American Pie: The Descent Of Man
John Merchant thinks that modern mankind reached its apogee in Victorian times - and now we're on the downward path.
In 1973, the BBC aired a series titled “The Ascent of Man,” written and presented by Dr. Jacob Bronowski. This splendid production had been preceded by another television classic, “Civilization,” presented by Sir Kenneth Clark in 1969. Both productions set out to show how mankind had progressed, spiritually and materially, the one through great achievements in a broad range of endeavors, the other through art.
Much later, respected U.S. news anchorman, Tom Brokaw, launched his TV thesis, “The Greatest Generation.” This series expressed Brokaw’s view that the generation of adults during World War II, achieved more and endured more than had any previous generation. At first, it seemed preposterous to me that any, single generation, could be credited with being “The Greatest.” But the more I thought about it, the more reasonable the idea seemed to be, especially taking into account the epic scale of the striving and suffering, and the narrow parameters of his thesis.
Throughout my conscious life I have repeatedly heard the cliché, “Those were the good old days.” This was inevitably followed by a response listing all the good things about the present, and the fallacious pre-eminence of the past. For my part, I have consciously tried to be objective about the relative merits of past and present. In some way, “Those were the good old days,” seemed to be symptomatic of aging, and of a diminution in the powers of accurate recollection.
I think I have managed to maintain my objectivity, but I am finding it harder and harder to believe that life in general is getting better. My view for some time has been that modern mankind reached its apogee in Victorian times. I have never believed that the progress of civilization was linear, thinking of it more as cyclical. But I see no evidence that my perception of civilization’s decline in the recent past has reversed or even slowed, unless it is that the pendulum has a very long arm.
My opposition no doubt will quote all the remarkable advances in technology and medicine, hygiene and nutrition, trips to the moon etc., etc. to counter my opinion. But if one sets these, often dubious achievements, against almost worldwide acts of genocide, deliberately induced famine, religious extremism, routine acts of torture, and rape as a means of ethnic cleansing, the balance becomes a little less positive. Aside from these global perspectives, an examination of our daily lives is no less discouraging.
In a single, seven-day period in the USA, a serial killer was executed, a father stabbed to death his 8 year old daughter and her 9 year old friend, U.S. soldiers were put on trial for prisoner abuse, and a family of six was found shot to death in yet another apparent murder/suicide. The severed head of a 4-year-old girl was found in a trash bag, four years after her father killed her for refusing to go to bed.
Behavior modification drugs are being used to subdue thousands of aggressive children, and innumerable other people can’t get through the day without drugs and/or alcohol. Workers are being bilked out of their pensions by the corporations they’ve given their life to, and prominent public figures lie and cheat systematically. More people are incarcerated than at any other time in history, and the democracy we’ve strived for is being eroded by the very governments who trumpet its benefits.
Most people I know recoil from this concept of decline, viewing it as distorted and gloomy. But when all is said and done, with a few exceptions, most species have reached a zenith and then died away. Homo sapiens had forbears who didn’t stay the course, and the Bible assures us that there will have to be an end to business as usual before a new beginning. I don’t like the way things are, and I’m glad I won’t see the next century, but it’s not the end of the world.
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