Genocide not just on the scale but with the specific intent that has become common in the last few centuries was rare in medieval and ancient times, in terms of the specific intent of wiping out another culture or ethnic group completely, the Romans themselves were one of the few groups that are distinguished by the extremity of their violence in terms of employing total destruction upon city’s and groups that rebelled against the peace of Caesar (and was something that other cultures found shocking in the extent of destruction). But genocide as we know it was rare in the past, it happened but nothing like the scale (and not just in terms of pure numbers) as has happened in our time, but the extent of violence and it’s aims of the total destruction of another people in every way conceivable is something our age has made itself a master of, outdoing anything, including Rome at the height of it’s brutality, has done before. For all the brutality that was committed in past ages ours outstrips all that has come before in the systemic nature and extensiveness of our brutality and violence, and the global and merciless reach of our new empires and their power games, the majority of people in the world who suffer from it outside the safe islands we create for the few against the many.
Also the term medieval doesn’t cover one homogenous culture, but many and varied cultures and civilisations and significant changes and variations over time, with some at different times more urban and others more rural, some more egalitarian in their society and more cooperative than others, there is little that fits the common caricatures that often given for medieval society in popular conception, not the mention that it was the high middle ages saw the birth of universities in the West, which were more dynamic and free in their thought than anything since, including today, and society was often more mobile than is often portrayed. But my point is not to deny the evils that happened in those cultures and civilizations, or during the ancient times, but rather to suggest we are better than previous ages is far from simple, nor to ask which time is better to live in, because darkness and death that breeds injustices at all levels, societal, structural, personal and so on have been something all of us at all times have faced and been afflicted by, and so it is rather the belief that this is really a better time for all humanity, it’s a fantasy to me, one only possible to indulge in for the wealthy and wealthier nations, not for the majority of people alive for whom life is far from pleasant, and misses the extensive role the games of the powerful have had in causing and maintaining such misery. And while Lewis might have been nostalgic due to his romanticism for medieval thought (though again that thought itself is something we owe most of the basis of our own thought to), in no way detracts from the truth of that statement he made (we are all biased and blinkered in some areas, but just because we have certain inclinations doesn’t mean what say isn’t right, and a certain bias or prejudice doesn’t necessarily detract from the truth of a statement in itself), which has a deep wisdom and warning to me, that in seeing clearly the abuses and evils of times past, don’t be blind to the abuses and evils that characterise our own. So again, this isn’t better nor not, but rather the fantasy of progress I disagree strongly with, particularly where it has caused such harm, and blinds people to the abuses it either justifies or pushes to the periphery, it is a perversion of the truth of God’s Kingdom coming on Earth as in heaven, a twist of the true narrative, and prevents a sober analysis of our own age and time. And again this is about are things getting better for all, not just some, is the world for all people collectively through world actually better, is humanity better now as a whole (not just some some sections, or is it better for some people, afterall it’s always been better for some people at any time in history), not just a few people or the more powerful groups and nations, so I’m not saying is it’s not better to live in the US or UK than elsewhere currently (that fact is a bit damning itself when you think about it) but what is experience for most people in our age, that is the benchmark for me, and in that light no I don’t think we are better collectively, nor as a humanity as a whole, just better in some areas and a few places and worse in others. Also the belief that people from those times would have no reaction to our mass loans with interest, I think that reveals more about how deeply it has become the basis of our economy, one that is based itself on debt, and trading of debt rather than commodities, that the people of medieval and ancient times. Usury was seen as a great evil, to lend and hold others to debt, particularly with interest, was a something either not allowed at all, or only tolerated in very limited degree, to know and see it was a basis of a whole culture’s economy and system, I don’t think we can fully appreciate the shock someone from those times would have to that. That would see it as part of a whole culture giving itself to something that was universally regarded as a system of oppression and evil.
As to some of the examples, the fact that Honduran or any other mothers around the world are having to but cut off from their children, and the children from their parents, and subject them to terrible dangerous journeys and travels and in such numbers is a far from a sign things are getting better for everyone, but for a very small few. When the tide of humanity washes up on US or British or European lands in such vast numbers telling us it’s terrible out there, enduring massive danger to get here is an eloquent display of just how bad it is for so many people around the world. And in relation to such refugees, what often really happens to them, they are at the mercy of human trafficking, which has become again as it was before (in the older context of slavery) a whole global industry of human abuse, slavery, degradation and death, so many women and children end up as sexual slaves even when they arrive in their hoped for ‘safe havens’, with parents in areas of Africa and Asia in such grinding poverty they have give children up, or even sell them to such crime rings where they become prey from abusers and pheodphiles. And this isn’t some occasional shocking horror, it’s massive and institutional and in such numbers that even thinking of it scares and terrifies me to think of such children subjected to so much abuse and harm. And are such refugees and migrants accepted by our nations as a whole who avoid the worst of the ills of human trafficking (rather than individual exceptions) seen as hurting strangers with open arms or suspicion, rejection and made scapegoats for the ills of our own societies? I can’t speak for the US, and perhaps things are better where you are, but here in the UK it is a common complaint that immigration is causing economic and social problems for us, that it is ‘those people’ that are the criminals and we need to get them out and have more draconian immigration laws, rather than drawing the connection between our own nations and company’s power games in their countries that more than a little contributed to the situation that brings them to our shores (and of course are their ills really over, perhaps improved, but not over). At least that is how it often is in the UK, where the far right is enjoying a resurgence across Europe along other extremist views.
