but the incidents at Nauvoo showed that ventures too far outside of the existing culture were still unwanted. Greater acceptance of individuals may have come about more circuitously, as the cities became more cosmopolitan and had to accept residents with different cultural backgrounds. In among the variety of cultures, true individuals stuck out a little less and were more likely to be accepted.
Battles between individuals and cultures, cultures and cultures, individuals and individuals are a constant in history. Don't be deceived into thinking that what happens in the present is all that much different than the past.
I beg to differ that America did little to advance man's liberty until slavery was abolished. "Token independence", as you called it.
Here is just one example.
Socioeconomic mobility was much better in the USA than in Europe. Penniless immigrants could attend top colleges and go on to become rich and powerful to the point of achieving the presidency. Benjamin Franklin was too poor to finish school and was principally self-taught, rising to be one of America's foremost statestmen. Abe Lincoln went from rags to US President before slavery was abolished. Just before, but still before. America had it's class systems, but it was NOTHING like the brutally confining systems in use in Europe at the time. The Monarchies finally allowed a great merchantile system during the Rennaisance and so it was not as caste like as during the Middle Ages, but it was certainly very confining.
OK, another, simpler.
British millitary officers bought their commissions while American officers simply attained rank through merit. A poor, landless Brit was rarely every going to attain the rank of officer.
Last one, I promise.
While there has always been a strong system of boys simply going into the work their fathers did and one day taking over the business, the requirement was far less likely in America than in Europe. In Europe, you were really expected to follow in the family trade - baker, cobbler, blacksmith. Whatever. In America, it was far more likely that fathers wanted MORE for their sons than what they were doing, if the son proved adept at doing more. So you had fathers who were bakers and cobblers, who's sons were lawyers and engineers.
I would go so far as to say early America simply shattered the class system of Europe. An exaggeration, but it was just so much better here in America, so much easier to be upward mobile and not pigeon-holed into your father's class, that I don't feel bad about making it.
I lied. I consider the Second Amendment to the US Constitution alone and by itself, to be a massive revolution in personal liberty protected by the American system that was denied to the masses in the entire rest of the world.
No, I do not agree at all with your claim that America had token "independence" before 1865. There are many ways in which the Founders advanced true liberty for most Americans right out of the gate.
Last edited by Igor Blevin; 01-02-2021 at 03:38 PM..
There have been more recent examples of horrendous brutality in the 19th and 20th century - some of it on our soil.
I think empathy and compassion are evolving characteristics in human beings, and there might be times where we backslide, but we we arch towards greater human decency and compassion.
Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, families would pack a pick nick lunch to watch a person get hanged - or lynched. That isn't very long ago, however, I can think of few Americans today who would think that a public hanging is good clean family fun.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
You have to be very careful with your cited example re: public hangings.
They way you cite that example suggests that you feel that the masses watching a public hanging lacked sympathy. Perhaps they only lacked sympathy for the convicted criminal being hanged. I would say they had sympathy for the innocent victims of crime.
So you have to be careful there. It is hard for us to say that those masses watching hangings lacked sympathy. It may just be how they directed it. More people have sympathy for criminals today, (they were raised wrong, had a bad childhood, they are victims of racism, etc). I would suppose that people back in the day simply had more sympathy for the innocent victims of criminals, so watching a criminal receive justice via. public hanging would be in keeping with their feelings of sympathy toward the people raped or murdered or financially impoverished, etc. by the criminal. To the extent it might act as a deterrent, it also shows sympathy for young people who might be tempted to commit crimes in the future and might be impressed or "scared straight" by watching criminals meet their justice.
I beg to differ that America did little to advance man's liberty until slavery was abolished. "Token independence", as you called it.
Here is just one example.
Socioeconomic mobility was much better in the USA than in Europe. Penniless immigrants could attend top colleges and go on to become rich and powerful to the point of achieving the presidency. Benjamin Franklin was too poor to finish school and was principally self-taught, rising to be one of America's foremost statestmen. Abe Lincoln went from rags to US President before slavery was abolished. Just before, but still before. America had it's class systems, but it was NOTHING like the brutally confining systems in use in Europe at the time. The Monarchies finally allowed a great merchantile system during the Rennaisance and so it was not as caste like as during the Middle Ages, but it was certainly very confining.
