Originally published in CommPRO.biz

The Good Old Days

by: W.T. “Bill” McKibben

On this day before Christmas one can not look about without seeing a louse. Here a banker too slick to jail, there a cliff of unprecedented scale. Tens of thousands are still struggling to recover from Super Storm Sandy. Then it was overshadowed by the unbearable loss of innocent life in Sandy Hook. Makes one wish for days of yore when all was well. Or was it?

The Amish, who mold their lives on the past, were stunned as was the world a little more than a half dozen years ago when a deranged man entered a one-room Amish school outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and took the lives of five young girls, leaving five more with horrible wounds. It was the third school shooting our nation endured in less than a week.

There is a lesson in the way the Amish reacted. A family member of the killer was quoted as saying that “An Amish neighbor comforted his family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness.” Amish community members visited and comforted his widow, children and parents. One Amish man held the killer’s sobbing father in his arms to comfort him. The Amish even created a charitable fund for the killer’s wife and children.

The past, however, was not filled with good hearted folk like the Amish. Quite the contrary in fact. Aside from the havoc mankind endured from diseases we no longer face, the workplace was not terribly friendly, as we are reminded at this season by performances of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Death and injury were endured as routine well into the 20^th century.

In a 2011 NPR broadcast authors Joshua Goldstein and Steven Pinker laid out a compelling case that the last decade was the most peaceful in human history. That violence in all its ugly aspects from war to murder to rape is at an all time low. That as a matter of fact we are living in the most idyllic time in history. And when you look at the numbers it’s obvious that Goldstein and Pinker are right. Why then does the exact opposite seem to be the case? First and foremost because there remains so much room for improvement.

Our perception is based on the 24/7 news cycle that focuses on the worst of every aspect of life on this planet. A century ago our forbearers were not aware of went on much beyond their neighborhood. Yes, the telegraph and the railroad had opened up their horizons but only for happenings of major importance. Today the volume of minutia dumped on us by the media, the internet and all the other sources that pour into our lives right down to our smart phones is unending.

Good news does not make the news cycle. But it far overwhelms the bad. Most people, businesses and major corporations strive to do the right thing. In part because it’s a lot harder these days to get away with bad behavior, it will come out. That’s the upside of today’s world. Refocus on what’s good all about us: “These Are The Good Old Days.”