What the Future Will Think of Us

They'll judge our manners and diet

Jan 12, 2023

It’s important to be on the right side of history.

We look down on atrocities of past ages with sadness and disgust. Our judgments are often correct. Many of our ancestors' attitudes toward violence and prejudice were asinine. A guiding principle for us should be to avoid making the same mistakes.

This brings to mind the question, what behaviors today will future generations judge us for?

There are many candidates: racism, sexism, various other isms, economic inequality, the destruction of the environment, exploitation of the poor, and treatment of prisoners.

It must be said that this feels like this is a leftwing exercise.

In America, being on the right side of history has been coded as progressive – despite attempts from the right to argue otherwise. What immediately comes to mind are changes in policy related to race and sex – thought of as progressive – and the thought that history will proceed in the same fashion. The American sense of history doesn’t go back very far. Concern for minorities, the environment, and equity of various kinds aren’t necessarily leftwing, but that’s what they are seen as today.

In response to this, one may wonder whether the entire exercise is intellectually useless. At best, the identity of the right side is simply determined by consensus. Why should we care what people in 2100 AD will think any more than care about what people in 100 AD thought?

Certainly, our ancestors would look down on us. We’re less religious, don’t properly punish criminals, mistreat the elderly, are too libertine, and disrespect our ancestors. What import does that have today? The fact that our ancestors had different moral beliefs does not show that ours are wrong. However, it is evidence that it is. Others’ opinions count for something, even if they don’t count for much. When we receive testimony that something happened, that’s evidence that it did happen. Sometimes it’s sufficient. Often, especially when one receives conflicting evidence, it’s not.

So, we have the beginning of an argument, but not one that is completed.

To finish the argument, one needs to determine patterns of progress (or decline) that are well grounded in ethical and empirical reality. That requires a comprehensive case, not merely an appeal to past, present, or future beliefs.

When one does this, the results of the exercise are not necessarily progressive.

To show that I’ll argue that our descendants will deplore our treatment of animals. But they’ll also disapprove of our low standards of etiquette.

How We Treat Animals

Many have argued that our treatment of animals is a travesty. Consider Ezra Klein in the New York Times:

How we treat farm animals today will be seen, I believe, as a defining moral failing of our age. Humans have always eaten animals. We’ve hunted them, bred them, raised them and consumed them. What’s changed over the past century is that we’ve developed the technology to produce meat in industrialized conditions, and that has opened vast new vistas for both production and suffering.

This is a useful and tragic case for considering how to think about moral progress and decline.

Start with an ethical trend: the expanding circle.

Many mistakes in the past consisted of restricting who was under moral and political protection. Past prejudices based on sex, race, culture, and nation come to mind as clear cases of ethical failure. A common mistake in each of these arenas was the idea that our concern should be restricted to people who are like us in some respect. This is arbitrary. Hence, the call to expand our moral circle. Here’s the philosopher Peter Singer on the theme:

The circle of altruism has broadened from the family and tribe to the nation and race, and we are beginning to recognize that our obligations extend to all human beings. The process should not stop there.

This idea suggests that future generations would look down on us for not following this through with this logic. Perhaps our world has only expanded the circle in name only. Or perhaps we haven’t expanded the circle far enough.

Both of these phenomena occur when we consider animals. Most people say they care about animals and report that they do not support factory farming. But consider how we act:

In live shackling, which remains the dominant method, workers turn chickens upside down to shackle them by their legs to a conveyor. These are birds that have barely ever moved being handled by low-paid workers with inhuman production quotas. The birds flap and squawk in terror, and the shackling can leave them with broken legs or dislocated hips.
The conveyor is supposed to drag them through electrified water, stunning them before their throats are slit. But the panicked, spasming birds sometimes miss the bath, and their throats are cut while they are conscious and terrified. If the kill isn’t clean, they are pulled through boiling water that defeathers them while still conscious.

