The severe pessimist who says that things are getting worse and can only get more terrible is preaching an unfounded gospel IMHO. I look at the abolition of slavery, compassion for victims of war, no longer scapegoating the disabled etc as victims of divine vengeance etc as very good things and as part of the out working out of the Gospel. The severe optimist who then goes on to say that just because some of the mechanism of oppression and violence and exclusion are becoming clearer today that this mean things are actually going to improve always in this life – well that’s making a jump too far IMHO. People may well chose to act in accordance with the worst in them and indeed invent new and better disguised forms of seemingly ‘good’ exclusion, oppression and violence (and that’s true of people of all sects, parties, and political persuasions). However, it seems a bit daft - this idea that the world is going to hell in a hand cart 
. There has to be a more balanced view rooted in hope rather than in pessimism or optimism.
well, no i think of it…back in my day…kids showed RESPECT to their parents, and there wasn’t any of this “texting” nonsense eating away at our language 
actually…that reminded me of this, which i think is specific, but perhaps a microcosmic view of the state of things:
xkcd.com/1227/ (hover your mouse over it for a hidden additional observation)
now, that doesn’t prove that things are getting better…but it does show that the same complaints occur every generation. that to me says that pessimism can always be legitimised…if you want to legitimise it, but the past was no better…not really.
A few years back I did some cyber-research (in other words I googled it 
) trying to get a handle on the atrocities of the 20th century. So I looked at war casualties, genocides, various holocausts, forced starvation - all man-inflicted, measurable atrocities.
I won’t go into the numbers, which were staggering and actually made me weep, and would make me weep again if i started thinking about it.
I wish I had examples of ‘mass goodness’ to counter those things, but perhaps goodness is salted throughout mankind, seen in families and small localities and is, in total, greater than the evil.
I don’t know. I call myself a ‘cheerful pessimist’ but some days the cheerful part does not come that easy, while the pessimist part is always there. It may just be a matter of temperament.
Like I said, I do hope you are right.
i totally understand this…and you are absolutely right. i think this is where Dick’s coming from, too.
what’s good about both of your perspectives is that you’re traumatised about real issues here. not just the fact that Christians might be swearing more.
there is a difference though…many years ago, war was a thing you lived in constant fear of. it was a reality of life that some neighbouring chieftain would try to annex you or simply kill you. at the time…you’d be justified in thinking it was part of life. you’d live in fear, but this was normal.
now…we look at this issue and we say NO! this is not acceptable. we MUST stop the killing. and yes, some of the worst (in terms of number and cruelty) things that have ever happened, happened recently…but it’s not being accepted like it used to be.
look at the middle ages…there were fewer people, but war was always looming…and if not war, then a cruel king over you…or a pope judging you fit for torture for issues we now discuss mostly civilly over tea and crumpets. if there were 6+ billion people alive back then…maybe we’d have a different view on this last century.
there is, despite the attempts of human evil, a shift. we now are aware of things and able to look with more objective eyes on things we used to just thing of as normal…and at worst even good and right (good old Calvin arguing for the deaths of heretics, or the Inquisition). Now more and more people are having the scales fall of their eyes.
This is why i hope.