Humanity is actually making progress, believe it or not
Humanity is actually making progress, believe it or not Thursday October 9 th , 2014 at 11:51 AM 1 Share (Sergey Nivens/Bigstock) By Robert J. Samuelson October 8 at 12:15 PM Progress has lately gotten a bad rap, because there seems to be so little of it. Violence wracks the Middle East; economies are sputtering; Ebola strikes fear. But if you step back a bit, there is plenty of progress. We ought to remind ourselves periodically that, in history’s broad sweep, the long-term advances often overshadow the short-term defeats. How far should we step back? How about to 1820. This seems an eternity, but as history, it’s just a blink. The year roughly coincides with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, arguably the most important dividing line in the human experience. Before, societies were largely rural and traditional; after, they were increasingly urbanized and modern. A useful confirmation of these truths comes in a new study from the