Is it too soon to be asking in what part of the world will the next golden age be located?

 

The question posed above occurred to me as I was reading the final pages of Johan Norberg’s latest book, Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages.

Johan Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato institute. He is a historian of ideas and a prolific author. If Norberg has a fan club, I might qualify for honorary membership. I have written about some of his previous books on this blog (here and here) and have read others.

Norberg explains what he means by a golden age in these terms:

“A golden age is associated with a culture of optimism, which encourages people to explore new knowledge, experiment with new methods and technologies, and exchange the results with others. Its characteristics are cultural creativity, scientific discoveries, technological achievements and economic growth that stand out compared with what came before and after it, and compared with other contemporary cultures. Its result is a high average standard of living, which is usually the envy of others, often also of their heirs.”

The author suggests that the most important precondition for a golden age is “an absence of orthodoxies imposed form the top about what to believe, think and say, how to live and what to do.” He doesn’t present the golden ages he has identified in utopian terms. He acknowledges that countries concerned all practiced slavery, denied women basic rights and “took great delight in exterminating neighbouring populations”.

As implied in the epigraph, Norberg argues that civilizations decline when they lose cultural self-confidence. He suggests that episodes of creativity and growth are often terminated because of the perceived self-interest of people who fear change and feel threatened by it. Free speech is replaced by orthodoxies and free markets are replaced by increased economic controls. The fears of those seeking stability and predictability often become self-fulfilling.

 In my view, Norberg has done an excellent job in explaining why golden ages have emerged and disappeared at different times in different parts of the world.

However, I think there may be an omission in the author’s identification of golden ages. I will briefly discuss that before focusing on the question of whether the Anglosphere is in decline.

Identifying golden ages

Norberg discusses seven golden ages in his book. Since he doesn’t provide a summary timeline showing their duration, I asked ChatGPT to construct the following:

• Athens: 480–404 BC
• Rome: 27 BC–AD 180
• Abbasids: 750–950
• Song dynasty: 960–1279
• Renaissance Italy: 1490–1527
• Dutch Republic: 1609–1672
• Anglosphere: c. 1688 onward.

If that timeline is broadly correct, it suggests that the largest gap between golden ages occurred between the end of the golden age of Rome and the beginning of the golden age of the Abbasids. What was happening at that time? Although the golden age of Rome may have ended around 180, following the death of Marcus Aurelius, the decline and fall of the Roman empire took a few more centuries. The last emperor of the Western Roman empire was deposed in 476. Plato’s Academy in Athens apparently continued to function until 532, when the seven last philosophers left to seek refuge with the Persian king. Interest in Greek philosophy grew in Persia during the 6^th and 7^th centuries, partly because of the presence of scholars associated with schismatic Christian sects.

As I was pondering what was happening between 180 and 750, I began to wonder whether India’s golden age might have been worth discussing in this book. While visiting India last year I read William Dalrymple’s book, TheGolden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. As well as discussing India’s impact on religion and culture throughout much of Asia, Dalrymple. points out that over the period from about 250BC to AD 1200, India was an important centre of commerce and trade, and an innovator in fields such as astronomy and mathematics.

India was the source of the numerical system with 10 digits including zero, that we use today. Norberg mentions that important contribution, but Dalrymple discusses it at greater length.

Another fascinating topic discussed by Dalrymple is the close relationship between the merchant classes of early India and the Buddhist monastic movement. Dalrymple emphasizes the importance of trade between India and the Roman empire. He notes that as the Roman empire crumbled, India’s trade with Europe was replaced by expansion of its trade with south-east Asia.

Is the Anglosphere in decline?

The Anglosphere refers to those nations where the English language and cultural values are dominant. Few would dispute that over the last couple of centuries the Anglosphere, first led by Britain and then the United States, played a leading role among nations in demonstrating the benefits of liberal democracy, free markets, technological innovation, and free international trade. Life in the Anglosphere has been far from ideal even in respect of those criteria, but there can be no doubt that we have been living in an age of widespread prosperity that is without historical precedent. As Norberg points out, the whole world has benefited from the spread of golden-age conditions fostered by the Anglosphere, with global extreme poverty declining from 38 to 9 percent in just the period since 1990.

However, Norberg notes that “many ominous signs of decline are clearly present in our time”. He mentions the “hubristic overreach” of U.S. attempts to reshape the Middle East through military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the financial crash of 2008, and the growth of “crippling public debt”. He suggests that a series of crises, including the Covid pandemic, have fostered “a sense that the world is dangerous and that we need to protect ourselves from it”. He writes:

“Most worryingly, rich counties have experienced a major backlash against globalization and trade, and immigrants have become scapegoats, just as they were in so many other eras of decline, potentially shutting us out from our most potent source of constant revitalization.”

Norberg notes that both China and Russia “have recently taken a totalitarian turn and are working hard to devastate neighbours”. He suggests, nevertheless, that Russia and China will have a hard time trying to challenge the Anglosphere-led world order because it will be difficult for them to find reliable friends among advanced states. 