The ethical case is simple. It’s bad to cause suffering to animals without just cause. We do not have any just cause here. Perhaps it’s fine to kill animals for nutrition and pleasure. But we can do it a better way.

Future generations will likely agree and see our treatment of farm animals as a moral travesty – but this requires an empirical argument.

Here’s a simple theory of moral change: we will do the right thing if it’s socially and materially easy. People do care about animals. By and large, we do not want to cause agony to others. Yet we also do not like to inconvenience ourselves or do anything weird. It’s not that difficult to avoid animal products, but it needs to be effortless. Animal activism and veganism are too weird, so most people aren’t either. Moral change requires significant material and social shifts.

If concern for animal welfare becomes cheaper and cooler then future generations will wonder why we tortured animals for the sake of feeling good. To some extent, we already see this with animals. Many cultures have shifted away from cruel forms of entertainment like bullfighting and dogfighting. Many of us are likely to vote for animal welfare measures since voting is popular and cost less.

So, the empirical claim is that people will do the right thing if it’s easy and conformist. Arguably, it will become easier to provide nutrition without factory farming in the future. We know people naturally care about animals and don’t want things to needlessly suffer, hence future generations will believe factory farming is seriously immoral.

Note: knowing this should change your behavior today. The future will not happen on its own.

How We Treat Others

There’s a non-progressive way that we look down on past people. It’s obvious, but few discuss it.

The past just wasn’t that clean. Much of this was a result of poor form and manners.

In The Civilizing Process, the German sociologist Norbert Elias argued that medieval manners were childish. Manuals for adults included such instructions as:

Don’t foul the staircases, corridors, closets, or wall hangings with urine or other filth.

Don’t relieve yourself in front of ladies, or before doors or windows of court chambers.
Don’t blow your nose onto the tablecloth, or into your fingers, sleeve, or hat.
Don’t offer your used handkerchief to someone else.
Don’t be the first to take from the dish.
Don’t dip your fingers into the sauce in the serving dish.
Don’t wipe your utensils on the tablecloth.
Don’t put back on your plate what has been in your mouth.
Don’t lick your greasy fingers, wipe them on the bread, or wipe them on your coat.
Don’t pick your nose while eating.
Don’t clean a dirty plate with your fingers.
Don’t stir sauce with your fingers.

Humans had to learn manners eventually. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker reports and reflects on Norbert Elias’s findings:

In the mind of a modern reader, these advisories set off a train of reactions. How inconsiderate, how boorish, how animalistic, how immature those people must have been! These are the kinds of directives you’d expect a parent to give to a three-year-old, not a great philosopher to a literate readership.

Steven Pinker and Elias use the rise of etiquette to explain the modern decline in violence. That hypothesis may or may not be correct, let’s set it aside.

What is true is that we look down on adults who need to be told any of the above. Such behaviors are inconsiderate and mean. Some forms of etiquette merely serve a signaling function. They’re random (do not wear green, arrange silverware like this) and only used to demarcate people from one another. Think of the connection between class and etiquette schools. However, in many cases, good form is ethical and considerate. What is proper is culturally relative to some extent, but most cultures promote cleanliness and respect for other people. Sure, some cultures ate the brains of their dead out of respect, but that practice died out for the reason you’d expect.

Poor manners aren’t the worst thing in the world, but when it’s not corrected and violations are conspicuous, one can end up in a revolting world. We don’t think highly of the person who wipes their nose with the tablecloth.

People in the future may look at us in the same way.

In public and private places, we are too quick to pollute and make everything worse for everyone else. Many common shared areas are simply trashed. For example, I was in the NYC airport recently and the male bathrooms were a mess. There were hand towels all over the floor, in the sinks, and discolored puddles everywhere. This is not that rare.

In the American state, a disgusting public restroom isn’t even that bad. I live in San Francisco. Human excrement and needles are a common sight downtown. Public transit isn’t usually nauseating, but the city changes one’s standards. Some people, have had experiences bad enough to justify not riding BART or, in one case I know of, moving.

