With the election on Tuesday, take solace in knowing that you already live in the most peaceful, prosperous, and tolerant society in world history.
The Old Religion
In 1572, Paris was divided. Fifty-five years after Martin Luther’s break with the Catholic Church, French Protestants (known as Huguenots) turned irate when their Protestant prince, Henri de Navarre, married a Catholic princess.
As they often do, power seekers stirred their flocks into outrage, and Paris soon became a powder keg of emotions. Then French Catholics lit the match.
Spotting a Protestant leader walking towards his house, someone shot and wounded him with an arquebus. Predictably, the Huguenots vowed revenge. Soon the French King, a Catholic named Charles IX, entered the fray. Though things get murky at this point, Charles likely anticipated a Protestant revolt and decided to strike first, ordering his royal guard to find the injured Protestant leader and kill him in cold blood. It all went down on August 24th, a Catholic holiday known as St. Bartholomew’s Day.
The commotion from such a brazen assassination, writes historian Sarah Bakewell, “caused further panic among Parisian Catholics as well as Protestants.” With passions burning, Catholic gangs soon poured onto the narrow Paris streets like predators looking for prey.
Storming into Protestant homes, the Catholics dragged residents onto the street and began slitting their throats. In one instance, a Protestant woman tried to escape the mob by leaping from her upstairs window. Upon impact, she broke both her legs. Seizing her, the mob cut off her hands and fed them to a dog. Then they impaled her body on a spit and tossed her ragged corpse into the river. All for being a Protestant.
The rampage continued for another week before the king regained control of his capital. By then, ten thousand Protestants lay dead in the streets or floating down the Seine. This murder spree became known as “The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.”
As the pope in Rome celebrated the massacre as a victory over heresy and evil, the Protestants were not about to turn the other cheek. Soon Protestant gangs were scorching Catholic towns and ravaging the countryside. And for the next twenty years, France became a bloodbath of religious division and hatred.
Historically speaking, atrocities like this massacre in Paris were not all that unusual. Fifty years before it, Cortez conquered the Aztecs and Incas -- and millions died. Fifty years later, German Catholics and Protestants fought for thirty years -- and millions died. And there are many more examples indicating that war, plague, famine, and tyranny are the historical norm rather than the exception.
So let's fast forward to today. Aren’t you glad you don’t live in sixteenth-century France? I know I am. I’m also glad people in my neighborhood don’t give a shit about my religion. But you know what, some of them seem to care deeply about my politics.
The New Religion
You’ve probably been there. You’re having a civil conversation with someone at a party who’s far left or far right, and then suddenly as if out of nowhere, they go nuclear when your opinion differs from theirs. Why?
I think the answer is simple and entirely human. Within our lonely and digital age, politics has become the new religion, and political parties (or ideologies) have become the new religious denominations.
A conservative friend of mine recently moved from Los Angeles to Tennessee. I asked him how it was going with the locals considering he's from LA and all. He said, “Oh they’re great, but only after they knew my politics agreed with theirs.”
Like most religions, political tribes have their high priests, doomsday predictions, heretics, orthodoxies, and reasons for excommunicating those who disagree -- i.e. through shaming, canceling, or even eliminating.
And like medieval Christendom, political affiliation increasingly brushes up against all aspects of someone’s life – who their friends are, the music they like, the books and newspapers they read, the sports they watch, and even the jokes they laugh at.
But ideological divisions within one’s society are nothing new, right? In religion, we’ve had Pagan vs. Christian, Christian vs. Muslim, Protestant vs. Catholic, and Muslim vs. Jew. Politically, we’ve had Optimate vs. Populare, Roundhead vs. Cavalier, Jacobin vs. Royalist, and Bolshevik vs. Menshevik. And historically, every one of these cases ended in mass bloodshed.
Thus, if bloody division is the natural course of history, why are things so much less bloody for our divided society today? Where are the gallows, guillotines, and firing squads?
All I can say is that it’s because we’re lucky enough to be born into the most tolerant, prosperous, and peaceful time and place (i.e. “the West”) in human history. Now it may not feel that way with the obvious political division of our society, but it's true. Why do I believe it’s true? Simple: Because I read history, and history gives me what I need most to have an opinion on this matter: perspective. Despite all my romanticization about the past, I’m still damn happy to be living here and now.
Our Golden Age
Bestselling author Steven Pinker seems to agree, arguing that humanity is less violent and more compassionate than ever. In a recent article reflecting on the last fifty years of American history, he offers the hard data to prove his thesis that we are indeed living in a golden age. In conclusion, he says, “one can get the impression that the state of the world keeps getting worse when, in fact, it keeps getting better.”
So why don’t we feel like things are getting better? I think it’s because the “we’re doing better than ever” narrative runs counter to our own primal instincts. After all, our ancestors survived by always assuming that the wolf or rival tribe was just around the corner, ready to strike. And because we still carry our ancestors’ defensive instincts, we tend to assume the worst about our present circumstances, making us vulnerable to those pushing a grimmer view.
When political leaders and the media scream “Things are horrible!” or “This could be the last election,” we’re wired to believe them. Yet, being angry, paranoid, and outraged doesn’t sound like a fun way to live.
Now, could everything in America go to hell? Yeah sure, anything could happen. But in the meantime, I’ll continue to believe that on average, 2024 America is a walk in the park compared to 1572 France -- or most other times in history when suffering was the norm.
So I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna just take a moment today to feel damn good about hitting the historical lottery. Life in our time and place can be as good as we want it to be.
So whatever happens with the election on Tuesday, I’m not expecting another St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. No matter who’s elected, in the days and weeks that follow, I’ll do what I’ve always done. I’ll lift my weights, read my books, call my friends, sip my wine, kiss my wife, and sleep warmly in my bed -- and I hope you will too.
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