My great grandparents - and even my great-grandmother's parents - smiled in their photos (which wasn't done in those days) and adored each other, and loved their children, and raised them well, so I can't pretend to be wiser or better even than those great-greats who were born in the 1830s (and my great grandmother Katrina also loved cats). We are multiracial and multicultural nowadays, and take that privilege for granted; a bigger issue for my family in the 1880s was class. One of my great grandmothers was disowned when she eloped with my lower class great grandfather, stayed loyal to her husband, had no regrets, and was spoiled by her little brother, who travelled, and brought her gifts from all over the world. That isn't wisdom, but it's love, and perhaps love, which crosses all boundaries, is better than wisdom, after all.
42
@Stephanie Wood
Beautiful.
"perhaps love, which crosses all boundaries, is better than wisdom, after all".
Beautiful.
9
Having read this profound essay and most of the comments it has --as of December 24--elicited, I'm impressed not only by what reads as the collective "wisdom" of so many NYT readers, but also by the generosity of the tone which both Iyer's essay and so many readers' comments display.
The one thing I would add is this wish: May each of us, in our reactions to today's "presentist" prejudices, treat our intolerant contemporaries with the same generosity and humility we profess towards those dead forebears whose actions and thoughts we and Mr. Iyer now perceive were so time-bound.
I'm not suggesting that we ought to agree with the a-historical righteousness of the many who claim "wokeness" these days. But rather that we would do well to remember that the real power of what we're all saying here, lies not in the righteousness of our own "wisdom" on this subject, but in the compassion from which it grows.
32
Humans are really clever; we can split and fuse the atom, see to the edge of the known universe, cure polio, and generate tremendous wealth. One thing humans are not, is wise. We are not even close to wise. I’ve not found, or been able to coin an antonym for wise that is strong enough to describe human behaviour. Folly doesn’t really convey the magnitude of human misbehaviour.
Our cleverness combined with our lack of collective wisdom make us lethally dangerous to all of life on earth.
125
@Mike : Unfortunately, we cannot cure polio. What we *can* do is prevent most people from getting it through vaccination. I say most, because no vaccine is 100% effective. What's appalling is the growing number of people opting out. Talk about a lack of collective wisdom.
10
@Mike Santayana once asked if the human species had evolved into a perverse species.
1
@Mike
Time to change the species name from Homo sapiens to Homo stupidus.
6
Based on this article alone I think it's safe to say we are far less wise than our grandparents, who were able to make do with the clothes on their backs, not knowing where their next meal was coming from, while we can't go an hour without a magic tablet in our hands. Our grandparents saved Europe from fascism, making gut-wrenching moral decisions, while we cry ourselves to sleep over an offensive Halloween costume. The fact that anyone would even say "I can't expect forgiveness, now or ever" for having worn a COSTUME shows how far we've fallen from the Greatest Generation that created the United Nations, believed it could end war and put a man on the moon. Our grandparents faced true existential challenges and real suffering. Compared to them we're just a bunch of spoiled brats looking for ever new ways to be offended.
79
@Samuel Russell
Not only did our grandparents' generation save Europe from Fascism, they also created Fascism. As autocracy and white supremacy raise their ugly heads again after trending downward, with Orwellian doublespeak daily superceding truth and facts, today's generation faces real dangers, existential challenges and suffering as surely as our forbears. To think otherwise will lead us down the path of ignorance toward a new form of 21st century totalitarianism.
14
American culture and screen culture, teaches a people that the elderly are used up and stupid, that women are to be bashed, that the only important people are the upwardly mobile, young, beautiful and sexy. It's disgusting. We lose something when we warehouse our elderly rather than move them in with us. We lose the preparations we will need to look aging and death right in the eye with love and compassion. Those older than us are closer to dying and THAT makes they of value. Too bad we don't understand that.
15
Dear Mr. Iyer,
Anyone that has lived a little, read a little, traveled a little, should know that genius and imbecility of the moral and material kind reside side by side at every moment, in every place, in every time.
I say “should” because as your most wonderfully wrought essay reminds us, pitifully few know anything of the kind, suffering from every conceivable “ism” with the exception of skepticism.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
35
My father was born in New Jersey in 1917. He told me about minstrel routines once being performed in his school. I got the impression he had participated. Like most of us, he changed and grew over time. For example, although a lifelong Republican, as an old man he refused to donate to the party, based on their stance on women’s rights. He returned their soliciting letter with a note to that effect. These are two acts by the same person, some seventy years apart. In between he married, fought in The Battle of the Bulge, and had three sons to whom he was a model of civility and kindness. It’s possible — and likely — that we all have things in our past that our future selves abhor.
217
@Tobor The 8th Man - in high school, in the early 1960s, I was the blackfaced drummer for the "orchestra" in the Lions Club annual Minstrel show in our little oblivious south Texas town. I had no sense of the impropriety, and probably neither did most of the other performers. I'm very happy that these events, and my participation, are in the distant past.
12
As a teacher, I hate being the grumpy old guy who thinks the past is better than the present. As a progressive who fights against gender, sexual, racial, and ethnic discrimination, I appreciate the national conversations that have advanced diversity to some degree.
That said, my students live in a more simplistic, cruder, less humanistic world than the one I grew up in. Shakespeare? They've never read it. T. S. Eliot? Never heard of him They are incapable of reading Prufrock (I've tried). Reading itself has become difficult: the cell-phone attention spans are real and have tremendous, quite terrifying effects.
I poll my students to find out what contemporary culture they share. What can we use as reliable touchstones? What do they actually have in common? The answer is Harry Potter, The Avengers, and Star Wars. Not exactly a celebration of diversity. More importantly, these are not narratives on which to found a thoughtful appreciation of what it means to be human.... They are stories in which a chosen one is selected by blood lines and fate to become a champion against unambiguous evil.
Along with this comes a conviction, held by all of them, that they live in an enlightened age. They believe that they are smarter, more attuned to injustice than anyone ever before. They have been trained to regard history as a bunch of "bad guys" who have or will be defeated by the "good guys" who create diversity in superhero narratives.
214
@MR I'm sure we could poll previous generations and find a lack of diversity as well. Your view of the younger generation is a similar bias that a lot of them might have of you. How many people do you think of any age read Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot regularly? If reading in general is difficult for your students it sounds like it might be more of a failure of their educational system.
I do think we should have empathy and understanding of older generations views but I do also believe the younger generation overall tends to be more "enlightened" especially on social issues. I don't think this means that anyone is smarter than anyone I just think it means we have made progress as a society.
“If you look at the world and look at the problems, it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way”. I think this quote from Obama sums up a lot of the frustration people have with older generations, especially in government.
18
@MR Fighting gender, sexual, racial, & ethnic discrimination isn't 'progressive', it's liberal. Progressive is fighting for economic justice.
6
@MR - and, unfortunately, their refusal to engage with the classics is fueled by the virtue-signallers in education who maintain that reading Shakespeare, Melville, etc. is "privileging dead white men." I have heard my students assert repeatedly that they are the most tolerant, forward-thinking generation ever. I bite my tongue at the hubris.
35
I have been a big fan of Pico Iyer's ever since I read his book "Videonight in Kathmandu" back in 1994 (highly recommended!). I still have it on my shelf, and one of the reasons I think about it from time-to-time is that I left the very same copy in the seat back of a Delta Airlines flight back in 1994.
I remembered when I was half way through the terminal and went back to the gate agent and told her what happened. She pointed to the still-open door, and I went out on the tarmac unescorted and up the stairs of the plane and went on board by myself, the only one in the 757. I was so relieved the book was still there where I had left it!
Sometimes when I am going through airport security (e.g, when I have been pulled aside because of a body scan or the multiple layers of security you pass through in Nairobi) I think of what an innocent, different time it was when a young man could run out on a tarmac and up the stairs of a plane to retrieve a cherished book, particularly one like Videonight in Kathmandu.
130
@David I have now been to 90 countries, but my first trip was to Asia, after I read Video Nights in Katmandu.
4
An interesting piece that I enjoyed. I would comment, however, that the exemption you carve out, regarding "the treatment of women, say, and the L.G.B.T.Q. community, as well as of what Canadians call 'visible minorities,'" is pretty huge. After all, these are the areas where a high percentage of complaints about the intolerance of the past are directed.
I agree that human nature does not just linearly improve over time, that the values of the present cannot automatically be considered an improvement over those of the past. Rather, I think there is an ongoing struggle to produce a more inclusive society in the face of forces that would preserve hierarchy and oppression. I think we're doing relatively well right now - although there is trouble on the horizon.
5
Am I wiser than my dog?
2
Going back to school at age 50 after getting my undergrad from prestigious University in my early 20’s, I thought it would be prudent to take a few classes at a local community college before jumping into grad school. I spent two semesters taking math and English. My first day I walked into the women’s bathroom and was stunned and befuddled. There was an entire bathroom filled with prostitutes. I thought I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Turns out, I was just an old grandmother who had no idea of how 19-year-old girls were dressing. I was/am embarrassed about my prudish reaction.
Then there are girls and women who text potential and current lovers provocative pictures of themselves, sometimes just naked. Some of these pictures were sent by women currently pursing political careers. This seemed so profoundly stupid to me that it still baffles me entirely.
I imagine my grandparent’s generation calling young people, “long-haired hippies.” I intensely dislike my non-sex-positive, sexist response in the bathroom incident. After all, I’m actually a sex & kink educator. But my response showed me to be a prude and sexist. I was genuinely taken aback by my stance being very unhappy with it. I of all older people should not have had such a reaction, yet that is what I did….. Sigh….
.
3
@SMcStormy
"Then there are girls and women who text potential and current lovers provocative pictures of themselves, sometimes just naked. Some of these pictures were sent by women currently pursing political careers. This seemed so profoundly stupid to me that it still baffles me entirely. "
This is stupid at any age, in any era. It's not prudish to think so. It will come back to bite them, especially now that everything on line is forever.
