Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

Author:Sam Harris [Harris, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781451612783
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ome
Published: 2010-10-05T10:19:32.408000+00:00

Chapter 5

THE FUTURE OF HAPPINESS

No one has ever mistaken me for an optimist. And yet when I consider one of the more pristine sources of pessimism—the moral development of our species—I find reasons for hope. Despite our perennial bad behavior, our moral progress seems to me unmistakable. Our powers of empathy are clearly growing. Today, we are surely more likely to act for the benefit of humanity as a whole than at any point in the past.

Of course, the twentieth century delivered some unprecedented horrors. But those of us who live in the developed world are becoming increasingly disturbed by our capacity to do one another harm. We are less tolerant of “collateral damage” in times of war—undoubtedly because we now see images of it—and we are less comfortable with ideologies that demonize whole populations, justifying their abuse or outright destruction.

Consider the degree to which racism in the United States has diminished in the last hundred years. Racism is still a problem, of course. But the evidence of change is undeniable. Most readers will have seen photos of lynchings from the first half of the twentieth century, in which whole towns turned out, as though for a carnival, simply to enjoy the sight of some young man or woman being tortured to death and strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see. These pictures often reveal bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, church elders, newspaper editors, policemen, even the occasional senator and congressman, smiling in their Sunday best, having consciously posed for a postcard photo under a dangling, lacerated, and often partially cremated person. Such images are shocking enough. But realize that these genteel people often took souvenirs of the body—teeth, ears, fingers, kneecaps, genitalia, and internal organs—home to show their friends and family. Sometimes, they even displayed these ghoulish trophies in their places of business.1

Consider the following response to boxer Jack Johnson’s successful title defense against Jim Jeffries, the so-called “Great White Hope”:

A Word to the Black Man:

Do not point your nose too high

Do not swell your chest too much

Do not boast too loudly

Do not be puffed up

Let not your ambition be inordinate

Or take a wrong direction

Remember you have done nothing at all

You are just the same member of society you were last week

You are on no higher plane

Deserve no new consideration

And will get none

No man will think a bit higher of you

Because your complexion is the same

Of that of the victor at Reno2

A modern reader can only assume that this dollop of racist hatred appeared on a leaflet printed by the Ku Klux Klan. On the contrary, this was the measured opinion of the editors at the Los Angeles Times exactly a century ago. Is it conceivable that our mainstream media will ever again give voice to such racism? I think it far more likely that we will proceed along our current path: racism will continue to lose its subscribers; the history of slavery in the United States will become even more flabbergasting to contemplate; and future generations will marvel at the the ways that we, too, failed in our commitment to the common good.

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