Today is Hope. Last year, I read Steven Pinker’s wonderful “The Better Angels of Our Nature”. That phrase was the closing of Lincoln’s first inaugural address. Ironic in how the demons of our natures opposed his plea and launched that miserable war of brother against brother, which in some ways we are still seeing waged in places like Ferguson, Missouri and Sanford, Florida.
It can seem like nothing changes, that hatred and man’s inhumanity to man are the only constants in a topsy turvy world. But our vision is too narrow. In the relatively short time since Ol’ Abe spoke those words and Professor Pinker chose them for the title of his book, things have changed profoundly.
The times when our parents and grandparents gleefully lynched innocent black boys in public celebrations in cities all over this nation are past. The public appetite for all manner of public executions and torture has faded. Violence of every type and sort all over the world have fallen dramatically and continuously over the whole history of humankind.
Evil is inevitably, if too often painfully slowly, rooted out and destroyed. I firmly believe we should find hope in Pinker’s careful statistical analysis. I am overflowing with HOPE that my grandchildren will live in a better world than I live in – hell, I am certain of it.
HOLLY DAYS 