5
Fine essay, in my opinion. Perhaps some of the self-torture and questioning comparisons with the past (what-about-the-Nazis) can be to some extent resolved if we know more than most apparently do about history. When the Nazis were committing genocide, they were not violating just standards that we have now, they were violating the standards that decent people had then as well. We have had thousands of years agreeing that murder and rape are wrong. Honestly, that's not exactly the same as cultural appropriation and microagressions. Not that those are good, but it is up to us living now to help bring consciousness about these problems to people who still don't get it. And we need to understand that there is a difference between Uncle Bill and Aunt Tilly who don't get it (we love them anyway, we would just like to see them change in certain ways) and Hitler back then and genocide in Myanmar (and elsewhere!) today. That's a good reason for wanting better role models in public office. It's also what perhaps may give some of us hope for the future.
3
I know I'm wiser. My Grandfather, for all his intelligence, was never able to love the adopted grandson who adored him, because the child was aboriginal. He couldn't see the child, only the skin. Not wise.
I'm wiser than my Grandmother because she worried more about appearances and social climbing than allowing her children and grandchildren to be who they wanted to be. Not wise.
9
Am I wiser than my grand father ?
No. He could recite the Iliad and Odyssey, by heart, in ancient Greek and new about the human condition than I will ever know
To this day, I envy him about this. But who teaches this any now, when the global rat race requires all of us to study something "practical" ?
6
"Judging the past by the values of today can be its own kind of intolerance."
Does that mean that I cannot judge what Nazi's did, or what Stalin did, or what the Chinese did at Tiananmen Square, or.... etc. etc. in the past?
Isn't it that some values - particularly those that relate to humanism - transcend time and remain inviolable and sacrosanct for time immemorial?
If so, how can the statement above be made WITHOUT some qualifiers?
1
I came to the climax of Larocque’s article — “I can’t expect forgiveness, now or ever”
Cringeworthy.
6
When in the past was it OK to take a married woman and her children away from her husband?
2
THANK YOU. I've been long waiting for someone to say this. The word chronocentrism will be very useful.
3
Come on, you're trying to take away from us a big part of the fun about reading history. Where else than in the past could you find so many people to feel so superior to? Don't you have to admit that when you read history or biography that highlights the faults of some supposed hero, that it makes you feel better about yourself? Aren't people in the past the easiest villains to denounce ... because they can't fight back?
Stop being such a killjoy.
3
I think it is wonderful when people reflect actively on their behavior and try to be better people.
The people that make it a kabuki theatre act - like P Larocque - are the ones that I question.
They seem to be more in love with the performative aspects of admitting fault than in the modest details of - you know - trying to be a better fellow life-traveller.
At best they are virtue signalling - at worst they are more deeply cynical that the worst racist.
3
Well said!
1
"... unusually for his considerate homeland [Canada] ..."
Don Cherry. Lovely man.
@John
Oh, yeah. We have our own rednecks and racists. They seem to be mostly confined to the middle of Canada (and what is it about those flyover Provinces, anyway?) but you can find them all over.
1
No.
1
By all means let's us forgive the past errors and also remember that Hitler was just trying to make the trains run on time.
1
Every generation invents French kissing.
Our parents would never do that!
3
My grandfather was in the klan and thought Hitler was an ok guy till he attacked his home country. His father founded a famous charity. It’s a mixed bag.
Are we better? Sometimes..
3
I think moral cowardice fueled by avarice and wilful stupidity are far more dangerous and exeistentially immediate problems for the western world.
2
Amen!
An insightful, humble, courageous piece of writing that repels the plague of “Timeism” that’s beset various intellectual circles across the land. This insane idea we can judge people of past decades, centuries, etc by today’s cultural and moral standards. It is sheer madness. I pray this essay is read by many.
5
As I teach students about history, I am careful to mention that the figures we study were people well entrenched in their era and that we must judge them as such. I also mention that our grandchildren will surely laugh at us and say “why did you elect him?”
1
On the one hand, there is the brilliant Maya Angelou quote: “Do the best with what you know, and when you know more do better.” On the other hand, there are atrocities like the gassing of my relatives— including children —during the Holocaust, or the lynchings of black fathers and sons, mothers and daughters—trauma reverberating through generations...unspeakable pain. This is for for certain: It is our moral duty to move as quickly as we can from tribalism to love of all humanity, and that ought to be taught in every school and family.
5
The wisdom of living over time is realizing human beings don't change substantially over time as much as we thought they would, and that while it's not a justification for fatalism, it should encourage humility.
4
Please feel free to judge the past by the values of today. What's going on today most assuredly will be judged by the values of tomorrow, whatever they turn out to be. At age 70+, I am perfectly comfortable judging today by the values of the past, just as I suspect Mr. Iyer will be when he is my age.
6
Allow me along winded post.
Please grant me the serenity to accept the things that I can not change; the courage to change the things that I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Especially for my friends and reliatives in the US at this Christmas, I'd add 'the understanding that naming their political affiliation (when registering as a voter) is for administrative expediency reason only, but NEVER as a blind devotion to that human construct instutition in future. No matter what.
Anything contrary to that understanding has the potential to make democracy an exercise in futility.
Merry Christmas.
4
Each time I see one of those old trees, 2000 years old, I cannot help but feel they carry the wisdom of the ages. Some of them must have known Pythagoras, Buddha and Confucius. I have known my own father to be extraordinarily smart and wise and having seen his grandchildren - Yes! Grandparents are smarter by far.
5
Every generation is critical of the one(s) that came before. Hindsight is always easier than foresight...
8
Brings to mind Santayana's claim that the first Philosophers were the best.
3
Some people are wise beyond their years, regardless of the era in which they were born and raised, while others never master the art of maturity regardless of how old they become.
The difference lies in the ability to live one’s life and plan for the future with more perspective and respect for the past.
That’s what’s truly timeless.
3
A very nice piece, quite elegant.
12
Part of wisdom is knowing when and what to forgive.
It is the antithesis of tolerance, wisdom or goodness to create such a brutally punitive social environment where JP Larocque must feel compelled commit such abject social self-flagellation for dressing up foolishly - which is really all he did. He was insensitive. He erred. He did not commit an atrocity.
I wonder if our current-day cultural pharisees will be demonized by future generations as modern Inquisitors.
9
The J.P. Larocque argument as an example of holding the past responsible for present mores/values is a straw man. J.P. Larocque was completely wrong not because Mexican-bashing is understood to be disgusting and wrong in 2019, but because it was long since understood by 2008.
6
It's the conceit of modernity vs a fondness for antiquity and we must learn to dance with a foot in each camp as we try to remember that knowledge and ignorance grow together.
3
For some reason, The Times has blocked me from posting on this piece. But if this comment somehow makes it through, the answer is “No.” People don’t change that much, even over generations. It’s the rules of behavior that change.
2
another try:
Humans are social mammals. We seek safety in numbers, in our own groups. That will always be true. What changes is what society accepts, and expects. Laws change. Walls come down. We get along better, but in our hearts we all still gird ourselves against the “other,” at least a little bit. Admit it.
Intent is important. When I was young, kids often dressed as “Indians.” We didn’t know better. But college boys dressing up as dumb blondes for Halloween? That’s based in misogyny. Justin Trudeau’s infamous “brown face” costume? He was a teen who tried to dress like a kind of Jinn, and instead ended up looking like a “Blackamoor” figure you might see on a decorative piece of crockery, or jewelry. That was just a clueless kid who got it very wrong.
As for the “Mexican’t” costume, the film that line came from it was a joke delivered as a straight line, (“Are you a Mexican or a Mexican’t?”), answered by Mexican American actor Danny Trejo. Is the joke off-limits to non Latinos? What if the costume was an “American’t” and made fun of a poor white person from Kentucky? Would that be amusing, or unacceptable?
The truth is the Woke pose is often as excluding and negative as the disturbing costumes and attitudes of years past. The intention behind these call outs is to shame, and enjoy the feeling of righteousness. Just another form of superiority.
4
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
What could the Prophet Jesus' words that He died for our sins possibly mean if not that suffering cleanses sin? All of us are sinners, make mistakes and suffer the consequences; but transcendence is possible, the Prophets (and human experience) agree. In suffering, we recognize suffering in all others, and learn compassion and forgiveness as light in the dark. Our tests are repeated until we put away our childishness and see ourselves in all of suffering humanity. For as we treat the least of us, so also do we treat ourself. Becoming "better" is a human exigency and the momentum of an advancing civilization.
4
It is important to allow people and their actions the context of their times. Even when someone, e.g., JFK or Thomas Jefferson. offends the morals of their own times as well as those of the present, it does not negate their contributions. It simply justifies an asterisk. More interesting is someone such as Andrew Jackson whose offensive-in-his-day marital situation would be a nonissue today but whose accepted-in-his-day Trail of Tears is profoundly offensive to many today. Bottom line - what is moral and what is not changes constantly - rushing to judgment should be avoided in favor of analytical, informed thinking - hope springs eternal!
4
On a similar note, should we judge men, particularly their accomplishments, by today’s sensibilities of how women should be treated?
6
@GV Sometimes, Yes.
General knowledge increases with each generation. Deal with it.
2
@Natalie ,
I must disagree.
I have a collection of old textbooks, mostly from the 40's and 50's. The level of learning expected from these run-of-the-mill public school students is mind boggling.
One in particular, about the European Middle Ages, a subject of life-long interest to me, contains the best definition of feudalism I ever encountered and a very neat description of the various levels of misery and obligation of the peasantry in various parts of the continent.
The knowledge contained in these books far exceeds that of my own textbooks from the 70's and, I'm sure, those from your own, more recent, textbooks. This suggests to me that much knowledge has been lost to the average person.
Deal with that.
20
Laurence ....brilliant commentary.
1
@Natalie
" Deal with it."
Yes, Natalie, but we've criticized cliched. or commonplace writing for some time now.
He wore a silly sign. Not a big deal. Nothing to apologize for.
