“Nothing endures but change.” The words of the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus are a warning to all who believe that our current world order is fixed. Heraclitus viewed the world as constantly in a state of flux, with the only permanent feature being impermanence.
This universal truth is lost on those who make the assumption that the current liberal values, beliefs, social norms and political systems are here for eternity, with all previous civilizations mere steppingstones toward our modern, enlightened way of life. It is easy to forget that people thousands of years ago felt exactly the same way about their “modern” societies and could never imagine how future generations would patronizingly regard them as backward, quaint, misguided, ignorant or uncivilized.
One of the best examples of how values have changed must be with regard to human rights, and slavery in particular. For thousands of years, slavery was endemic in most civilizations and seen as part of the natural, civilized order. Ancient Egypt’s economy was based on slavery, as were those of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, with slaves accounting for approximately a third of their total populations. In Africa, slavery existed for thousands of years before Portugal, Spain and finally Britain became involved in the notorious trans-Atlantic slave trade. It is estimated that 3.4 million Africans were transferred to the Americas as slaves by British ships from the mid-17th century until the early 19th century. In this same period, raids by Barbary pirates resulted in an estimated 1.2 million Europeans being captured and forced into slavery in North Africa and the wider Ottoman Empire between 1500 and 1900. Slavery was finally outlawed worldwide when the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, specifying freedom from slavery as one of those universal rights.
Representative democracy is the latest big new idea, but this is very much a newcomer compared with the centuries of rule by emperors, monarchs, oligarchs and autocrats. No system of government is perfect, and every system is tested by forces beyond its control
Today, we all believe in the righteousness of this decision and assume that legal slavery could never possibly return, but history has a way of recurring, and it’s an undeniable fact that for 4,800 of the past 5,000 years, slavery was viewed as a normal part of civilized society. It’s a similar story with liberal attitudes toward race, women and sexual orientation. The modern, liberal consensus abhors racism, sexism and homophobia, but as with slavery, this has not been the norm for most of history. We cannot tell whether the current enlightened approach will continue indefinitely or whether it is a mere blip in a more-intolerant, cruel and brutish world. Of course, the converse could also be true, and history may judge that we are not as enlightened as we would like to believe. Our 21st-century “enlightenment” may in the future be viewed with the same contempt as we now regard those involved in the slave trade. A few hundred years from now, people may well shake their heads at our ignorance, cruelty and stupidity. Animal welfare, fossil fuels, mental health treatments, religious bigotry and, of course, nuclear weapons are all obvious targets for future disbelief.
Just as values and social norms ebb and flow across the centuries, the same is true of political systems, government structures and how tribes of people identify themselves. What seems permanent is always impermanent. The Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union: all seemed indestructible at the height of their powers. Yet all collapsed, some slowly, others with remarkable rapidity. A similar state of flux has been witnessed with the nation-states that were the main beneficiaries of the collapse of empires. Shifting national borders following wars and peace treaties; breakaway states or provinces; devolution of state powers to smaller regions; centralization of powers into larger unions of states: change is constant and political maps of the world need continual updating. The British Isles are an excellent example of tribal flux, moving in the past 500 years from the separate small nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, to a United Kingdom, to a global empire; and then following the exact same journey in reverse, via a flirtation with the European Union. No tribal, national or imperial boundaries will survive indefinitely.
Permanent impermanence has also been a feature of the various forms of government that have run the world over the past few thousand years. Representative democracy is the latest big new idea, but this is very much a newcomer compared with the centuries of rule by emperors, monarchs, oligarchs and autocrats. No system of government is perfect, and every system is tested by forces beyond its control: external enemies, economic decline, disease, famine, internal dissent, and even the fickleness of its people. All forms of government need to adapt and evolve continually if they are to avoid collapse. Nothing lasts forever; nothing remains inviolate. To believe otherwise is irrational hubris and ignores the lessons of history, and the wise words of Heraclitus.
The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.