All these things are obnoxious, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people in the future seriously couldn’t stand it. Many annoyances make for a seriously worse world.

Some may object that judgments about such things ignore the plight of the unfortunate. Much of San Francisco’s unpalatable traits are the result of homeless persons – and people have told me that expecting them to be clean is misplaced. What’s odd about this objection is simply that many homeless people are tidy. Assuming that the unhoused are necessarily messy and ill-mannered is a mistake. The question of homelessness is clearly relevant, but the issue here is much larger.

In Singapore, chewing gum is essentially banned. It’s illegal to sell and import for recreational purposes. In the late 80s, vandals gummed up subway doors, ruined many people's schedules, and even took some trains out of commission. So, perhaps the ban isn’t so unjust. My prediction – perhaps even hope – is that the world moves more in that direction.

Although less visible, dirtiness, rudeness, and a general lack of manners gum up our social interactions.

How is this connected to etiquette?

Good etiquette is often just rules for playing nicely with others. Don’t talk too loudly or play loud music so that others can hear each other. Don’t be revolting at the table. When you’re eating at the table and need to urinate, don’t stand up and pee out the nearest window. When you’re doing heroin, don’t leave your needles out where people can step on them.

That’s the ethical case. Good manners are simply good behavior.

The empirical case begins with the thought that our world has become slightly better mannered. My claim is that this trend will continue.

In wealthier parts of the country, things are generally cleaner and quieter. There’s a higher demand for good etiquette. This is not a random coincidence. Note by wealthy here, I mean the top ~20% of America. I am not talking about the 1%, but a much broader class.

Such people have fewer chances to pollute common areas, enforce their preferences, and often pay a premium for it. But why do they value propriety at all?

In general wealthier people play more nicely with others, at least when it comes to most of these issues. If one thinks of examples of rude behaviors listed above, the rich are better at following them. A possible exception to this is good manners between social groups. It’s plausible to me that the rich are worse, or at least, not any better at treating service people respectfully. That case aside, wealthier types generally have better or the same etiquette. This claim shouldn’t be exaggerated – the difference is not that large. Nonetheless, I claim that the wealthy have slightly better manners and that consideration is enough for the argument to succeed.

One reason is that wealth correlates with intelligence. Intelligence is associated with being more trusting and cooperative. In games that demand cooperation, smarter people perform better. Of course, intelligence, cooperation, and wealth all reinforce each other. To have good manners is to coordinate well.

Another reason may be that wealth filters out the most ill-mannered. The worst offenders here are young males. It’s noteworthy that the changes in manners that Norbert Elias reports pertain to men:

Don’t relieve yourself in front of ladies, or before doors or windows of court chamber.

Women have, of course, been subject to demands for propriety throughout history. Such demands are probably driven more by signaling, than the need to be civilized. When one thinks of an uncivilized person, the sex that most easily comes to mind is male. That stereotype is justified. Norbert Elias talks about the etiquette demanded of Knights for a reason. The kinds of traits that lead to poor etiquette do not predict success in today’s world. Of course, there are salient examples of men who do not have any sense of form but are wealthy nonetheless, but that’s expected.

Optimistically, as the world increases in wealth and intelligence, we’ll get a better-mannered one too. We look down on the behaviors that Steven Pinker mentions because we’ve become wealthier and are, on average, smarter. Feminization may play a role too.

So, I wouldn’t be surprised if many people in the future looked at the cleanliness of our cities as a moral stain. This is a broadly conservative position – but perhaps it would be better to say that it is aristocratic.

Both of these cases are empirically speculative. I do not have high confidence in anyone’s abilities to predict future attitudes. I am more convinced of the ethical arguments.

I was once told that the state of one’s room mirrors the state of one’s mind. Similarly, The state of our cities says something about our society.

What do you think of the arguments above?

What else will the future judge us for? Are such views coded as progressive or conservative? Neither?