A Brief History of Morality in the Post-Industrial Age
- Christianity and Islam imposed a new morality on the ancient Graeco-Roman-Persian world. For example, homosexuality, abortion and promiscuity became sins.
- That morality lasted till roughly the industrial revolution.
- The success of the industrial revolution in improving the conditions of the human race caused a progressive deterioration of the Christian-Islamic morality: God did not deliver, machines do, therefore God's morality is irrelevant, and the society of increased mechanization requires a different morality. Discriminating women and homosexuals is economically counterproductive; abortion and promiscuity actually help create a stable and productive society.
- The de-Christianization of the Christian world has accelerated with the pace of industrialization, and a similar process will de-Islamize the Islamic world.
- We are reaching the point, though, where further de-Christianization is not required by the industrial society, it comes simply by inertia. Morality keeps moving in that direction simply because it has been.
- The new morality created a more cohesive society for the technological age, but the new new morality that will be created by inertia might actually begin to destabilize that very society.
- It is not the most technological societies but the most cohesive societies that usually win out. See "Human Societies Are Systems at the Edge of Chaos".
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