If you are looking to be offended ("wearing a chip on your shoulder") you will surely find something to offend you. If you are looking for something to feel guilty about, you will surely find something. That's not the way to improve human relations.
It's much better for everyone to take those chips off their shoulders, ignore what may or may not be intentional rudeness, stop examining themselves for possibly imperfect behavior, and get on with life. Save your outrage for acts of violence.
7
@Jonathan Katz
I daresay it was more than a silly sign. Just as blackface is more than a silly costume. And those Belgian floats depicting racist stereotypes of Jews are more than silly parade floats.
"I’m wary of assuming that, just because T.S. Eliot held some positions that we now find offensive, we are more “moral” or attuned to the complexities of human nature than he was."
T.S. Elliot was an anti-Semite. I am sorry if Mr. Iyer thinks that only now this should be considered "offensive". It should have been considered offensive when it "animated" his work, as Antony Julius pointed out:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/06/06/eliot-and-the-jews/
5
I think that Pico Iyer makes an important point, but I know many old white folks like myself who use this mode of thinking to convince themselves that they are not now and have never been racists and/or to ignore the fact that systemic racism still exists in Europe and the USA.
It is amazing for me to realize that a nonwhite person could be elected POTUS. It is also amazing to me to realize that a self proclaimed white nationalist who is racist is currently serving as POTUS.
4
Robert E. Lee was racist. History has whites who had bad ideas and are on the wrong side of history and Lee was one of them. If we are talking about Archie Bunker Northern racism, where whites were afraid of blacks moving in and taking their jobs, I don't think anybody hates Archie Bunker. But the whites who jailed MLK and his people and who lynched and burned crosses, they are on the losing side and it is racist revisionism to pretend that the most brutal aspects of historical white racism are okay or neutral because they happened a long time ago. Worst of all, they successfully past down their racist ideas. Today's Nazis and Neo Confederates continue to defend Trump and their racist cause. We still have Dr. King's enemies walking among us.
1
"... unusually for his considerate homeland [Canada] ..."
That's either pandering or obliviousness. Of course, there are nasty, thoughtless, violent Canadians, but it would be an impropriety to name any.
Maybe the author should read about Canadian politics or crime. Try a web search for "crime news canada".
Disclaimer: This is not a criticism of Canada, but of the author.
@FYD I'm a Canadian, & I'm not that proud of our colonial & post-colonial past: Chinese immigrants worked as virtual slaves building our trans-national railroad, Indigenous people were treated in an Apartheid manner until recently (they only got the right to vote in 1961 & were terrorized for a century in Residential schools), we refused entry into Canada to Jewish refugees before WW2, we interned Japanese Canadian citizens until 1949, and our Black population has suffered in ways similar to African Americans. Maybe it's because we haven't done as much war-mongering as some nations that we have a not-necessarily-deserved positive reputation.
2
"... chronocentrism — a term coined in 1974 to suggest among other things, prejudice against other times ..."
That's too dainty. Call it "temporal parochialism".
4
Bigotry against bigotry is still pretty much bigotry.
The modern left-wing social activists are far far far more bigoted than those racist sexist homophobic Trump-voting deplorables.
Virtually no one actually agrees with the recent social mores for sensitivity and tolerance. We are just too scared of the SJW coming for our jobs and lives to say otherwise.
3
I live in a small town. In a southern state. It is, say, 1910. A crowd has gathered in the town square for a hanging. A black man, hung because he violated some norm imposed upon him by the white community.
What do I do or say? Likely, very little. The immense pressure of widely-held societal beliefs are almost impossible to resist at the moment.
So, how might I be judged?
22
@Jim
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
Asking the title question is a sign of great wisdom. (Shall I congratulate myself for saying this?) I can already hear the whispers of the next generation pointing at our warts, and worse. Every human folly forces us to a new experiment, and I am not so sure the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.
3
Beautifully said. Thank you.
3
Tough to fight the dopamine burst when others "like" your performative outrage in an age when most believe their biggest problem is not the one in the mirror.
6
Not all condemnations of the past represent benighted "chronocentrism." T.S. Eliot, you say, "held some positions that we now find offensive." A number of his poems reveal him as blatantly antisemitic. It was an attitude as repugnant then as it is now. Tides of opinion may shift - and do, thrusting certain evils into prominence, exaggerating some flaws and masking others. But I wouldn't give an earlier generation's bigots a pass simply because they were once in a majority.
3
Tone deaf, Mr. Iyer. It's a lot more complicated than you're conceding.
1
@Stephen Merritt I disagree.
4
@Stephen Merritt I believe that that's his point - that it is complicated and that 'performative', hand-wringing guilt about one's own transgressions, real or perceived, in the past or self-righteous outrage about other's sins, likewise past, are often facile emotional manipulations which generally help no one.
2
I've read that from now on Tiny Tim, in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, should only be played by an authentically disabled child. So who is going to play a ghost, an authentically dead person? And who has the authenticity to write those parts? One can be sensitive to blackface with out negating creativity and imagination. Seriously now.
14
@Mr. Jones
What will they do if the only talented actor they can find is able-bodied? They'll have to break his kneecaps?
4
"The enormous condescension of posterity" is the classic phrase of E. P. Thompson for the chronocentrism that this excellent piece describes.
14
Do we on average have a higher IQ? Most definitely. Do we know more things? Are we able to apply our knowledge and intelligence more appropriately? Nope.
6
I'm surprised that Mr. Iyer should be even asking the question: "Have we really Gotten Wiser?"
We've wantonly destroyed and polluted the environment, keep on waging relentless wars all over the word, keep on killing each other, perpetrating violence against the weak and unarmed, and have contributed to the extinction of millions of species.
What gives us the right to judge whether we've gotten wiser or not? It's an ignorant proposition to begin with.
6
Not sure how chronocentrism differs from anachronism? Otherwise, a big yes. I am not who I was. Back then, or even yesterday.
7
Amen. I know we Boomers thought we were the smartest thing going, just like every generation before us thought they were so much smarter than those that came before them.
Chrono-terrorism is not acceptable. Everyone lives on earth for a certain amount of time. The more you experience, the more things you should learn and know. Granted, this is not the case a lot of the time. But thinking you are actually smarter than people older than you, or smarter than those younger than you is a mistake.
Tolerance is what's called for. Listening to each other is what is called for. All of our boats rising on the tide is what's called for.
6
Bravo and thanks to Pico Iyer for an incisive new approach to present vs past morality. We can henceforth add "presentism" to the already-long list of bigoted ideologies we have to shun.
2
To answer your question maybe yes or maybe no.
There is an agonizingly slow history of progress with mankind in the western world. We no longer have slavery, segregation, discrimination re oppressed groups like blacks, women, other minorities etc.
We have SS, medicare, medicaid, women voting rights, union rights etc. etc.
However sometimes it seems like for whatever foot will step forward, we take an almost as big foot backwards.
Trump, the bigot, rabble rouser, pathological liar, ego maniac demagogue (and those are some of the nicer things I can say about him). A de facto criminal health care system in relation to the ones our peer countries have. New groups to discriminate against, number one being seniors workers where the discrimination is total, institutionalized, accepted and ugly.
When one visits Washington DC you see America at its best, it finest people honored, its finest moments with apologies for past mistakes. One visits the sacred Lincoln Memorial, savior of us all and the first democracy in 2,500 yrs. and the cleansing of America original sin of slavery.
However, then you leave the city and its America many times at its worst, not learning from our finest moments.
2
What a nuanced, wonderful write up, Mr. Iyer. Thank you. Because I think your opinion advocates for a measured swing of pendulum, in a time when it swings too wildly, and off kilter.
5
If you want to learn about life, speak to an old person, or grandparent! And listen to them.
4
I would be very careful not to measure or judge too much on the basis of current ideas about our country. We are in a dissonance that is hard to ignore but so outside of our norms that it will take time to decide what is really true. A reckoning has arrived that will decide the future of our country. Unfortunately it has been laid at our door by a total nincompoop.
2
Virtually none of us are exceptional enough to be "ahead of our time," morally speaking. That is to say that any one of us, if born in another time, would have behaved and believed as most people did then. All of us are, but for our birth year and locale, potential slaves and slave owners, potential killers and sackers of cities. To think otherwise is to deceive yourself.
It is currently considered the height of morality to comb members of older generations and critique their Halloween costumes and call them monsters, without irony. The Romans, not even the Huns stooped so low. A costume is, after all, a costume.
Mr. Larocque there is nothing to forgive. But then I'm a middle aged white guy. What do I know?
8
No.
You have more knowledge, but that's not wisdom.
You're 2 generations removed from your grandparents.
My 9th great grandfather baptized Benjamin Franklin...and I'm not wiser than he..the Pastor at the Old South Church in Boston...or the townspeople bent on burning witches such as my 8th greatgrandmother (who had epilepsy; she was acquitted).
We're 300,000,000 years of evolution..each and every one of us.
Nature has placed the hair follicles in our ears and the rods/cones in our eyes for no other reason that this allows our species to move on.
We are no more enlightened or wise than our ancestors, we simply have more tools to use to keep the wolves at bay and our safety/security in place.
The thing that threatens our species more than anything else isn't Global Warming.
It's the gradual elimination of Natural Selection.
The viruses and bacteria in our body and outside it will rule supreme.
You just have to be patient. it might take another 10,000 years..but only those with the strongest genetic code will survive.
Until then..this Bud's for you.
3
But shouldn't we assess historical figures by the better moral standards and exemplars of their own era? A previous commenter mentioned Jefferson - but he deep down knew that slavery was immoral, and was in a climate where he read the arguments against slavery that abolitionists were raising (starting in the mid-1770s).