Unfortunately, in the short time since the book was written, the government of the United States has adopted an international stance that seems to be inconsistent with the continued existence of an Anglosphere-led world order. Countries that have long regarded themselves as allies of the U.S. are now forced to contemplate seriously how they can best protect their own interests if the U.S. pursues isolationist policies.

The book ends on a somewhat optimistic note. The author observes that there are roughly fifty prosperous, open societies around the world. If one of them fails, “that will not stop others from picking up the torch”. He adds:

“That prompts the question of where the next golden age will come from.”

After considering various possibilities, however, he suggests that “perhaps this is the wrong way to look at it because we now have a “truly global civilization” in which every literate person anywhere in the world can draw upon the accumulated knowledge of humanity and learn skills in any field. In that context, “no one country can hold a monopoly on the ideas that can make them prosper”.

I agree with the general thrust of that argument. The technology required for future golden ages is not deposited in a library that can be easily destroyed. However, the geographical location of societies that are open and prosperous is still an issue worth considering. It isn’t much consolation for citizens in the United States, Britain or Australia to know that their children and grandchildren may be able to draw upon the accumulated knowledge of humanity and learn skills in any field, if institutional change impinges adversely on their incentives to do such things. Opportunities for human flourishing depend on whether political entrepreneurs will restore and maintain sufficient economic freedom.

It is in that context that I ask: Is it too soon to be asking where the next golden age will be located?

I suggested an optimistic answer to that question in Chapter 6 of Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing. Looking beyond looming economic crises, I am still optimistic that the governments of most liberal democracies will eventually introduce institutional reforms to enable the drivers of progress to restore growth of opportunities.

Addendum

Readers may also be interested in a recent article by Johan Norberg, entitled “From Athens to Sparta: How Trumpism is Accelerating America’s Decline”, published in The Unpopulist:

https://www.theunpopulist.net/?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web .

What does the Milgram experiment tell us about human nature?

 

I can remember feeling shocked when I first heard about the Milgram experiment. Some psychology students told me about the experiment about 60 years ago, while I was at university.

At that time, the findings of the experiment caused me to question my view of human nature. I was brought up to hold the view that it is natural for humans to be kind and humane. That view is consistent with the derivation of the words, “kind” and “humane”. It is also the view I hold now. The findings of the Milgram experiment seemed to suggest, however, that a less positive view of human nature might be more accurate.

In this post I will summarize the Milgram experiment briefly before explaining why I have changed my mind about what it tells us about human nature.

The experiment was conducted by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University. His aim was to explore whether individuals would obey instructions to harm another person when an authority figure told them to do so. The first results of the experiment were published in 1963.

Participants in the experiment were led to believe that they were assisting in a learning experiment in which they were “teachers” who had to administer electric shocks to a "learner" who made mistakes. The electric “shocks” were fakes. The “learners” were actors. They made audible protests in response to the fake shocks. As the voltage increased, the “learners” protested more.

The main finding of the experiments was that a very high proportion of subjects fully obeyed the instructions - 65% were willing to apply the highest shock level. The experiment was replicated several times with similar outcomes being obtained.

When I first heard about the study, the message I took from it was that most humans are horrible. People claim to have regard for the well-being of others, but when it comes to the crunch, most people lack sufficient empathy and/or moral fortitude to refuse to inflict pain on others. The worst part of it was that I wasn’t confident that I would have been one of the minority who refused to apply the highest shock level.

However, when I recently read an article about the study I modified my view of the participants. They didn’t lack empathy for the victims. It was obvious from their behaviour, including symptoms of stress, that they were uncomfortable following the instruction to inflict pain. Every participant paused the experiment at least once to question whether they should continue. In interviews following the sessions, participants frequently described feeling tormented by what they believed they were doing.

Participants only continued because the instructor insisted that they do so. The instructor began by asking the participants politely to “please continue”. If they continued to object, they were told: “The experiment requires you to continue”. If they still objected, they were told three times that they “must continue”.

Milgram’s subsequent experiments showed that obedience was affected by a range of factors e.g. the uniform of the instructor, the location of the experiment, and the presence of social support. In one experiment, two confederates in the room refused to administer high levels of shocks. In that context, only 10% of participants were willing to administer the highest level of shock.

On the basis of his findings, Milgram suggested that the obedient participants were in an “agentic state” where they had allowed others to direct their actions and then passed off responsibility for the consequences to the person giving the orders.

Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher have suggested another factor that may explain the behavior of the obedient participants. Rather than simply caving in to orders, they may have believed that they were contributing to a worthy scientific cause.

My conclusion

I am no longer surprised that 65% of participants in the Milgram study ended up doing what the instructor told them to do. They had good reasons to respect the authority of the instructor. They believed they were taking part in a scientific experiment being conducted at a reputable university.

The outcome of the experiment reflected excessive respect for authority rather than a lack of empathy with other humans.

The main point I take away from the findings is that people need to recognize that if they want to behave honorably towards others, they may sometimes need to disregard instructions from authority figures.

The findings of the experiment do not provide a reason to question the view that empathy for others is a characteristic of human nature which is suppressed only under extraordinary circumstances. 

Reference

 Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2017). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC prison study, social identity, and the power of situated focus. APS Observer.