That’ll not age well

This week, in an act of unmerciful vengeance, I am going to use the space afforded to me by this column to launch a bitter attack on an elderly neighbour of mine, with lengthy passages dedicated to describing the heavy toll time has taken upon their face…

Do you believe me? I hope not. Because such an act would be cold, callous and downright cruel (not to mention, destined to come back to bite me, hopefully). But I bet for a second there you were pretty excited to read on, eh?

Unfortunately for you, the subject of my writing this week is not the loss of my neighbour’s dermatological elasticity.

Rather than reading thrillingly upsetting descriptions of some innocent fellow’s slack skin and drooping jaws, you will be forced – as much as words on a page can force anybody to do anything – to listen to me as I wonder what aspects of our modern world will struggle to stand the test of time.

The question I have been asking is this: What are we doing today that won’t look so good in the eyes of our grandchildren’s grandchildren?

Let me start by posing a lock of questions for you.

Do you reckon the crowds of Ancient Rome considered themselves barbarians as they cheered for the next gladiator, legs trembling and arse at spear-point, to step forth to face the tigers of the coliseum?

As the Mayans rolled the severed heads of their sacrificed people down the pyramid steps, do you think that any of them felt a pang of guilt in their guts, as their cousin’s cranium went barrelling by?

Or, in any of the innumerable societies where the law permitted that certain people could be kept as property, do you think the slavers ever looked at those they held in chains and wondered what future generations might think of their actions?

Maybe some did, but it is certain that plenty did not.

History tells us that the conscience of man is a very malleable thing indeed.

What one society finds tolerable, acceptable, or even righteous, another will find corrupt, unjust and evil.

From the perspective of the present, the world in which we live today seems pretty much spot on when it comes to the big issues.

After millennia of bad decisions, ones that resulted in bloodshed and barbarism, most of us believe that we have reached a point of moral enlightenment.

We understand slavery to be the unjustifiable theft of a person’s freedom and autonomy.

We see clearly that human sacrifice cannot be used to curry favour with the gods, and in reality is nothing more than the needless, senseless destruction of human life.

And we have rightly realised that, while of course we would all love to pack into Croke Park to watch innocent men being torn apart by the tooth and claw of apex predators, football is also an enjoyable pastime, and a good episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire can be as gripping as it gets.

We think we know good from bad, right from wrong, and generally feel that it is only a few bad actors – people who are exceptions to the rule – who still persist in committing the worst kinds of crimes.

However, if our ancestors, so fundamentally and unquestioningly sure in the beliefs that ruled their time, were ignorant to their wrongdoings, how can we be so sure that we are not ignorant to ours?

So here is the challenge.

Can you think of anything that we are doing today that posterity might look back on with disbelief and disgust. What is our blindspot? What horrors are you participating in, either by your action or complicity, that your great, great grandchildren might be ashamed of you for?

If you were alive during the Roman times, chance are, you would have done as the Romans did.

But where does our coliseum stand?