And this then, is the complication. For any historical injustice, there was a long period of time where previous generations were split in their opinions. Slavery, women's rights, civil rights, LGBT rights. The reality is we will find many of our ancestors in the ~50% of the population during key decades that held on to regressive views, while the other 50% understood that injustice. So, no, I would not judge a grandparent for their lack of understanding gay rights in the 1930s or 1950s. But by the 1980s or 90s? Many of their contemporaries began to see the injustice, at least in discriminatory laws against the LGBT community. And while I would not presume myself to judge anyone, I would feel a bit of disappointment that my ancestors were on the wrong side of history, when ignorance and even societal norms were no longer an excuse. A similar argument can be made for racist attitudes here in the US by the 70s and 80s.
I do think it is worthwhile to relish and admire those of our grandparents and ancestors who had wisdom ahead of their time: consider my great-grandfather who pushed his daughter to pursue a university education when social norms opposed it.
2
I cannot disagree more with the writer.Responsibility, duty, honor, love of education, truth, humanity ,do not change each decade nor each generation. My grandparents, parents, siblings, children, grandkids to a person, try and tried to hew to these everlasting precepts. Sure there are stumbles, mistakes, transgressions, but the main moral precepts do not change.
2
As L.P. Hartley said: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." We can't undo the past, we can learn from it and do our best to mitigate the damage - including sincere apologies, where appropriate. But I think that self-flagellation does nobody any good.
9
L.P. Hartley, a voice from the past, resurrected by your wise and thoughtful comment. Thank you.
1
In this woke world we live in I often think about my parents and grandparents (I'm 70) and what they did, how they acted and, to the extent I could determine, what they thought. Sometimes I cringe.
Then I think, am I smarter than they were; wiser; a better person than they were? No. My life has been a struggle to be as smart, wise and as good a person as they were.
7
I like Pico Iyer's thoughts and writing, but I don't know if whether the chronocentrism he talks about is really what the issue is. I think of the concern more about that we, as a conscious entity, acted one way or another in the past. Clearly there are cultural norms at play, but we are being asked today to be responsible for who we were in the past. Sometimes that person in the past was young, or inexperienced, or just wrong. Sometimes choices that we make signal a more challenging value system or other characteristic that we should be willing to address.
I think the fundamental challenge is of responsibility. Is it OK to be young and inexperienced, but then learn from it and be willing to accept it? Will others be willing accept that we are not only who we were, but who we are today?
If Justin Trudeau owns up to his brownface costume with either cultural appreciation or recognition of its insensitivity, than is that historical experience or are they now persona non grata? If Brett Kavanaugh behaves badly and sexually assaults someone, that may show an inexcusable moral flaw (particularly for a Supreme Court Justice), but the inability to accept responsibility for a prior act and demonstrate change is the real failing.
If society makes it harder for people to accept responsibility for their selves in a prior time, then we have done real damage. We evolve as individual people, not only as societies. Chronocentrism when applied to our very selves is very harmful.
8
Do we stop admiring the work of certain actors, painters, teachers, politicians and other humans that lived their lives and did spectacular work before today's woke-ness meters set off everyone's purity alarms?
I was an elf for Halloween, once. I have worn a "Mexican" sombrero. I have worn a black lace tablecloth "veil" pretending to be a nun. My mother sewed a basket of fruits and pinned them to her head, dressing up as Chiquita Banana. My father wore an eye mask and a flouncy shirt, adopting the flamboyance of a Spanish flamenco dancer. Can there be no more playing 'pretend'?
Shall dressing as a historical figure be out of bounds? Will Hollywood abandon "costume design" as Oscar category?
And am I now going to I have to give up making empanadas as shameful cultural appropriation?
How about we refuse this year's rules as unacceptably narrow and priggish. No apologies: I still like Caravaggio.
25
Excellent! Much needed sanity for our time. If future generations of our own progressive standard bearers are as self-righteous as us, they will consider us irredeemable monsters, intolerant in the extreme. The fact is, the people who came before us did a pretty spectacular job, and we could all use a healthy dose of humility.
7
The subtitle of this piece distills its confused analysis: "Judging the past by the values of today can be its own kind of intolerance". The author likens any recognition of moral progress to a naive belief in its inevitability. We are not engaged in some kind of contest with past generations, or our past selves, and we would be foolish to imagine ourselves as moral judges. But we should recognize moral growth--and sadly, decay.
2
Sure, chronocentrism is not correct in many situations. However, we can not excuse genocide, colonialism and slavery. We are on the whole wiser than our great-grandparents.
2
@Albanywala My great grand parents were abolitionist so I'm able to be smug about some aspects of the past but not sure I'm any wiser than they were. Well, half the family. The rest were Canadian.
2
It's a political game. The whole Civil War flag and monuments controversy is an example of political opponents misusing the past as a stick with which to beat their adversaries. And, yes, even Shakespeare is politically incorrect. I remember attending a performance of Othello and watching a black woman ostentatiously get up and stalk out when some really racially insensitive things were being said on stage. I remember wondering if she was genuinely shocked, unaware of what she had gotten into, or was just making an intentional scene for effect. Come on, folks, accept the past for what it is; accept our culture for what it was--different from the present, unable to change, and incapable of defending itself.
8
Beautiful writing and wise thoughts. I continue to love to read and holding a book beats looking at a screen. Still, my screen time report (automatically popping up on my phone) sometimes alarms me.
1
Like much of Mr. Iyer's other writings, there is genuine wisdom in this one.
That said, I'm not convinced it is intellectually or morally wrong to judge and condemn past eras for the attitudes that were socially, religiously or politically acceptable based on what history has taught us about their impacts on humanity and the rest of our planet. That doesn't mean, however, that we should judge past literature or authors, such as Shakespeare or his plays, based on current ethical standards. That would be absurd.
But it does mean we can judge what was unleashed on the world by Shakespeare's queen, Elizabeth, after authorizing Drake to steal gold stolen by Spain from the Incas and Aztecs, and Raleigh to seize the lands of the indigenous people of what we now call Virginia and to colonize it. British entrepreneurs like the East India Company, bankers and imperialists bequeather their lust for gold, slaves and land to their American cousins, and capitalist greed and exploitation of weaker peoples made us rich and powerful.
If we are not intolerant of the barbarism, imperialism, colonialism, slavery and injustices of the past, how can we learn to "right injustices" of the present, or believe that we can "do better than we did"?
The biggest problem as I see it is not that Americans are dismissive of the past, but that they are too often wholly ignorant of it. This sadly and clearly seems to be the case in every interview or comment of Trump supporters I've seen or heard.
7
In the future, we will be wrong about some current deeply held belief. I don't know what it will be, but I am certain that genocide, slavery, denial of basic humanity, or any other action that knowingly harms another human being, will not be on the list.
3
@Paul Webb
"In the future, we will be wrong about some current deeply held belief. I don't know what it will be"
It will be the way we treat animals. They're treated no better than slaves were, despite being just as sentient. A slaughterhouse is no different than a concentration camp, and millions are killed every single day. We hypocritically say "Never again" as we chow down on a tortured, factory-farmed animal. And all of that cruelty is for no other purpose than our own mild convenience and pleasure. It's unconscionable.
1
@Samuel Russell I've been thinking exactly this. And as a writer, I hope my legacy doesn't someday get "cancelled" by future generations because up to a certain age I blithely ate hamburgers (which I no longer do).
My mother, gracious person that she was, carried on a long-running, although quiet, disagreement with her mother concerning how my grandmother had intervened in a sibling's marriage, and contributed to it's breakup. Occasionally it would erupt. Iyer's piece reminded me of Mother's comment as she and I were on a bus traveling home. "Mom grew up different than we [Mother and her siblings] did, and she never changed." Then she looked at me and smiled. "And you're growing up different from me and your father. We may or may not change, you may or may not change. but we'll always see things differently."
She was right. Her life experiences had varied from those of her parents; my life experiences certainly varied from my beloved parents. Now I see how my middle-aged daughter approaches questions differently than I.
It's always so easy to judge others from the security of never having to face the same cultural, societal, and peer pressures to view life as our forebears did. Are we really sure that we would take that moral stand of today if we lived 50, 100, or more, years ago? A fellow church member was disgruntled about some affairs in our church body. He was waxing pious. I challenged him to step down from his "molehill of righteous" and do something, not just make pious statements.
I'm reminded of the old (I first heard it some thirty years ago) saying: "Change s good. You go first."
12
There is a word for this, a known fallacy.
An "anachronism" is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of persons, events, objects, or customs from different periods. It may be a verbal expression, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a custom, or anything else associated with a particular period that is placed outside its proper temporal domain.
We have been in a time of rapid changes. We change more in a decade than we once did in a generation. Technology and rapid communications moves us, as does widespread education and intelligent discussion of ideas.
These are good qualities in our culture. However, they leave us open to anachronism, the error of forgetting that what we think now is not what we thought then.
We judge then by the standards of now, which is not just unfair, it is simply wrong. Anachronism.
7
I disagree that people have always done the best can at their time. There are moments when we rise to the occasion and moments we failed miserably. The only certainty we have of the future is that decisions will need to be made. Wisdom will help us to make the right choices and the lessons from the past will allow us to become wise. If we are wiser it is because we learn from those before us.
5
I see this idea lived out within the context of my own family. Our newest generation of young adults challenges the older generations, pointing out (sometimes not gently) the cultural errors we make as they happen. For my part, I can see a lot of personal growth which has occurred among family members who are now old. Our love for each other carries us through these sometimes painful confrontations, and we're better for it.
History, like the old people in my family, will simply have to be patient with us in our righteous arrogance. The young people are bending the arc of history toward justice.
2
Mr. Iyer - Yes, some of what you say is true and we need to be cautious about canceling the past. Caution is the buzz word as opposed to simply Ignoring it. I would also observe that some of the cancel culture is also absolutely necessary for a few reasons:
1. To signal to our children that we are willing to take a honest look at our past and correct the errors where possible.
2. To let them know that they too should take a look at us and our behavior and that the mere passage of time ought not to be a wash on odious behavior.