OK, another, simpler.
British millitary officers bought their commissions while American officers simply attained rank through merit. A poor, landless Brit was rarely every going to attain the rank of officer.
Last one, I promise.
While there has always been a strong system of boys simply going into the work their fathers did and one day taking over the business, the requirement was far less likely in America than in Europe. In Europe, you were really expected to follow in the family trade - baker, cobbler, blacksmith. Whatever. In America, it was far more likely that fathers wanted MORE for their sons than what they were doing, if the son proved adept at doing more. So you had fathers who were bakers and cobblers, who's sons were lawyers and engineers.
I would go so far as to say early America simply shattered the class system of Europe. An exaggeration, but it was just so much better here in America, so much easier to be upward mobile and not pigeon-holed into your father's class, that I don't feel bad about making it.
I lied. I consider the Second Amendment to the US Constitution alone and by itself, to be a massive revolution in personal liberty protected by the American system that was denied to the masses in the entire rest of the world.
No, I do not agree at all with your claim that America had token "independence" before 1865. There are many ways in which the Founders advanced true liberty for most Americans right out of the gate.
I don't really dispute any of your points, but I am reminded of a comment by a Canadian (I lived close to the border with Canada for many years and took many journeys) - "Yes, you in the United States did all of that, boot we di' too, on aboot the same timeline, but without a war!" <slam, dunk>
Flag waving is fine, but pragmatically the area encompassed by the early United States had more easily accessible natural resources than any place short of big rock candy mountain. It also was a sea journey or years of preparation for any established power to even begin to mount a plausibly successful assault. ANY halfway competent government was bound to succeed and flourish, given time. Individual freedoms were not as much a selling point to Americans as excess taxation without having any say-so in it - much as the recent past with the individual mandate of Obamacare.
One of the dichotomies of life is that individual freedom can be fantastic for innovation and growth, but rigid caste or military societies often have more clout. Go back to the Greeks, where the Athenians were spectacular innovators and creative thinkers, and Spartans were all about class and military rule. Sparta beat Athens handily.
The Brits came very close to winning in the American revolution, and it was only after the extension of hostilities, conveniently called the unrelated (win, wink, nudge, nudge) "War of 1812" that a fragmented U.S. became recognized as a power player.
I would suggest a read of the following two links, before waxing too poetic about the second amendment. The idea that the "right" to bear arms was a check and balance against any future overbearing and oppressive government falls flat when the government holds the right of conscription (involuntary servitude in the the armed forces of that government) to maintain its power. Instead, the right to own guns is a cheap way to get the conscripts to buy their own weaponry - often of better quality than what might be handed out. If you have ever had an old scratchy army blanket, you know exactly what I mean.
You might think my comments above are a divergence from the issues of personal freedoms and growth. They are not. For me to posit a different causal factor successfully, I first had to challenge your preconceptions. Conscription is not freedom unless consensual. Allowing anything supporting a war effort, even if it crosses class boundaries, is not particularly "enlightened" thought.
A greater factor in personal freedom in the U.S. was the immense expanse of the country and frontiers, where only basic laws held any sway. If a farmer bred horses and didn't pay tax on any foals to the King or corrupt county officials, he got to keep the money and had incentive to breed more mares. If he, OTOH, stole horses, he was shot. If he stole an idea for a better wagon wheel, nobody cared.
But wait, intellectual property rights being stolen was a primary basis of freedom in the U.S.??? You betcha!
The mills in New England that processed cotton were from mill designs stolen from England. That alone created IMMENSE wealth and opportunity.
But what of all the innovators? Right. Take a look at all the apple peeler patents that were stolen. Take a look at the numbers of competing products that were stolen designs. Innovators were chumps.
Look at today. Many, if not most, successful businesses and companies still have at their core some theft of intellectual property or workaround. Microsoft "bought" a free operating system and started charging for it, with only minor modifications. Compaq reverse engineered another system and sold it. Disney stole (with the help of congress) the public domain of copyright to keep the mouse alive. How have cheap China imports done so well? Uhhh... you figure it out.
