British historian, Paul Johnson, was interviewed extensively on C-SPAN this morning. A viewer called to ask him whether, in his view, the world was “going to hell.” Johnson answered that he thought life on the planet had made a general improvement, materially, in the past two to three thousand years, but then added that, morally, humans had made no real improvement; that on a moral level, we are on about the same level as humans were during the times of Julius Caesar; that we needed to focus our attention on improving the moral realm of our behavior.
He was later asked his opinions about recent events in the Middle East, and answered that he largely agreed with the actions taken by the United States and Great Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan. I did not hear him suggest how any moral improvement was to take place as long as humans can support the continuation of a war system whose logic has remained unchanged since the time of Julius Caesar. Perhaps it will be left to some other persons, in some other place, at some other time, by some other means, to address the moral dimensions of how we are to live!
