Hello all,
I was having a conversation with a JW relative recently I casually mentioned how much better the world is than a few centuries. Obviously the JW was incredulous. The next day I found an email in my inbox listing a few qoutes from notable people saying how the world has gotten much worse since 1914 and that 1914 was a pivitol year. I googled these qoutes and the references I could find to them were from JW.org.
Some of them look like they might be taken out of context (heavy use of ellipses).
Here is my email response:
The quotes are interesting but I don’t think they really prove anything on their own. Peoples’ perception of the world can be skewed by their own personal experiences, biases and prejudices.
For example, the 2011 British Crime Survey showed that 60% of adults in England and Wales believed that crime was increasing on a national level. However, a report on crime in 2011 (office for national statistics) found that crime levels in England and Wales in 2009/10 were at their lowest levels since 1981.
The same phenomenon can be seen in America. In 2009, America’s crime rate was roughly the same as in 1968 with the murder rate being at its lowest since 1964 (FBI Uniform Crime Reports). Despite this, a recent Gallop poll found that two thirds of Americans believed that crime was increasing nationally (Gallup poll).
People tend to romanticise the past. How many people have you heard reminisce that ‘back in the day’ they could leave their front unlocked and that summers were always sunny. But when you look back at crime statistics in urban areas in the 1950s they aren’t much different to todays and when you look at weather records you find that the weather patterns back then were not much different either (certainly not more than statistical variance allows).
And this is nothing new. Every generation worries that educational and moral standards are decaying. Twenty-four hundred years ago, the ageing and grumpy Plato, in Book VII of the Laws, lamented that the young were disastrously more ignorant and immoral than the generation immediately preceding.
So clearly people’s perceptions are fallible and not always an accurate reflection of how the world really is.People tend to extrapolate their own local experiences to a national or global level. This doesn’t mean that all opinions are necessarily wrong but any opinions must be evaluated by the evidence - people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts.
And when you look at the facts you find that the world is generally improving by most objective measures. This of course does not get much media attention so most people are not aware of it.
This video demonstrates that global health and wealth has increased significantly in the last 200 years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
If you were alive in 1900, your children would have had a higher chance of dying during birth (140 infants per 1000 births died compared to 5 today), the life expectancy of your children would have been under 50 years compared to 80-90 years today and you would have had a 63% chance of dying before you reached the age of 60. (figures above were taken from UK parliament )
If we go back further than 100 years things get even worse. In England two hundred years ago, the average life expectancy was 35, 25% died during childhood and 40% died before reaching adulthood (Rising Life Expectancy: A global history).
But even this was a major improvement in public health compared to the middle ages when the plague killed millions. In the 14th Century, up to 45% of Europeans died in a four year period due to the plague. In areas such as Italy, the south of France and Spain, where plague ran for about four years consecutively, it was probably closer to 75 - 80% of the population.
(figures taken from Philip Daileader , The Late Middle Ages)
There was more violent crime as well. Using historical records, Steve Pinker has calculated that the 14th century was 95% more violent that the present era. For example, in 14 th and 15 th century London, historical records indicate that the average murder rate was 50 per 100,000 compared to just 1.8 per 100,000 today ( Steven Pinker, Better Angels of Our Nature). (the historical records permit a range of estimates and it should be pointed out that Steven Pinker’sbook erred on the higher end of estimates)
The same trend can be seen in wider Europe:
And the American murder rate has trended similarly over the centuries:
Regarding morality, the world (particularly the western world) has progressed massively in the last couple hundred years.The civil rights movement has increased racial equality, slavery has been largely abolished, women have attained equal rights in many parts of the world, people today have more legal protections, labour laws have improved working conditions, child labour laws have reduced the exploitation of children, education is more widely and freely available (not just to the privileged), the use of judicial torture has been abolished, many countries have universal healthcare systems, people have greater religious freedoms, governments are more accountable today than ever before because of the spread of democracy which has made dictatorships and authoritarian regimes much less common, the enlightenment and the philosophy of the individual have led to the establishment of human rights which are now internationally recognised and adhered to for the most part.
Compare these modern developments with medieval Europe where torture was commonly used to extract confessions, people had fewer (if any) legal protections, the concept of human rights did not exist, people (even children) faced slow agonising executions (impalement, disembowelment, burning, stoning etc) for what would be considered minor crimes today, slavery was widespread and people were traded as commodities, women had fewer rights than men, domestic violence was socially acceptable and husbands could legally rape their wives, people had no religious or political freedoms and were often persecuted if they spoke out against the church or state (which was often the same thing), widespread superstition lead to witch hunts in which many hundreds of thousands of women and children were burnt alive.
This was a common method of execution in the Middle Ages – the victims were suspended upside down so that they remained conscious for longer to increase their suffering.
Considering the above, there has been a definite trend towards civilisation and moral progression in the modern world. Even the Israelites, God's supposed chosen people, as described in the Bible, would be considered barbaric genocidal war criminals by today's standards.
And consider this, in many parts of medieval Europe you would have been burnt at the stake for denying the trinity and openly criticising the church. Jehovah’s Witnesses certainly would not have been able to openly worship and proselytise. In all honesty, would you really prefer to live in such a society?
So in regard to health, civility, morality and living standards the world has undoubtable improved in the last several hundred years. Most people in the western world today (even the poor) enjoy a level of material comfort that is unprecedented in human history.
But it is true the 20 th century was one of the bloodiest in history. Does this mean humans are more prone to war? No, again when you look at the evidence you find that the opposite is true. We are living in one of the most peaceful eras in human history.
When the death tolls of World War I and II are compared with the global populations at the time, World War II ranks just ninth in major conflicts while World War I isn’t even in the top 10. Deaths from war peaked in the late 1940s at about 300 deaths per 100,000. Post 1950 they fell below 5 deaths per 100,000 and since 1990 – even including the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (which together killed 137,000 civilians) – there has been below 1 war death per 100,000.
This means if you lived in the 20th Century you were much less likely to be killed in a war than in previous centuries. So humanity is actually less prone to war today than in history. The death toll is only high to rapid population growth following the industrial revolution.
Even if you look at historical war death tolls, World War I is only in sixth place:
Lowest estimate | Highest estimate | Event | Location | From | To | |
40,000,000 [2] | 72,000,000 [3] | Worldwide | 1939 | 1945 | ||
30,000,000 [5] | 60,000,000 [6] | 1207 | 1472 | |||
30,000,000 [7] | 30,000,000 | China | 1340 | 1368 | ||
25,000,000 [8] | 25,000,000 | 1616 | 1662 | |||
20,000,000 [9] | China | 1851 | 1864 | |||
15,000,000 [15] | 65,000,000 | World War I (High estimate includes Spanish flu deaths) [16] | Worldwide | 1914 | 1918 | |
15,000,000 [17] | 20,000,000 [17] | Conquests of Timur | 1369 | 1405 | ||
13,000,000 [19] | 36,000,000 [20] | 755 | 763 | |||
12,000,000 | Dungan revolt | China | 1862 | 1877 |
These figures totally dispel the notion that the world was heading towards peace prior to 1914. Up to 12 million people were killed in the Dungan Revolt 1862 – 1877 and 20-100 million were killed in the Taiping Rebellion 1851 – 1864. This is not even considering all of the colonial wars between the major powers during the 19 th century which, although not great in death toll individually, were numerous so were responsible for a significant death toll collectively.
World War I and II also do not appear to be part of any longer term trend. Since 1945, there have been no major wars between the world’s great powers. This is actually quite unusual because throughout history the world’s nations and empires have almost constantly been at war with each other and wars used to be regular, if not continual, and lasted for decades (the 30 Year’s War and the 100 Year’s War). In the Peloponnesian wars, 50% of Athenians were killed – no war in the 20 th century had such a high casualty rate. But wars since 1945 have mostly been civil or proxy wars with much lower death tolls than conflicts directly between large nations.
If we take a snap shot of today and assume that Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Congo, and Somalia are all ‘at war’ and all their people affected, then that means that just over 2% of the world’s population are directly affected by war. If we are generous and include simmering events like the Western Sahara, Israel/Palestine and the Mexican drug wars then the figure goes up to 4%. This is a historically low figure.
In regard to crime, the picture is mixed. Some things are improving and some things are getting worse.
Global crime statistics are very limited because by their nature they difficult to aggregate. The United Nations Survey of Crime suggests that global crime rates have gradually increased since 1980 (although note the sharp decline in North America):
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/crime/forum/forum3_Art2.pdf
The United Nations Survey of Crime Trends was established only in the 1970s so comparing global crime trends across the 20th century or with previous centuries is not possible. Becuase of this it is almost impossible to verify whether global crime rates have increased since 1914. But I suspect that due to increased urbanisation and centralised population centres, overall crime has increased in the 20 th century.
Crime statistics for the western world are however quite good and they show a sharp decline in crime over the last 20 years. This fact alone shows that is not true that human kind is falling into lawlessness and that crime is only ever getting worse.
Whether or 1914 was a turning point in human history is very subjective. It was a significant year but I would argue that 1945 and the ushering in of the nuclear age was more significant historically. I think the existence of nuclear weapons has more of an impact on the world today (and the future) than the legacy of events in 1914. But that is just my opinion and I don’t have a particularly strong view one way or the other.
The notion that the world was more ‘normal’ and heading towards ‘utopia’ prior to 1914 and that since 1914 everything has been on a downward trajectory is just not true. I can find no evidence to support this idea. But if you can show me any evidence to the contrary then I will change my mind. My belief system (or lack thereof) does not rest on 1914 one way or the other so I have nothing vested in the date.
I think I’ve made a pretty strong case that the world is generally getting better. But I don’t want you to misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not saying the world hasn’t got any problems. All I am saying is that I think the world is slowly getting better and not worse. I know it’s not black and white. There are still huge inequalities in wealth, global warmingis a grave threat (particularly to the developing world), there is a looming energy crisis, slavery still exists, many parts of the world have food shortages and lack clean water supplies, minority groups and women are violently oppressed in many countries still. War is still a problem and there are enough nuclear weapons in existence to destroy the world many times over (although I happen to think that nuclear weapons have had a stabilising effect between the major powers).
And of course, regarding biblical prophecy, the Watchtower can’t lose. If war increases then it is fulfilment of Matthew 24:7 and if the world becomes more peaceful thenit is, no doubt,fulfilment of Rev. 17:1, 2 .
And if you want to talk about 1914, perhaps you could provide me with some historical evidence that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE?
