Why the human has gotten more kind over time?

Essay by TheKamelRiderHigh School, 10th grade July 2008

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It would start soon. Either he must kill or he will get killed. He doesn't know what or how many he has to kill. He tries to conceal all the feelings which make him weaker. But it was impossible to stop being frightened and nervous at the same time. Still, he unwillingly entered the arena. It was huge, bigger than he could imagine. Yes, this must have been a typical day of a Roman gladiator. That was nearly 2000 years ago. But how about now? Why don't we see Gladiator fights nowadays?I think most people agree with me when I say that we are living in a quite peaceful time compared to what we have gone through in the history.

The mayor reasons to why we have gotten more kind over time are because of the influence of the renaissance, worldwide peace organizations between countries and of course because we don't have any real super-power countries left in the world.

Even though the Roman Empire actually was one of the most civilized powers, I think almost everyone finds those Gladiator fights quite inhuman nowadays. With the fall of the Roman Empire we entered the Dark Ages. Some examples of cruelty in the Dark Ages are how the Mayans ripped the hearts out of the one they wanted to sacrifice to the Gods, while they were alive. And how the public in Europe stoned people who were half buried into the ground, which resembles today's disgusting execution methods in some countries.

For the first, we have to look back to the 14th century to find the first big step into the brighter times. The writers, artists and philosophers made the definition of a human much more independent and therefore people got much more open-minded. John Locke described the new situation with only two words: Tabula Rasa. It means that all human beings are born with no innate content. That clause together with Rene Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum", which means that we exist because of our thinking, made the view of a human being much more free. When the class society got weaker and people started to think and decide more independently it was much more difficult to have slaves and also beating up someone from a lower class often lead to death sentence. In other words, an equal society is one of the most important causes of a kind society.

Furthermore, it's important to understand how the relationship between different countries has developed throughout the years. In the beginning of the 20th century countries split up in different parts and started world wars. Fifty years later the United Nation was founded. A lot of people think that it hasn't done anything important. But the actual existence of a worldwide peace organization is very important even though it doesn't always manage to solve all problems. It improves the world spirit and that's a beginning for peace progress. Therefore we can say that good relationships between the countries don't start wars, which is also one of the major reasons to cruelty.

Moreover, I'd like to stress that having a super-power in world definitely changes the view of human value. We haven't had a super-power that's more powerful than all othernations together, since the fall of the Roman Empire. During the Roman Empire, the Romans treated the foreign people very badly. It's human nature to get cruel as soon as he gets enough power. People always refer to the USA when talking about super-powers, but let's distinguish between the fact and fiction here. USA can't rule over the entire world by itself. It's undoubtedly a powerful nation, but the government always has other countries as allies when an important international proposal is implemented.

To sum it up, we can say that having a super-power in the world makes the powerful people cruel, simply because of the human nature.

In conclusion, the three main causes to why the human has gotten more kind over time are because of the Age of Enlightenment's new thoughts, the existence of worldwide peace organizations like the United Nations and the nonexistence of any real super-power.

References:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_empirehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenmenthttp://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6407