ESSAY: The progress paradox

When life gets too easy, we invent new struggles - often against justice itself

Let me begin with a claim I believe is unassailable: Despite the many challenges we face, there has never been a better time to be alive.

Most of us (though certainly not all) live better than the kings of the past. We have access to safe food, clean water, and the miracles of modern medicine. We casually scroll through the near-entirety of human knowledge on the tiny screens in our pockets. We can travel the globe in hours and speak to loved ones across continents in seconds. We live longer and healthier lives than our ancestors could have imagined.

No, we haven’t created a utopia. Inequality and suffering still abound. But if people from earlier generations could travel through time, they would surely recognize ours as an age of near-endless wonders.

That’s why I get frustrated when people romanticize the past – saying they wish they had lived in, say, the Roaring Twenties. When I hear such claims, I think to myself: Enjoy Jim Crow laws, lynchings and race riots; enjoy your money not being safe in banks; enjoy dentistry.