It can be difficult to believe that people once gathered joyfully to witness public executions. The idea that humans could invent elaborate methods of torture; boiling, impaling, drawing and quartering, not just to punish but to demonstrate power, seems almost surreal to us now. We recoil from these images as though they belong to another species. But they don’t. They belong to us.
We often assume we have become more ethical, more compassionate, and more civilized over time. The question is, have we truly changed, or have the rules simply shifted? Are we morally better, or just socially different? When we look at history, the discomfort deepens. We see not only cruelty in the past, but also echoes of it in the present. And as we reflect, another realization dawns: future generations might view us with the same sense of horror.
Yet, there is something in us that resists despair. Even in the darkest chapters of history, we find moments of empathy, reform, and resistance. Perhaps that’s the real thread to follow, not the question of whether we are better or worse, but how we wrestle with the complexity of becoming human across time.
Cruelty, Then and Now
The violence of past eras wasn’t limited to barbaric punishments. It was normalized. Executions were public events, designed to entertain and to warn. Torture was seen as legitimate interrogation. Cruelty had a purpose, and that purpose was often bound to religion, politics, or social order.
What allowed such behavior? Part of the answer lies in how societies categorized people. Once someone was labeled a heretic, a traitor, or a witch, they ceased to be fully human in the eyes of the crowd. Dehumanization made violence acceptable. It allowed ordinary citizens, parents, priests, neighbors, to witness or even participate in horrors without feeling guilt.
But if we think such tendencies have disappeared, we are fooling ourselves. We may no longer hang people in public squares, but cruelty still wears new faces. Modern forms of violence, online bullying, political suppression, systemic neglect, are often quieter, but no less real. In prisons, in war zones, and sometimes in our own communities, we still see how easily people can justify hurting others when moral lines blur.
The unsettling truth is that the potential for cruelty remains within us. We are not different by nature. The change, if it exists, must be found somewhere else.
The Power of Norms and Structures
What, then, holds us back from repeating the worst of the past? In part, the answer is cultural. Today, there are laws and social norms that condemn torture and protect individual rights. Institutions exist to hold people accountable. Education teaches children to recognize injustice. Humanitarian ideals have spread beyond borders.
We must not overlook the role of language and media. Where once stories glorified conquest and punishment, we now have literature and cinema that evoke empathy, question violence, and highlight marginal voices. Exposure to global suffering, whether through journalism or documentaries, allows people to feel a connection to others they will never meet.
Technology has also played a role. The internet, while imperfect, enables dialogue between different cultures and perspectives. It creates space for new ethical conversations and helps communities to organize and advocate for change.
Yet these changes are not evidence of superior morality. They are the result of long, painful efforts. Every human rights law, every abolition of an abusive practice, came only after people resisted, protested, or refused to accept cruelty as normal. The progress we see today is not proof that we are better; it is proof that we can learn. And that learning is fragile.
Not Better, Not Worse
It is tempting to think that progress means moral improvement. But reality is more complicated. We no longer accept burning people at the stake, but we tolerate levels of inequality that destroy lives in quieter ways. Millions still live without access to basic care, safety, or dignity. Entire communities are displaced by climate crises, often ignored by the very societies that claim to be more ethical.
What if, centuries from now, people look back and ask how we could have accepted these things? How could we have lived with such disparities between rich and poor, or allowed corporations to pollute with impunity? They may find it as baffling as we find medieval executions.
New moral blind spots emerge with each generation. Just because something feels ordinary to us now does not mean it is defensible. History shows us that much of what people once considered normal is now viewed with shame. We should not assume that we are exempt from this pattern.
This is where humility becomes essential. Rather than seeing ourselves as ethically superior to the past, we might instead recognize that each age has its own kinds of suffering. Our job is not to judge the past too quickly, nor to be complacent about the present.
The Double-Edged Sword of Advancement
Technological and medical advances have extended human life in ways our ancestors could never imagine. We live longer, more comfortably, and with far more knowledge. But these gains come with hidden costs. As we conquer infectious disease, we fall prey to chronic illnesses like obesity, diabetes, and dementia. We may cure physical ailments, but often at the expense of social connection.
Many people today suffer from isolation. Urban living, digital communication, and economic pressure have fragmented the bonds that once held communities together. People live longer, but often lonelier. The elderly, once revered in tight-knit families, now spend their final years in care facilities that feel more like exile than refuge.
Mental health crises are rising. Anxiety, depression, and burnout are becoming commonplace. While these may partly reflect better diagnosis and openness, they also suggest that something in modern life has gone awry. More people are surviving, but fewer feel truly alive.
The idea of progress often ignores this duality. We gain one kind of freedom but lose another. We solve one problem but create a new one. The future will be no different. Whatever challenges we face today will be replaced by others tomorrow, and the cycle continues.
The Ethics of Humility and Hope
If we accept that every era has its own mix of good and bad, then what should guide us? Perhaps the answer is humility. Not a passive humility that resigns itself to moral compromise, but a reflective humility that recognizes complexity and stays open to change.
To be humble is not to deny that progress is possible. It is to remember that it is never guaranteed. Ethical growth is not the result of evolution alone; it is the outcome of conscious effort. It takes courage to question inherited values, to see suffering that is easily ignored, and to imagine a better way.
Hope plays its role too. Hope that our awareness today might become the conscience of tomorrow. Hope that we can raise our standards not just through outrage, but through understanding. Hope that technology will not replace empathy, but enhance it.
And most of all, hope that we will not be afraid to be judged by the future. Because if we are willing to reflect, we may leave behind not perfection, but a trail of learning.
Writing Our Chapter in an Ongoing Story
The story of humanity is not one of constant ascent, nor of total collapse. It is a layered, complex unfolding of possibilities. We are the same people who once cheered at the guillotine, and the same people who fought for abolition, democracy, and justice.
We should resist the temptation to see history in binaries. We are not either civilized or barbaric. We are always both, in shifting proportions, across different contexts. What matters is how conscious we become of our place in that unfolding.
The people of the past handed us more than just monuments and mistakes. They gave us a mirror. When we look into it, we see the truth of what we are, and the hope of what we could become.
The measure of progress is not whether we are better than those who came before. It is whether we are willing to be more honest, more courageous, and more compassionate than we were yesterday.
The future is watching, just as we watch the past. Let’s give them something worth remembering.
Image by MARCIN CZERNIAWSKI
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