Subj : EUROPE [1] To : Bob Eyer From : Frank Masingill Date : Tue Oct 24 2000 12:32 am BE> > If you argue AGAINST these dynamics it is because, I BE> > suppose, that you, like Bob Eyer, consider the murderous BE> > gangs for whom a Europe, deprived of the canons of western BE> > thought by this intellectual positivism and the social BE> > circumstances of the early 20th century, accepted as BE> > leaders. BE> BE: -"Bob Eyer"?? That's me you're talking about here. And BE> your -sentence is a triviality. You say, " ... I suppose BE> that you, -like Bob Eyer, consider the murderous gangs for BE> whom a Europe, -... (phrase in apposition) ..., accepted as BE> leaders". BE> > You told me once that while the nazi horrors were clearly BE> > bad they represented a mere passing phase in the overall BE> > progress that mankind was now experiencing because he BE> "he"? Does this refer back to mankind? BE> > had overcome the ignorance and superstition of religious BE> > philosophical period when he was mired in primitive error. BE> > Now I know that you did not use those precise words but that BE> > is what I read in your evaluation of the the period since BE> > "enlightenment." If I have erred in remembering your thought BE> > then I shall stand corrected. BE> My view is very simple here: While history shows good evidence BE> of progress overall, it doesn't go forward in a straight line; BE> nor does it show perfection. At the beginning of the BE> Enlightenment toward the end of the 17th century, we began to BE> realise that progress existed. The celebrated Quarrel of the BE> Ancients and Moderns was definitively settled in favour of the BE> Moderns by 1700. But there were many cases of barbarism in BE> the 18th century. In the 19th century, progress was defaced BE> somewhat by the violence of colonialism. In the 20th century, BE> the two world wars wrought terrible damage and intolerance. BE> But, despite these things, overall progress continued. While BE> wars and disease actually did limit population growth before BE> the end of the 18th century, wars and disease did not limit it BE> afterwards. The two world wars killed off something like 100 BE> million people. But they occurred at a time when the world's BE> population was far larger than the losses and was growing so BE> as to dwarf them within less than a generation. At no BE> previous period of human history had the human race recovered BE> so quickly from its worst cataclysms. BE> Not only has the population of the world grown rather BE> drastically and much faster than at any previous time in human BE> history. In addition, the average welfare of mankind also BE> drastically grew during the same period. Between 1800 and BE> 2000, the AVERAGE longevity of individual members of the human BE> race improved from around 30 years to the range between 60 and BE> 80 years. Only very few countries and relatively tiny BE> populations of the world show individual life expectancies BE> from birth less than 60 years today. The poorest countries of BE> the world today (such as Sierra Leone) offer their small BE> populations life expectancies around 40 years. But even this BE> figure far exceeds the mean life expectancy of Englishmen in BE> the time of Thomas Malthus in England and of George Washington BE> in America. BE> Most of the increase in human longevity occurred during the BE> same century which saw the world's most destructive world BE> wars. These wars hardly had any impact at all in reducing the BE> population or limiting human longevity. For they in fact BE> affected only a small percentage of the human race (less than BE> 2 percent). BE> The past two centuries have seen undeniable effects of BE> progress. The population has grown as it never did before. BE> People live more than twice as long as they used to, despite BE> the huge population increase. Progress has eliminated BE> practically all slavery. Public education for all has been BE> established in nearly every country of the world, wiping out BE> practically all the illiteracy which previously held back the BE> human race. For the first time in history, women have BE> achieved equal status with men in most countries--or at least BE> they have achieved an equality which even the utopians of past BE> ages did not imagine. These benefits were not purchased at BE> the price of conformity any more than longer life expectancies BE> were purchased at the cost of reducing the population. Today BE> there exist more religions, more art, more independent BE> thought, more choice in every conceivable thing for a far BE> greater proportion of the human race than any previous BE> utopianist had ever imagined. Not Plato, nor Thomas More, nor BE> Tommaso Campanella envisioned that material welfare could go BE> along so well with the sheer sweep and extent of human choice BE> and freedom which exists today. BE> It is true that modern technology has made warfare much more BE> dangerous than it used to be. But politics has controlled BE> warfare in such a way as to limit the destruction of warfare BE> to a far greater extent than was possible in the distant past. BE> Even when the Atomic Bomb was used twice against an enemy in BE> the 20th century, it was used to save lives rather than kill BE> off as many as possible. This too is a first in human BE> history. Never before the 20th century has warfare been so BE> well configured as to achieve progressive ends. And the end BE> of warfare per se is within sight alone within the Modern BE> period. No previous period of human history seriously BE> contemplated such a thing. BE> Thus, despite the backsliding in a few corners of the earth or BE> in some brief and unfortunate episodes, the general direction BE> of history is proving to be unmistakeably biased in favour of BE> universal progress. According to the above, then, Bob, I believe that essentially I DID represent your position as you have re-stated it. The catastrophes, while bad, regrettable, etc., take place in a setting in which a thing named "Progress" has assumed control since the referees declared Modernity to be the correct direction of the eschaton in "history" and insured the UNMIXED blessings of rapid population growth and increase and longer life spans. Since QUALITY is not mentioned here I assume you believe there to be no reasonable debate as to its presence both in population growth and longer life spans. I did err, I suppose, in failing to realize that you credit all of this, not to Man with his ego inflated in proportion as his projection of divinity outside of himself has been sucked back into himself, but to these entities that somehow never existed in such proportion before, to wit, Progress and the "bias of history" whose direction we need no longer wonder about as Burckhardt might have but may now accept as the wave of the future. I suppose that my hesitation to surf ride this wave without reserve will mean that you must mark me down as retaining a bit of sceptism. Consequently, I want to hasten to assure not only you but ALL of the inhabitants of this echo that I am NOT opposed to "progress" with a little "p." The one with the big "P" I must plead a lack of the ability to embrace for to do that would require a knowledge of reality as a whole (the beginning to end of EVERYTHING) which I do not possess - perhaps because I still lack that transcendent ego inflation that in the old Christian terminology "has overcome the world so be of good cheer." Frank --- PPoint 2.07 * Origin: Maybe in 5000 years (1:396/45.12) .