3. To simply correct the errors and do the right thing. There ought to be no such thing as a statute of limitations against deplorable behavior. Creative people, especially in the arts and literature, created more than their share of stigmatization when they stereotyped people. So what if some of it happened 400 years ago?
I think that an honest dialogue and a certain level of admission of guilt will only expedite the growth of diversity and the free acceptance of others. Why would we not want to do that?
4
My grandparents were obviously wiser. The made the incredibly brave decision in 1905 to leave Ukraine and emirate to the U.S. I don't know if I could have done that.
10
I tend to like Mr. Iyer's writing. In this case, is doing a lot to whitewash behavior the people he seems to like.
Here are a lot of pretty words to avoid the obvious fact - how would have like it done to you? You can apply the same rule to all the evils down through the ages, you'll come to a very simple and clear cut answer? There is really is no relativism or intolerance when it comes to identifying discrimination, injustice and lack of moral courage.
3
One wonders what could possibly be accomplished toward punishing the wrongs of the past. Perhaps the immediate past and confronting those who are still alive, but beyond that, what exactly? Even then, I suppose it depends on ones’ conception of the role punishment pays in improving the lives of those in any society. After all, it is the particulars of societies that we are concerned with, not some abstract sense of right and wrong. Humans are a social species after all, and it is our social conventions that serve to restrict, for good or ill, our behavior. This reality is complicated by the fact that there is no global society, but rather a widely disparate mix of cultures with differing views of right and wrong on many issues. Moreover, how does one society justify forcibly foisting their rules on other societies? That, of course, has be attempted in the past with decidedly mixed results.
Punishment should be a form of both creating justice and changing behaviors that are harmful to social order and well-being. It is, however, woefully susceptible to corruption by those wishing to accrue power over others. Social rules serve a purpose, allowing humans to live together in harmony. We ought to keep that in mind when we feel the urge to moralize.
7
@Marshall Doris I think the Golden Rule is pretty universal. Let's not pretend when applying it to analyze human behavior we are at fault.
@HistoryRhymes Great rationale for a closed mind.
I wouldn't say wiser, but certainly wise. "When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom." Thanks for this beautiful piece.
5
I think the wisdom that comes with age has much to do with sensing that, when you’re older still, you’ll probably think what you hold true now you’ll no longer be proud of. That’s not to say I believe we evolve into better, more humane human beings with age. It means we’re smart enough to recognize that today’s version of the truth and is only ever just a version.
In his song, “Closing Time,” Leonard Cohen says this lots better:
“and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
Which you can’t reveal to the Ears of Youth
Except to say it isn’t worth a dime”
7
Points gracefully made: lacerating oneself about imperfect behavior done, often in innocence at the time, in no way improves the present and may take away from the energy required to move into a better future. That's is not an argument not to review one's behavior - but it's about the emphasis. And to some extent, it's about making oneself the focus, instead of the matter being considered.
4
As someone who can identify somewhat with the author, being from India and having lived in Canada for the last five decades, this commentator does indeed understand that society has progressed.
However, arguably it is MOSTLY western society and here too it's not universal nor is it uniform.
Using Canada as an example to prove author's point is a bit too effusive it seems. Canadians are arguably fairly masochistic in enjoying self-flagellation and bend backward a little too much.
The societal progress as claimed by the author is not universal even among western countries. Several countries in Eastern Europe can easily be argued to have regressed.
Where there is progress, it is not uniform either. Take the US for example. Conservativeness - an anathema to and antonym of progress - is alive and well in about half of the US, having traveled widely in the US and watching it closely from the sidelines as an independent observer.
Having traveled in several Asian countries, it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that tolerance is pretty much at a standstill. The saving grace is that there is no outright hostility against progress. India is in limbo.
In countries where religion is enshrined, in some form, in their constitution and/or they do not practice "separation of church and state", one can say that progress has been replaced by regress.
The Islamic and Theravada Buddhist countries are among them.
Hence, this commentator doesn't fully agree with the author.
10
The following should also have been mentioned.
The author has argued that "Judging the past by the values of today can be its own kind of intolerance."
The assumption here is that the values of the present have improved over those in the past.
However and as mentioned earlier, if the values of today are at a standstill or have even regressed, can what the author has suggested be done?
2
@Mike Connors That used to be the definition of Conservatism. But that is no longer the definition. The current President saw to that.
9
India has also regressed, look at the naturalization laws, treatment of women, etc.
1
In my basement, I have boxes of LPs, cassette tapes and older DVDs. The past is never past, we bring it along with us as we move towards an uncertain future. What the past, present and future show us is how elastic we are as human beings, how capable of growth and gross mistakes, all at the same time.
10
Thank you, Pico Iyer. The point that we should see others in their historical context, before we judge them, has been made before and bears repeating. That is not to say we can not and should not make judgments but, as other commenters have said, a discerning judgment requires empathy. Also an understanding of history. Adam Gopnick makes a similar point in Angels and Ages, his book about Lincoln and Darwin, two men who were monumental in history but also just men.
5
Thanks for an interesting commentary. It's made me think about cultural appropriation and to wonder when appropriation becomes appreciation. We see people dressed in German peasant lederhosen and dirndle dresses every year around Octoberfest, and the ridiculous efforts to look "Irish" every St. Patrick's Day. But those are never criticized, perhaps because they implicitly say "I like the people I'm dressing up as."
Would a person wearing a serape and big hat on Cinco de Mayo be seen as appreciating or as appropriating? Has it to do with the relative power of the costume wearer vis-a-vis the clothing designer? I suspect it's mainly about respect, which can be very hard to determine from the outside.
8
@Paula Like Mr. Iyer, I’m of (South) Indian descent. I wear business casual to work most days, suits and ties when I have an important client meeting and jeans and tee shirts on weekends, with heavy jackets over these in winter. I am singularly glad that no one reproaches me for appropriating White culture. I would hate to walk around outdoors in winter in the traditional clothing of my South Indian ancestors: a thin cotton dhoti (essentially, a swathe of cloth wrapped around one’s waist) and an uncovered upper body. In my own best interests, I’ll assume that any White person who observes me in my streetwear concludes that I’m respecting their culture.
3
Knowledge is culturally and temporally embedded, but true wisdom transcends time and place. I have learned so much from reading the words of Marcus Aurelius, a pagan 4th century Roman emperor, from Lao Tse, the Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi – I could go on & on...
5
It is interesting how a civilization that is so enthusiastically consuming and polluting itself towards global disaster is becoming so rigidly judgmental of the past. We should judge ourselves first, and then look at others.
23
Great piece, thank you. These sorts of articles remind me that as humans, we carry the world forward, and all we can do is build on the work of those who came before us, as imperfect as it may now seem. We are all just "human", as in "humility" and "human nature". I believe we can't blame ourselves for what we assumed when we weren't personally enlightened (wise, mature), but once we understand it all more broadly, then we do need to take responsibility for more enlightened actions.
8
All you have to do when deciding if Americans are wiser now than in the past is examine the political scene. Need I say more?
10
@Jack - I don't see much difference. Have you read any 18th and 19th century newspapers? Scurrilous abuse of the opposition was common.
1
"The past is never dead; it's not even past." Faulkner.
Culture and cultural stereotypes are transmitted through time similar to DNA transmission. Sometimes portions disappear and sometimes they mutate. Surprisingly cultural stereotypes once believed lost will reappear apparently because they persisted in the cultural genome, temporarily hidden.
At least that's how I prefer to think about culture. I find it fascinating.
2
As a professor of English and a fellow Indian who lived for 40 years in India and still spends a large amount of time there, I couldn't agree more.
And, by the way, if authors are not to create characters different from themselves, we would have to say goodbye not only to Shakespeare but to the bulk of world literature and in future read and write only memoirs
25
Could the presentism the author describes have prevented many in the west from recognizing the re-emergence of past ideologies and issues until the process was well advanced?
3
I definitely agree with a lot of this argument, but it is important to remember that there often were people speaking out about intolerance. One example is slavery, people have been speaking out against slavery for ages and forgiving slave owners for being “products of their time” is perhaps being too generous with those in the past
9
@Christian Le Breton
But that's just the point "forgiveness" has nothing to do with those who are dead. Wisdom based on mistakes made and lessons learned is what matters.
2
As a history teacher, I greatly appreciate your critique of "presentism." When my students want to dismiss the past because it was flawed by attitudes and practices we no longer share, I can't help but wonder which of our own attitudes and practices will be dismissed equally scornfully a generation or a century from now.
As the great 19th-century historian Ranke put it, "every age is direct to God"--i.e. the past has to be judged in the context of its own time, not by the standards of a later age.
23
“Judging the past by the values of today can be its own kind of intolerance.”
The understatement of the year.
51
Thank you for this beautiful essay, Mr. Iyer. I will treasure it.
10
Isn’t there also an element of admiration in something or someone we seek to imitate?
The term “cultural appropriation” is chilling: where would art and music and writers be without what we used to call “inspiration?”
25
@Elaine Drew I believe that the concept of 'cultural appropriation' arose because the people who originated the cultural artifacts in question were not allowed to benefit from them because of prejudice against them.
4
Thank you, Mr. Iyer, for expressing so eloquently a concern about today's intolerant zeitgeist. Of course we have standards of behavior, expression, and even beliefs that are perhaps more inclusive than previous generations, but we impose a rigidity of those standards at our peril.
13
Presentism - I like that term. It not only shackles us to the here and now, but often comes laced with a tinge of superiority. And that is when it gets dangerous.
To think that we are superior to those who inhabited this planet in the past, is the height of conceit and hubris unlike any other.
A small dose of humility will do us all a lot of good.
19
Brilliantly on target, as Iyer tends to be. The "woke" should recall the now "problematic" T.S. Eliot's great moral epigram: "This is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason." The problem with our constant PC soul-searching these days is that it is a perpetual act of VANITY and status-seeking, pure and simple. It's an exercise in youthful hipness, first and foremost, and a snobbish way to announce one's moral superiority. Great wise men of ethics--think Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha, just for starters--never advocated doing things to "feel better about yourself" or to look better to your crowd. All focused instead on unending humility, and self-doubt more broadly defined than by showy. fashion-forward public confessions. No matter how "woke" one is, one should remain as humble as ever about one's continuing, inevitable, inescapable moral blind spots, including one's desire to feed one's pride with self-righteous "confessions."
82
@Fred White While I agree with you that PC culture is out of control in the US right now and that one should feel humble about inevitable blind spots, you go much too far when you say that "PC soul-searching . . . is a perpetual act of VANITY and status-seeking, pure and simple." And I completely disagree with the T.S. Eliot quote.
It is far better for someone to do the right thing for the wrong reason than to do the wrong thing. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason does not earn you any points towards The Good Place (to borrow a metaphor from the brilliant Michael Schur show), but it leaves all of your neighbors much better off, because they have not been victimized by your wrong actions.
And your certitude that you understand the true motives of everyone who engages in what you call "PC soul-searching" is devoid of the humility that you urge on everyone else. Yes, there are people who posture and virtue-signal for the approval of others, but there are also many who strive to improve themselves out of a sincere desire to be better. For example, the stunningly rapid turnaround in public attitudes toward gay marriage was, to a large extent, the result of people opening themselves up to new ways of thinking and candidly concluding that their previous qualms were the result of prejudice, not reason. Your blithe dismissal of the possibility of a sincere search for moral growth is quite disturbing.
19
@Fred White I don't quite agree with your cynicism about the "PC" and "woke" crowd. I think many of them genuinely think this is an important moral crusade against injustice. However, in their chronocentrism (love that word!) and self-righteousness, they can end up -- to turn TSE on his head-- doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
5
@Fred White
So well put. So much of this is about fashion, rather than serious moral consideration. It's about self advertisement. It becomes a self-fueling cycle of basically vicious cliques getting more vicious to prove membership within that clique. It's basically mean girls in high school.
4
In the last three years I have learned that the adjective "Wise" has changed its meaning. Wisdom, integrity, empathy, courage and a few other values are now in the same box hidden in some dark corner of the basement.
If we continue for the next five years in this way, those words would sound like an insult.
6
Great piece Mr Iyer--- spot on. "Presentism" seems less common
the higher up you go on the age scale. Younger people, who have never know a world without smartphones and Facebook, are wired to live and think in the ever-present. The past is what happened 5 or 10 minutes ago. You mention "addictive screens" in an aside, but the totally disruptive changes that the techno revolution has wrought, both individually and for the whole society, cannot be overestimated. Donald Trump, for example, would never have been elected in the era before social media took over.
30
I think about this within the context of the Baby It's Cold controversy.
CAn anyone out there seriously think that Dean Martin..having access to 2020 values and technology..would have had to offer his date a drink to get her stay the night?
Using Tinder and today's powerful sexual liberation...he'd find 100 women lined up outside his apartment door having swiped Left...waiting for a casual hookup.
Walking a mile in someone else's shoes in the time they were walking the mile is an important skill we need to teach our young. It's called empathy and requires us to be observant and self-reflective without being judgmental.
Good luck with that!
67
Thanks for this welcome article. I've taught your stories which I have enjoyed for some time and find this excerpt of misguided confessor to be as you point out: my prayer joins yours. Enough already. I wrote elsewhere today Ludwig Wittengen"We see the world the way we do not because that is the way it is, but because we have these ways of seeing." Rather along the same lines...Send a check to someone who needs something, or even more. Piety for something so long ago not the point.
9
People today are generally are more accepting of those who are “different” than they were in the past not only because we have more knowledge of how we tick than we used to but also because we have had the sobering “benefit” of witnessing what horrors can ensue from hatred of the other. But that also means that when we criticize past attitudes and behavior we need to be more understanding (without accepting) of how those attitudes and that behavior flourished, and to realize that had we lived in the past we likely would have acted and thought similarly.
20
Mr. Iyer, I could not agree more. Thank you for passing on the 'chronocentrism' term -- I will be using it. I have lived long enough to be thoroughly disenchanted by the current near-fundamentalist convictions issuing from all parts of the political spectrum. Can we not see that it is incredibly unlikely that in this unique time in our long history, any group has got it magically 'right'?
It is particularly depressing to observe this trend towards ideological purity on the theoretically tolerant political left, which is where my sympathies and efforts have always been focused. In fifty years, we may be looking back in horror at how billions of people casually ate the products of factory farming. Future generations may be horrified and disgusted at our blind cruelty towards trillions of animals during these times. Or that we ever held shares in Apple and Amazon, or that we ever flew anywhere at all, or that we ever drank bottled water. The ever-changing zeitgeist can easily bite us painfully in the rear.
More perspective, wisdom and intellectual and emotional tolerance are warranted -- we all need to work together to rescue our Earth and our societies from the predicaments we have created for ourselves. We need to see ourselves as being on a journey, dynamically changing, and not encased in the fortresses of our own self-righteousness.
70
It’s not hard to imagine future generations will look back at our bonfire of fossil fuel burning as a far greater crime than any of our racist past. The innocents are already suffering the consequences - from violence knowingly being inflicted by us.
21
And ironically, many of the most vocal opponents to fossil fuels still use them (without cutting down or feeling any guilt!) to power their lights, heat their homes, heat their water, cook their food, dry their clothes, in plastics, for transportation, and more.
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@Laume - Well, that is the only way it is possible to live right at the moment. The vast majority of people are not going to drastically lower their standard of living to prevent a catastrophe that is fifty years off. Most people are just trying to get to the end of the month.
3
Making moral judgments about the cultural, social, and political assumptions of earlier epochs is reasonable, necessary and salutary. Pretending to judge the real men and women who assimilated them is idle, simple vanity.
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I have no idea how to answer Mr. Iyer's observations. Who gets to define and judge wisdom? How do we teach or enforce tolerance? How well has the human world ever learned those lessons?
There are isolated community examples of greater tolerance but the perceived interests of nations and/or powerful institutions often supersede local forms of wisdom. Is wisdom always rational? No, it is not: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ .
As for the defects with presentism, we have heard many of them looking back before the founding of our republic.
Has humanity gotten any wiser as we approach 2020?
Taking the most advanced and increasingly diverse, multicultural democracies as our barometer of wisdom, I would not say humanity is pushing toward wisdom but devising any number of strategies to have people see themselves as similar, equal,--that there is great pressure to form various people into something common--and this sadly amounts to processes which cripple higher mentation, individuality, much like a spread of alcohol around a party livens up the party at price of the capacity to reason.
Popular culture, products purchased, economics, politics amount to strategies to reach, influence the most people at least price/greatest profit, and the entirety is not dissimilar to drugging or bringing under the influence of alcohol the public because you are dumbing down, gathering together, everybody on "same page".
There is enormous pressure to have everything, including the language one uses, appeal to everybody, in fact we can say the greater the pressure to have diverse people on same page the more everything must be a lubricant, exchangeable medium, like water, alcohol...money. But this of course is not wisdom, just humanity running by lowest common denominator no matter how many denominators invented.
Obviously anyone who resists, who refuses to "get drunk at the party" is a spoiler, and what spoils the most is to be of noticeable and resistant difference to other people, to refuse to be defined by what makes similar.
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@Daniel12
There’s certainly no reliable way to say that humanity has the ability to make itself collectively “wiser” or “better”.
BUT! the “commodification” (or “massification”?) of “the best” is perhaps part of our BEST hope. If such can pessimistically be viewed as a “dumbing down”, why can’t it (optimistically, by the same “logic”) also be viewed as a collective “wising up”?
My first exposure to the Bizet’s Carmen and Shakespeare's Hamlet came from a goofy episode of Gilligan’s Island (where the name of the wrecked ship was a playful allusion to the vast wasteland of televised mass entertainment. I’m also thinking about how many operas Bugs Bunny introduced me to.)
The unfathomable idea of entropy is touched with anthropocentric pessimism based on evidence that energy seems to spread most rapidly to where it is least concentrated. But the idea of some inevitable “heat death” of the universe is just an idea based on a linear form of projection in a universe where “straight” lines are increasingly revealed to be a useful idea only in an extremely narrow range of human experience .
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Bill Moyers from the classic series, The Power of Myth.
.....I wonder what happens to children who don’t have that fixed star, that known horizon, those myths to sustain them?
All you have to do is read the newspaper. I mean, it’s a mess. But what the myth has to provide, I mean, just on this immediate level of life instruction, the pedagogical aspect of myth, it has to give life models. And the models have to be appropriate to the possibilities of the time in which you’re living. And our time has changed, and it’s changed and changed, and it continues to change so fast, that what was proper 50 years ago is not proper today. So the virtues of the past are the vices of today, and many of what were thought to be the vices of the past are the necessities of today. And the moral order has to catch up with the moral necessities of actual life in time, here and now, and that’s what it’s not doing, and that’s why it’s ridiculous to go back to the old-time religion. Joesph Campbell
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The persecution of decent, reasonable people for doing something in the remote past that’s considered offensive today but was within the norm back then is its own kind of ethical transgression. Ironically, today’s social justice warriors who hound people like Justin Trudeau over their microscopic (retroactively defined) past “mistakes” may find themselves apologizing for their own present-day fanaticism in a few years’ time. In the meantime, they are doing an excellent job pushing people who are fed up with having their every thought policed by the PC police into the arms of Trump and other bigoted politicians.
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@Math Professor there's an important distinction to be made between "persecution" of people with past actions that would be considered fundamentally improper today, and the vocal calls to stop celebrating them without any critical lens at all, or even a passing mention of their complexities.
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@Math Professor --trump cultists were not "pushed" at trump by the PC crowd or any other left wing people. He spoke in a vulgar, low class way. He said Mexicans were rapists and criminals and that Mexico would pay for a wall to hold back their very bad people from us.He bragged about his sexual exploits. Those who liked him decided to vote for him. They began to worship him, and here we are. A minority of Americans now hold power through the vessel that is trump. That's on them, not on those of us who watch in horror and try to speak persuasively about what this may mean.
