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Author: Song Yan
In 1918, Mr. Liang Ji, a former Qing official and scholar, was preparing to go out when he met his son Liang Shuming, who suddenly asked his son: "Will the world be better?" ”
Liang Shuming replied: "I believe that the world is going to be better day by day."
"It's good to be good!" Liang Ji said and left the house.
Three days later, Liang Ji committed suicide by throwing himself into the lake.
62 years later, Liang Shuming, who has been called "China's last Great Confucian", was interviewed by an American sinologist, and after telling what he had experienced and his reflections on reality, he also asked the question of "Will the world be better", and he died soon after.
Idealists are always trapped in anxiety and disappointment in the world, they have made a lot of efforts, but there are always too many realities that make them feel frustrated. Generation after generation grows, generation after generation dies, and I don't know if the world has changed a little better?
I have a lot of doubts about that. Material life is certainly getting better, which is visible to the naked eye, but the hostility between people, bullying between the strong and the weak, inequality and injustice seem to be increasing day by day, and different groups of people live at opposite ends of the deeper and deeper chasm. Is this an illusion? Or is it a fact that is happening?
TED Speaker and Swedish scholar Hans Rosslyn also took note of this concern, and in the decades after his life, he studied many pervasive social anxieties and came to his own surprise. He later founded a foundation called the "Open People's Wisdom" Foundation, established a website called https://www.gapminder.org, and traveled the world to speak. His main goal is only one, which is to tell everyone that the world is not as bad as you think.
In his research, he tells us many comforting facts, such as:
1, there are still many poor people in the world, every time we see the situation of these people, we feel the injustice of this world, but things are not as bad as imagined, this situation has actually been greatly improved. In 1800, 85 per cent of the world's population was in extreme poverty, and almost all children had to work to have food; by 1966, half the world was in such a situation. By 2017, that percentage was only 9 percent, and the biggest change occurred in the first 20 years of 2017, since the 1990s.
In line with income growth, people's life expectancy has also improved dramatically. In 1800, the average life expectancy worldwide was only about 30 years, and half of all children lived to be less than 15 years old. By 2019, the average life expectancy in the world is 73 years, and there is no country in the world with an average life expectancy of less than 50 years.
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Take a look at this exciting video, the X axis is GDP per capita, the Y axis is the average life expectancy, each circle is a country, the red is asian countries, and the yellow is European countries. In 1810, at the beginning of the video, almost all the countries were crowded in the lower left corner, both poor and not long to live. Over time, European countries developed rapidly until the early 20th century, when development slowed down. After World War II, Asian countries caught up, with the largest red circle being China, followed by India. As can be seen from the 2019 chart upstairs, most Asian countries are already above the middle income.
2, recently, women's rights and interests are a very important issue, many people are through their own efforts to improve the status of women, to avoid them from being harmed by gender discrimination. In the past hundred years, many people have done a lot of work for this matter, although it seems that the problem is still very big, but the data tells us that in fact, the work of predecessors has made great achievements.
In 1900, women had the right to vote in only 1 country in the world, and by the 1940s, there were fewer than 50, compared to 194 today. In 1970, 65 per cent of girls were able to attend school, by 2015 the figure was 90 per cent, and 92 per cent of boys were in school during the same period. The average number of years of schooling is 9 years for girls and 10 years for boys. That is to say, equality between men and women in education is immediately realized.
In 1800, female characters still belonged to the fertility machine, with an average of 6 babies per woman. By 1965, each woman had an average of 5 births. Today, the average number of babies per woman is 2.5.
The curve of the average fertility varies in different regions, the red is Asian countries, yellow is Europe, green is The Americas, and blue is Africa.
3, there are still many countries in the world whether to have nuclear weapons or not to argue endlessly, and as a result, there have been many diplomatic disputes. However, in 1986, there were 64,000 nuclear warheads in the world, and only 15,000 were left in 2017. In this respect, the world has at least not gone bad.
4, once, the world was divided into a few "developed countries" and most "developing countries", in layman's terms, rich countries and poor countries. Decades later, however, the world is no longer like this, and the vast majority of countries and populations are now in middle-income regions, with both high-income countries and very low-income countries accounting for only a small fraction.
After many years of human struggle, progress will be made and is meaningful. Progress may be slow, but if you put it in a longer time dimension, you can see obvious changes. The world, after all, is getting better. It's worth it in the world.
Looking back at this period of contemporary history, I think the only thing worth vigilance about is to preserve these achievements that all mankind has worked together to achieve, and not to go back one day.
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Images and videos are from the Website of the OpenErminth Foundation