In modern society, especially in the West, we tend to see the past as something totally inferior to the present, this is because we have a linear and sequential view of the time in which man and societies are ascending continuously, step by step , until we reach a utopian future that is in our imagination. Today is better than yesterday, whatever happens, we are one step ahead, and tomorrow will inevitably be better than today. The past is inferior and the future is superior, or at least we believe so.
Words like "primitive" or "outdated", undoubtedly have a negative connotation that attributes inferiority, on the contrary, words like "futuristic" and even "actual" are usually associated with positive connotations and superiority.
We believe that all the problems that exist today, someday in a future perhaps not so distant, cease to exist, because the continuous advance of society will take us to that desired paradise.
This marathon vision, in which each day we are closer to the goal, has not always been popular. In Ancient Greece, for example, according to some authors such as Hesiod and even Plato, man instead of progressing was degenerating, the myth of the "ages of man" postulates that the human had gone through different periods, from the Golden Age, in which man lived like the gods, without problems of any kind, always young, strong, wise, and without knowing the evil, going through the ages of Silver, Bronze, Heroic, in which it would progressively be corrupted (except in the Heroic Age), until finally reach the Iron Age, where there was no honor, and ignorance abounded, the gods had been forgotten, and evil, perversion, materialism, and injustice ruled, virtuous men would be extinguished, and the wicked would try to harm them through deception of all kinds.
In Rome, through Ovid, a similar myth would be introduced, although with only four ages (suppressing the Heroic Age).
The Vedics (and subsequently the Hindus) also had a similar vision, in which the world was divided into four ages (Yugas) that were degenerating little by little; from Satya Yuga (Age of Truth), to Kali Yuga (Age of discord).
Many of these myths were based on a nonlinear vision of history, but cyclical, and to some degree, circular. Man degenerates from his creation until reaching a point of total chaos, and depending on culture, the world is destroyed and reborn (as in Norse mythology) or progressively returns to reach its fullness (as in Vedicism), process that is repeated ad infinitum.
The curious thing about these mythologies and ancient beliefs is that they usually measured the man for his ideas, values, morals, customs, and even for happiness, whereas today on the contrary, we would be measuring man and societies for his material wealth, levels of production, industrial development, GDP, etc.
Listen to the futuristic enthusiasts and you will see how everyone talks about a technological utopia where there are no problems, not because man is more moral or more ideal, but because technology will avoid them.
You just have to look at the logic by which they seek to solve the problems in modernity; If rapes or juvenile perversion increase, abortion is the solution, but not cultural change. If the crimes or problems related to guns increase, a ban guns is the solution, but never social change.
We are reaching the point where we have a vision of social problems, and of all kinds, as only material problems, while ideas, morals, and everything that is invisible in a man, but which is latent and composes it, is cast aside and ignored.
Personally I don't see history in the same way as the ancient Greeks, Romans, Vedics and others, I believe that there must be a balance between material wealth and ideal wealth. Maybe I am very degenerate to see what they saw, it's possible, as it's possible that time has given us another perception, it is possible too.
But it is inevitable for me to mention that when the United States declared its independence in 1776, it led the world to an advance that had not been seen for more than a thousand years, and he reintroduced the word freedom, in a real way, in the vocabulary. This simple act would break with a process of quasi-deterministic degeneration, but on the contrary it would not mean the beginning of a similar process of progress.
I believe that history is a very complex process, and society as well as human depends on so many different factors, that it is impossible to accurately measure the advances and setbacks, so in turn, make a prediction of eternal progress, or an eternal degeneration, it's pretty far-fetched.
Human society is not a straight line of continuous advancement where every day we are better, and it is not a declining line that shows human decadence with respect to their ancestors, but rather it is a graph of lines that may seem random, where sometimes we progress and sometimes we go backwards, where every so often we change course and go in different directions, and in which we can compare societies of thousands of years ago with modern societies and realize that, in spite of the simple material issues, they may or may not be ahead of us.
I would dare to say that the United States of today, like all the countries of the American continent, just to give an example, is at a lower level than when they declared their independence, because although they possess more material wealth, ideally they have lost so much that many inhabitants of these nations are not even able to understand an idea like that of freedom, which was the main base of all these republics. With the simple fact that Marxism (that is, materialism par excellence) has lashed all of Latin America during the last 20 years, and that today it is reaching the countries of North America, it tells me that the ideal base of these nations has been lost.
Listen to the founding fathers and the liberators of America speak and notice how they compare modern nations with millenary nations, because their vision was not focused only on material issues, but rather, was on the contrary, an ideal vision of history.
It will be up to you to decide, within the framework of the subjectivity that this topic presents, whether the world as a whole has advanced or degenerated in the last millennia, because it depends on the vision, beliefs, and objectives with which you are analyzing the history, because although I believe in a universal, unique and indivisible truth, which indicates the existence of an objective advance or setback, I am not capable of owning it, you are free to judge based on yours opinions.
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