Progress??
My generation was raised believing in progress. According to the theory, the present was not perfect but it was better than the past and the future would be better than the present. We no longer burned people at the stake, economic conditions were better and would continue to improve, there was a brighter future ahead. The holocaust would not happen again, the United Nations gave us hope. This view persisted through the'50s and throughout the Kennedy presidency. It then came crashing down. LBJ, Viet Nam, Nixon, Iraq, Dick Cheney. So much for progress.
Other civilizations had a different view. History and everything else went in cycles. Ascendancy and decline, over and over again, forever. Civilization followed by barbarism and back again. Slowly back again. Death and rebirth and death again.
Even in those days of our rose-coloured glasses, we should have looked around us more carefully. The survivors of the holocaust drove out the Palestinians at gun point and established Israel with the support of the Western powers and the UN. The land deeds of the Palestinians were worthless because God had deeded the land to the Jews 3000 years ago. The British left India in a mess; Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are fighting to this day. Europeans abandoned their African colonies because they were no longer profitable and chaos has remained. Mao came to power in China. In high school, I was asked to write an essay on the UN, supposedly the hope of mankind. I forget the gist of my essay, but I do remember ending it by predicting that there would always be war. I didn't really believe, did I?
Pandora, according to Greek legend, was the first woman. She was "inflicted" on man because Zeus was angry about Prometheus stealing the secret of fire. She had a jar containing all the evils of mankind, including greed, envy, slander, vanity, pining. She opened it and all the evils escaped. When she quickly recapped it, only hope was left.
Today extreme Muslims are repeating the Christian barbarisms of the Middle Ages. Where is progress? Where is hope?
Maybe it's still in the jar.
Other civilizations had a different view. History and everything else went in cycles. Ascendancy and decline, over and over again, forever. Civilization followed by barbarism and back again. Slowly back again. Death and rebirth and death again.
Even in those days of our rose-coloured glasses, we should have looked around us more carefully. The survivors of the holocaust drove out the Palestinians at gun point and established Israel with the support of the Western powers and the UN. The land deeds of the Palestinians were worthless because God had deeded the land to the Jews 3000 years ago. The British left India in a mess; Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are fighting to this day. Europeans abandoned their African colonies because they were no longer profitable and chaos has remained. Mao came to power in China. In high school, I was asked to write an essay on the UN, supposedly the hope of mankind. I forget the gist of my essay, but I do remember ending it by predicting that there would always be war. I didn't really believe, did I?
Pandora, according to Greek legend, was the first woman. She was "inflicted" on man because Zeus was angry about Prometheus stealing the secret of fire. She had a jar containing all the evils of mankind, including greed, envy, slander, vanity, pining. She opened it and all the evils escaped. When she quickly recapped it, only hope was left.
Today extreme Muslims are repeating the Christian barbarisms of the Middle Ages. Where is progress? Where is hope?
Maybe it's still in the jar.
posted by puzzled @ 4:13 PM
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