Taking just one area, the Congo is one of the most richest places in the world in terms of resources and minerals, but the support for Mobutu Sese Seko, who during the Congo Crisis was installed with Belgian and CIA-backed forces in a coup against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 because Mobutu’s anti-communist stance (and so as so many other areas in the world, the Congo became a game-piece between the West and the Soviets in their imperial power games), Lumumba who was the first leader to be democratically elected as was killed which he took power as the army chief of staff, leading to direct power in a second coup in 1965, changing the country’s name to Zaire in 1971. Establishing a single-party state with all power concentrated in his hands, forming an authoritarian regime amassing vast personal wealth purging the country of all colonial cultural influence while continuing to enjoy considerable support from the US and the West due to his anti-communist stance. His wealth was made through vast economic exploitation and corruption, and massive exploitative loans, which the West was quite happy in giving to support his regime, leading to uncontrolled inflation, massive debt and massive currency devaluations, until by 1991 economic deterioration and unrest lead first to forcing him to agree to share power, until still using his armed forces to prevent change until May 1997 when the rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country. Since then things have further deteriorated there, both internally and externally with other nations both close and far exploiting the Congo, and the debt Mobutu brought that World Bank and all the nations still demand that the people themselves pay even as it keeps them in the most grinding poverty, despite living in likely the most richest land in terms of resources (and having such diversity of them), based on the statement that it would be unethical and irresponsible to let people off their debt, it would apparently not lead to responsible behaviour. But these same nations had no problem forgiving the debt of the banks in our own countries when the global debt crisis hit us, suddenly it isn’t irresponsible to forgive debt anymore, when it’s our own necks on the line, and when it’s the rich and powerful who are in the firing line, Caesar takes care of his own friends, the hypocrisy would be amusing if it wasn’t so tragic. And now in Congo the death toll has risen to around 6.9 million, with nations and international companies like vultures exploiting that land even today, and sadly it’s not an isolated example. A court recently in New York has awarded two US vulture funds (funds who buy others debts and trade on them, and then using the exorbitant interest to profiteer on these debts which they never lent, so they can get a maximum profit despite the original conditions or intention behind the loan or held the debt and their intentions) a $1.3 billion payout of debts brought up after Argentina’s debt crisis of 2001, and have told Argentina it is illegal to pay it’s other debts unless it also pays the vulture funds, it was due to pay the first $900 million payment on 30 June (plus a 30 day grace period), which if it hasn’t had any further resolution since I last check would be forcing Argentina to a new debt default. While since the financial crisis, there has been a new boom in lending to developing countries around the world, between 2007-2012 it has doubled, shooting up by 130% in sub-Saharan Africa since 2006, with countries that that have thankfully received debt cancellation in the last decade together with the ones that were never so lucky, are being afflicted and the shadow grows upon them again. Even the IMF and the Financial Times are beginning to notice this.
Perhaps some think I’m being to harsh or to pessimistic, and perhaps that’s a fair charge I don’t know, perhaps I am seeing more the dark right now than than the light, but I don’t objectively see we are better than previous ages globally in the both humanity or the whole experience of all humanity, we are more technologically advanced, and we have brought more light in some areas than previous ages, and become blind and brought harm in other areas more than previous ages. So we are neither better nor worse, the same power of death faces and afflicts us as it has done all humans, and it is the fiction of progress that is the cardinal doctrine of our age which must be resisted and seen through to more soberly face the problems of our time and seek to bring healing.
And I would just repeat my warning to to think we have evil all figured out and in a nice, neat box, because it has a way of getting out of those mental conceptions and boxes and coming at us in ways we are not expecting, it is a darker and greater mystery than that.
As for being a pessimist or an optimist,as Lesslie Newbigin said, I’m neither, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and the defeat of death and fulfilment of creation and humanity began and promised in Him will be fulfilled.
(Edited for a little more clarity, and thank you Steve for deleting the second post, also a last note, I hope no one feels I’m personally getting at them, because that isn’t my intention at all, rather I’m just rather passionate about some of the above issues so sometimes I get a bit polemic on it)
Here’s the first paragraph from the Wiki entry here:
