To study human history is to study human suffering, and it only gets worse the farther back you go. After all, they didn’t call them “the dark ages” without any good reason.
Looking at the world today, it’s easy to zero-in on the negative things that still occur. Political freedoms and human lives are threatened and repressed on a routine basis in some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. But when you consider a broader context, the fact remains that there has never been a better time to be alive.
It seems particularly challenging for the left to accept this. If you ask your average Democrat to discuss dark periods of human history, he or she is very likely to point to the present day, and cite President Donald Trump as an example. The leading reason? He says mean things on the internet — a platform which is still relatively new by historical standards, and has helped make an enormously positive impact on the standard of living for everyone who can access it.
Let’s face it — we’ve come a long way from fighting incurable diseases and fighting international conflicts. Considering the atrocities of the past, just about everything we see in the news today seems tame in comparison.
~ Facts Not Memes