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The matter comes down intention. That's a tricky word with different definitions in ethics and morality. Assuming we can agree on any definition at all though, the concept is easy enough to understand.
Did you know yourself to be acting offensively and act that way regardless of the offense? If the answer is yes, chronology doesn't matter. You were both ethically and morally wrong. Expressing regret is appropriate so long as you are honest in your regret. Politicians attempting to get ahead of a potential scandal is not an honest expression of regret.
I'll give you one example. I knew a group of college students who dressed up as the Duke Lacrosse team before the allegations became suspect. They even had a female companion accompany them as the victim. These young adults knew perfectly well what they were doing was inappropriate. That was the entire point.
Dressing up as a lacrosse player isn't wrong. Making an explicit reference to rape using lacrosse players is wrong. That's the difference. We could make the same analogy with black face and slavery. I needn't mention Brett Kavanaugh. Intention is relevant to the degree of remorse you should hold yourself accountable. Time has nothing to do with it.
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@Andy Sadly, the Duke lacrosse players are still held up as examples of white privilege rapists, even after they were cleared of all charges and their "victim" charged and jailed for multiple offenses. The problem with endlessly pointing fingers is that there will always be a percentage of those who believe (or want to believe) in the wrongdoing, not the truth or remorse that follows.
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I think of Hegel and his dialectic, forever marching toward some spiritual synthesis, or the notion of “progress” in the world that many still people believe—Bill Gates is a big proponent—and don’t know if I can be in agreement. It seems a bit pie in the sky to buy into any idea where somehow time’s onward march produces a kind of recorded set of blueprints and information brochures for posterity to employ. Look at the masses clamoring for their demagogue right now, in all of his grandiose buffoonery, intolerance, and ignorance. I grew up in the Cold War era studying in school the lessons of WWII with its warnings of nationalism and despots, and look where we are in both the US and around the globe. There seems to be a shelf life on historical memory and its warnings before culture drinks from its own sort of River of Lethe.
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Perhaps in 2020 we'll have 20/20 vision.
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Some of us have gotten wiser with 2020 approaching in a week.
1)We are more aware of climate change resulting from exploding population,
2)more aware of how Americans should treat their coworkers and persons of their opposite sex,
3) not be gullible to support endless regime change wars, 4)include more vegetables and fruits in our diet,
5)there are a number of ways one can cause self inflicted harm due to addiction and vaping,
6)vaccines protect us from infectious diseases, not harm us, 7)to not rely on a single news source for news for the truth, 8)to judge president Trump by his actions and the results of his presidency not entirely by his tweets. Checks and balances do work in most democracies including in the USA.
9) Longevity depends on several factors.
10) Achieving world peace is complex requiring decent working relations and open lines of communication among nuclear powers USA, China, France, UK, Russia, India, and Pakistan. Missile defense works and should be the front line of defense against missiles.
11) The most sophisticated drones can be shot down. Peeping Toms be aware.
12) Terrorists and terrorism can be largely decimated but may not be eradicated completely and could raise its ugly head in the remotest corner of the world eg. Sri Lanka, New Zealand,
13) Simmering hatred around the world has not died down.
14) Economic disparity has been around for decades and will not disappear. Universal health care, security of the essentials for all humans is needed.
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@Girish Kotwal Economic disparity has been around since the end of hunter/gatherer tribes & the beginning of agriculture.
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@Jenifer Wolf - And it really took off with the invention of money in the 700-500 BC period. As soon as money was invented, everyone wanted to make lots of money and get rich.
The judging of those who "live" in history is a complex and messy process -- one which we may still not be qualified to make with much expertise. We seem to be living in a time of nearly puritanical certainty about what is right and what is wrong, both about current values and people and those past tense. That certitude is dangerous, as we can see in at least our divisive political landscape, to say nothing of attitudes regarding abortion, sexuality, gender, race, religion, etc.
Throwing stones is easy, and sometimes it may be a necessity. But it's likely we're going to be hit in the back of the head ourselves at some point. Castigating the dead for their inhumane values is a piece of cake. Labeling the living via social media is a commonplace pastime. But in-depth dialogue about human ethical progress and values requires a lot more reflection, humility, and analysis.
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We have definitely NOT gotten wiser. Nor should we expect to. Human patterns of behavior, whether toward friends, family, social groups, other nations, other religions, etc., are very heavily determined by evolution. The more stress (economic, social, physiological, etc.) we experience, the more strongly our behaviour is driven by evolutionary forces that have existed for many millions of years. I understand that this is not a popular point of view, but that doesnt mean it isn't correct.
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I have on-going discussions with my daughter (now 22) on this topic. She holds her forebears, recent and long ago, as well as historical figures, to the same standards she holds us to today. I have told her that it isn't fair to hold her grandmother (born in 1903 in Texas, 8th grade education), or her grandfather (born in 1887, same, sixth grade) to the same standards she holds herself. (Yes, they were uneducated, yes, they were undoubtedly racist.) For that matter, it's not really fair to hold Thomas Jefferson to the same standards we have, even though he was highly educated. I think she is starting to agree as she gets older, but it's an uphill fight.
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I admire Mr. Iyer's work, and this essay points to the serious issue of condemning an artist's entire body of work by applying present standards of morality to the past. However, there are artists whose statements or actions were grossly offensive even in an earlier era. To characterize T.S. Eliot's disgusting antisemitism as "some positions that we now find offensive" is misleading. It was apparent even at the time that his mockery of Jews, and of other groups, was immoral. That does not mean we should reject his poetry and fail to read or teach it today. Mr. Iyer has conflated two different issues, that of misjudging people from the past due to changing standards of speech and behavior, and refusing to consider works of art as worthy of our attention because their creators violated moral standards.
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@Emily , great post. Similarly, our framers of the constitution were men of the enlightenment. They knew it was wrong to hold humans as property, even if it benefited them financially to do so. slavery was already going away in many areas of the world. And yet they chose to incorporate slavery into our new government. Does this "kick the can" error mean they should be dismissed as evil? No. But they need to be studied with this error in mind, and judged accordingly. acknowledgement of the original sin just might be healing, for all of us.
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@Emily,@karen, I think we should characterize the two of yours posts as, "The Empire Strikes Back."
The difference between 'Knowledge' and 'Wisdom': Knowledge is facts and data whilst Wisdom is ability to comprehend, analyze and construct.
Technology enhances access to knowledge, yet gives only 'Virtual' ability to construct. Or, as a great chef once said, "Knowledge is understanding Garlic at the molecular level, Knowledge is knowing when to use and how much."
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Context matters.
Historical context matters.
And it is eminently human to grow and change (hopefully for the better) with age and when new information is available. Learning should be lifelong, and a joy.
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Thank you, Barbara Lee. This article and your response show why the humanities are needed in our schools, colleges, and life.
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Wiser? Not knowing or sensing that with population I talk to on a regular basis. There is new learning with digital devices, though that is not comparable to being well read. Many might learn from fiction in literature and film. Americans being misled by our leaders could do worse than learning some lessons from the movie "Dusty Rhodes." That includes "The Apprentice" guy too.
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I believe you’re referring to the movie “A Face In The Crowd” whose main character is “Lonesome” Rhodes played by Andy Griffith.
Chronocentrism. Thank you for the word and concept. But even when that's accepted, absolute clarity in judgment is elusive. Slavery was established and accepted in the United States until the Emancipation Proclamation. Washington and Jefferson, unarguably great men worthy of emulation, were slave holders. Yet in 1688, a century before the Revolutionary War, four Quakers in Germantown Pennsylvania wrote a petition on behalf of universal human rights and against human bondage. Does that minority viewpoint mean we should view the Founding Fathers as bad men? Not at all. But it does add an asterisk.
I wore blackface to a costume party in 1973. I didn't think about it beforehand, but at the party I got a quiet vibe (no reprimands, just a few people acting surprised) that it was wrong and disrespectful. Likewise in that same period I collected racist salt and pepper shakers. I knew that I was crossing a line in both cases, but saw blackface and racist salt shakers as ironic (at least for me) and thus not racist. No one called me out directly, but there was a quiet reprimand; I came to hear the reprimand and stopped. I don't beat myself up about it today. But you can put an asterisk next to my name too.
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@Mad Moderate I have discussed this issue with my daughter in our talks about holding our ancestors to today's standards. My point, when she makes your point, say, re: the Quakers, is that those people- who were far better than the world surrounding them, is that they were extraordinary people for their time. And, by definition, most people, in the past and now, are ordinary and do "not" rise about their upbringing or surroundings. We can admire those who did while understanding those who didn't.
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@Rena I agree.
A insightful essay on a little recognized prejudice in our thinking and consequent self-congratulatory view of ourselves. While I agree with the author’s view of Mr. Larocque’s mea culpa, I think that the author’s comments on it could have been more observational and less critical just as he rightly believes that we should be more understanding of unfortunate thinking and actions of those in the past.
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There is a difference between wearing a denigrating sign and a work of art. The problem in our society is that we do not distinguish between the two.
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Nonsense.
Who is 'we'? What is 'wisdom'?
Treating other members of the one and only biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000 years ago as you expect and want to be treated has always been the humble humane empathetic moral human minimum.
We are a species of African ape who by our nature and nurture crave fat, salt, sugar, habitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
For the first 290,000 years of our existence we were active hunter gatherers. Animal and plant domestication led to sedentary life-styles and urbanization.
But until the dawn of the last century and germ theory, antibiotics and vaccines our use by mortality date was 35 years old. Because wisdom is supposedly tied to chronological human age we never lived long enough to have the experiences that give wisdom.
But the reality is that the the ability to think creatively, independently and originally aka wisdom has nothing to do with age. Nor does knowing things aka being smart the same thing as being wise.
Being smart is inherently amoral. Being wise is the essence of morality.