Over time, companies and countries become more hidebound, more resistant to change, more concerned with protecting those with wealth than those with energy and drive.
Young countries, hungry for growth, allow greater freedom as a prerequisite to growth. Even within established countries, theft from the powers-that-be is overlooked in the interest of greater growth. Remember when you didn't pay cross state sales tax on stuff purchased over the internet?
"Freedom" is an illusion. "Rights" are an illusion. Those who would steal from you love to keep saying the opposite. They also love to create elaborate and fantastical backstories.
Balance. Opinion here, but I have a couple thousand words to say about the "luxury of empathy."
A successful society knew that due to human nature structure and rules were necessary to maintain status quo. A society that has the luxury of empathy runs the risk of ignoring the tyranny of human nature and thus causing collapse by replacing common sense with feelings.
Every child learned that lesson early if he was raised in a farming family. Children raised by school systems that preach empathy don't understand what can happen if power is given over to the vulnerable out of sympathy.
It's possible in less developed times people naturally learned that lesson from observation. And as others have said, therefor appeared to be less sympathetic because they needed practicality to survive. That truth stands yet but is more subtly evidenced.
I don't really dispute any of your points, but I am reminded of a comment by a Canadian (I lived close to the border with Canada for many years and took many journeys) - "Yes, you in the United States did all of that, boot we di' too, on aboot the same timeline, but without a war!" <slam, dunk>
I know Canada celebrates Canada Day on July 1st 1867 but really they didn't gain full independence until the early 1930s. Until then Canada was still fighting and dying in England's wars like a dutiful child.
So what's that Canadian's comment aboot? How did they like fighting in Sudan and South Africa for Oliver's Army?
I know Canada celebrates Canada Day on July 1st 1867 but really they didn't gain full independence until the early 1930s. Until then Canada was still fighting and dying in England's wars like a dutiful child.
So what's that Canadian's comment aboot? How did they like fighting in Sudan and South Africa for Oliver's Army?
I'm pretty sure he was pointing out that Canadians had similar "rights" to those of us living in the U.S., but without fighting the mother country to get them. The European class system made few more inroads into Canada than the U.S. Certainly Canada has some loose parallels to U.S. stomping on rights - the Arcadian expulsion could be compared to the Trail of Tears, and so on. My larger point was that the flow of history and expansion of personal freedoms did not just happen in the U.S., as has been posted.
Countries driven by their economies follow different paths than those driven by enforcement of class
I'm pretty sure he was pointing out that Canadians had similar "rights" to those of us living in the U.S., but without fighting the mother country to get them. The European class system made few more inroads into Canada than the U.S. Certainly Canada has some loose parallels to U.S. stomping on rights - the Arcadian expulsion could be compared to the Trail of Tears, and so on. My larger point was that the flow of history and expansion of personal freedoms did not just happen in the U.S., as has been posted.
Countries driven by their economies follow different paths than those driven by enforcement of class
Yeah I was touching on only one point, and your prior post covered alot of territory (IP's, etc.).
Rights, Freedoms, etc....these are terms subject to interpretation. Much of the world still doesn't get the American concept of personal freedom, as they interpret freedom as "freedom from" something....hate speech, gun violence, lack of medical care. All imposed via government mandates and authority. For American's, these mandates take away freedom - right to complete free speech, right to carry firearms, more taxation and less choice. For the US, we interpret freedom as "freedom to...". Individual freedoms not collective freedom.
Nor is it a component of a "young nation". The US Constitution is also one of a kind, as it defines not what the government can do, but what they cannot do. Sure they have been refined and regulated, but they are still with us. Sure all these western constitutions carry the same rights clauses - property, equality, liberty, justice, etc. But they are all government mandates, imposed by the rule of law. They take freedom as much as they give, freedoms that those citizens of those countries are happy to give up for the collective good.
It's neither good or bad, just subject to interpretation and cultural preference. I prefer the American definition of freedom as most Canadians I am sure prefer the Canadian definition of freedom.
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