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@Blackmamba
I'd go further. The ability to think creatively, independently and originally is at its peak in childhood. But how is that wisdom? Whether wisdom can be intertwined with morality is a vast subject, and yet to be explored.
Well, whatever...but our 'use by mortality date' was never 35 years old; 70-80 years has always been the human norm, although 35 may have been the average because of infant mortality, and, as you mention, antibiotics, etc. I don't think people get wiser, they just get tired.
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@Sera
Children are emotionally and mentally immature as our brains and headsmust be very tiny at birth. And they continue to slowly grow through a long infant and juvenile nurturing phase.
Children aka infants and juveniles aka minors aren't 'thinking'. They are reacting.
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Thank you for this extremely thoughtful and subtle piece in an era of what feels to some like a societal 'adolescence'. Chronocentrism, ironically, seems to come with at least a couple additional blindspots. One is the increasing tendency by some to speak for all of a social group. Many of the criticisms leveled at 'others' are made by individuals claiming--explicitly or tacitly-- to speak for an entire group. Such self-appointed omniscience would seem to be at odds with principles of diversity, intersectionality, and individualism--all of which I value. Another kind of obtuseness, following from chronocentrism, is that which leads the individual who learned about and accepted a principle or position last year or last week to be intolerant today of those who have yet to have learned about it. Not only is our society chronocentric, so many individuals seem to have forgotten their own individual journeys of understanding and knowledge. Can we reasonably assume that everyone else has heard and read and experienced all that we have on our timeline--not to mention that we currently have it all figured out? I can't help but think based upon my observations that those doctrinaire this year about what they learned last year toward those yet to learn it do so more and more not to educate but rather to fulfill more egoistic needs. One thing we learn from recognizing our presentism is that today and tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow we are and will be wrong--about a little and a lot.
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How old is the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Yet it still exceeds our grasp as a society. Here and there some abide by it, but our rulers are compelled by the will to power which always seems to corrupt.
So there's no use castigating our forebears for falling short of the mark. Let's concentrate our efforts on the present for we still have a long way to go.
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For most of us, the safest “ism” is “understanding.” Understand ourselves, our birth culture as well as our gender and ethnicity. Understand history through the multiple shifting lenses of memory and revisionism. And listen deeply to others and ourselves to understand today. Add some humility and forgiveness while asking: Did they—did I—say or write what we did doing the best we could in that moment in time.
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Judging the past requires historical awareness. Can we apply present-day moral judgments to past acts? One way to parse this question is to see whether people in the past shared our views. Consider slavery in the US. Some excuse it by saying, in essence, "That was okay at the time." But in fact there were many people then who argued vigorously against slavery on moral and economic grounds. Slaveholders were perfectly aware of these arguments, for they tried with equal vigor to refute them. The past is not one-sided.
So Pico's suggestion that "the past, like most of us in earlier times, was imperfectly doing its best," is a bit of a white-wash. What is, after all, "its best?" For a slaveholder the best would be to maintain the system; for an abolitionist, to destroy it. And given that all the arguments against slavery were there for the taking in, say, 1850, it seems to be we are perfectly justified in condemning slaveholders in the terms of their own time. All such questions of the past need to be adjudicated with the same awareness of the full range of what was there in the past.
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@Gary
Your point is well taken. Teddy Roosevelt made many a statement that would seem abhorrently racist today, but he was also among the first to argue that all - regardless of race or station of birth - should be afforded the same opportunity to succeed based on talent and effort. He was the first president to invite a black man to the White House and was burned in effigy in the south for doing so.
Racist? Progressive?
Though he held racist views, he was also progressive helped the country move forward to equality and should be lauded for doing so. I would guess if were born today that he'd be far more like Bernie Sanders then Mitch McConnell.
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@Gary You are absolutely correct that those arguments were available at the time. But I think perhaps you give short shrift to the fact that those who grew up in slave-holding states were raised by parents who actually "believed" that slaves were "lesser" and that slavery was "good." They weren't Snidely Whiplash supporting something that they viewed as evil. Like nearly everyone believed (in the North and the South) that women were so different from men that they did not deserve many of the basic freedoms that a white man was entitled to. Most people are not going to rise about the circumstances of their birth and surroundings. It would be nice if they did, but, realistically, they don't and won't.
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@Gary
I think this is true. People knew back then that they were on the wrong side of humanity, but they did it anyway for their own personal gain, as well as a sense of superiority and entitlement.
Similarly, people were well aware that Hilter was wrong, but followed and empowered him.
How much has this country changed since slavery? How far has the collective conscious grown? Has humanity evolved because our neighbors are different?
The answer is: look who resides in the White House.
“One of the blessings of the past few years is that many of us have learned to look with more understanding and clarity at the Other.”
Huh? I’m a big fan of Iyer but I’m not so sure this is an accurate statement.
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@Nigel Incubator-Jones
He said many, not all.
"We" cannot become wiser if "we" keep forgetting what we learned.
We learned centuries ago universal truths, like "honesty is the best policy" and "united we stand divided we fall".
Take a look at our "deliberative" Senators...not even close....
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While our technology is moving at the speed of light, and increasing it's rate of speed with each passing moment, we're still encased in bodies and brains that evolve almost imperceptibly. This gap has brought us to a point in time where the intellectual awareness of this fact can no longer be ignored without peril to our very existence.
Our reason for existence should be to learn and that process, by definition, means lots of our thinking and the ethics and mores that it has generated should be discarded. But that's not to say that we didn't learn from our mistakes (or should have). But we do need to move away from being consumed intellectually by experience itself and focus instead on what experience teaches us.
Experience is not the best teacher. Self-reflection is. That's real growth.
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Wise would be the ability to lift everyone, to love everyone and assure a life of dignity for all -- to see ourselves as a species. We haven't achieved that. Greed, selfishness and lust of power and control continue to stop it. We're smarter than we've ever been, and no wiser than we were in the beginning.
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We have made tremendous technological advances and we're the richest country in history.
But man himself has changed little from how he was centuries ago.
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@Chris Manjaro Same is true of other species that we know of.
“As more and more of us imprison ourselves in the moment … we devolve into a “presentism” that shares some of the cruelty of racism.”
I don’t think it’s just the present moment that entraps us, but the scripts & conversations that are delivered to us moment by moment, that keep us powerlessly fighting irrelevant fights. If we truly lived in the moment, we wouldn’t be debating the symbolism of things that we or others did decades ago, as if they were politically relevant today. We would be debating the world before us, and how to make it better. We wouldn’t be decoding & labeling each others’ statements, we would be refining & rebutting them, with the shared goal of collective action. We are, as the author suggests, intellectually severed from history by our screens, but we are also severed from each other, which is just where the powerful want us.
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Well said, Pico (and hello from an old grad school mate). I think it's not just that people in other ages were also doing their best but also that many older cultures understood things of which we moderns have lost sight, and that every big shift in thinking brings with it its own blind spots. We humans, no matter which age or culture we are born into, do not seem able to achieve 360-degree vision.
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At root Mr. Iyer's reflections seem to me to be about free will, or rather the lack thereof, if we look closely.
We think differently, or think that we think differently, because of the vast and interconnected river of circumstances and influences that combine to produce our thoughts. And so "better than we were" is hopeful, and we hope, true in some sense.
Separately, while reading, "The surest way to be in the wrong is to assume with blind conviction you’re in the right," I couldn't help but think of the recent articles about evangelicals and their admiration of Trump. In a very strong sense, to be a "believer" means to believe without good reason, without good reasons, and often, with plenty of bad "reasons."
5
Human folly does not change. It may look more egregious to us looking from now into the past but really its character is the same - only the outcomes alter. We may look back with horror at cruelty in other times but our cruelty now is just the same. The only hope lies in the present moment of kindness towards a stranger for no gain; That moment overcomes all that has gone before and opens the doors to redemption.
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I remain quietly amazed at the multiple aspects of culture (yes, mostly Western) which seem to disappear every day. Literature disappears behind 20th or even 21st century biography; history lost behind current politics. I don’t know if this is bad or not, but wisdom? Forget it.
18
We have pre-judged the generational future, anticipating continuity with our distortion of the present. Cultural and technological progress, intertwined, must supercede political decline and, for most, economic stagnation. Beware the tipping points toward darkness now visible on the horizon.
Look to 2024 as the harbinger. Imagine 2030. Our destabilized, hotter world may suit privileged elites but triages festering multitudes. The contradictions cannot endure.
Civil dystopia exists alongside gilded enclosures, but for how long? Watch for the wastelands to sprawl. Read Nietzsche: Search for higher ground. Start with your soul, then extend care to others yet unborn. To them, pass on a better world. Think about it. Transcend the delusional present.
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Dear Pico loved the article. It puts in words what I’ve always felt. We in the US are constantly rewritng history in an effort to be correct. Jayalu
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I refer to my well-thumbed volume of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Transcendental essays and remark that I agree with his perspective, that human nature remains immutable throughout the ages of man.
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@Tournachonadar Human nature may be the same throughout time but society and society’s rules and recognitions change. We no longer burn people at the stake for witchcraft. The fact that we recognize that emotional biases exist against certain groups for no really good reason is the first step in getting rid of them. (You cannot change what you do not recognize as bad or stupid or hurtful behavior. Can you?).
I am inclined to feel sad for those who are caught in the present doing dumb things in the past. I am infuriated by the many doing dumb things in the present, recognized as dumb and harmful, but who choose to ignore it, like an entire political party refusing to recognize global warming or the corrupt behavior of a President just so they can continue to hold political power and rake in the money from those benefiting from the bad behavior.
5
Thinking that this is the essential time in human history, that the modern is somehow represents the most important human moment, that in the present the follies of past thinking are revealed, making people of the now smarter than all the rest, is a conceit that never seems to wane in popularity. It always does become old-fashioned. Adding yet another layer to human folly and progress all at the same time. Every layer being as earnest as the next many of the suddenly old-fashioned generation discover a bit too late.
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