In his work Ancient Society (1877), Lewis H. Morgan asserted that Evolution was linear and progressive. Though this theory has been long since disproved and antiquated, modern Western society still harbors some fondness for this concept when it comes to the individual. We demonstrate in our collective rituals (funerals, wakes, baby showers, etc.) that we consider people closer to the end of the line more sophisticated and advanced on a fundamental level. This is not, however, a complete, or even true, representation of a human’s condition at different stages of life. We do not become more perfect with age, or closer to the highest, most perfect tier of existence. We simply become changed. We may become older and wiser, but we do not become inherently better with aging.
According to Morgan, the least developed societies were at one developmental end in a state of Savagery and the most civilized (Victorian England, according to Morgan) were on the other end. Societies evolved along this trajectory from Savagery to Barbarism to Civilization, becoming more sophisticated and functional as spiritual and humane beings along the way, as well as becoming more advanced as a group.
We have, at least academically, come to accept that societies once considered “primitive,” like, say, Australian Aborigines, are, from a culturally relative standpoint, just as advanced as “developed” countries like the US. Though technology may not exist on the same level, societies are measured in their progress by their adaptations to their own environment and cultural context, not our own. We seem to have failed, however, to judge ourselves, within our own Western society, the same way.
The most obvious example is in our ritual reactions to death. The death of a baby or young child though tragic, is marked very differently than that of an older or elderly person. A baby’s death is a loss of potential, treated as sad because of the child’s un-lived life. We do not remark on their individuality, however small. We talk about the family, commemorate their unfulfilled hopes for the deceased. We regret that they traveled such a short length of the line between birth and death. The death of an older member of society, however, is marked by the commemoration of their accomplishments, and the things that made them who they were. At the funeral of an adult, we talk about the positive things about them – their career, their children, things they taught us. We talk about them as though they spent their whole lives moving closer to completeness, perfection. We celebrate their life as well as mourning their death, because, assuming they lived to what we consider “old age,” they made the trip. They arrived at the highest tier of being human and plateaued.
The fault in the linear theory is the same on both the societal and individual level: whoever exists on far or “high” end must not either regress or progress, in order to keep the line static. It doesn’t take into account that culture is always changing. Victorian England, for instance, eventually collapsed and moved into another phase of cultural developement, not necessarily ahead of where it was before. So with death of the individual, we cannot progress forever without collapsing. If evolution is linear, it must eventually end, as must life. Due to its finite nature, this directional theory of existence excludes the possibility of life after death, re-incarnation, or the possible equality of perfectness or progress of all humans, regardless of their place in the life cycle.
By placing greater importance on one end of the birth to death trajectory, we imply that humans get better, or more human, with age. This may seem to be true in some cases, when a person has spent their whole life indeed making a conscious effort to improve, but take, for instance, someone who has no concern for the well-being of others or the condition of their soul, the substance of their humanity. According to this theory, someone who spent the majority of their adult life committing heinous crimes, however sweet or functional they may have been as a child, is more or better at the time of their death. The lack of alternatives in the birth-to-death line implies that we can ONLY get better with age, that it is not possible to lose one’s humanity over the course of a lifetime. In the context of history and current events that is, unfortunately, simply not true.
Though children may not have had as many years in which to develop an identity or make positive contributions to society, it is important to gauge their progress as a ratio to the time they have had. A person’s worth or level of development does not depend on how close they are to one end of the line or the other, but, rather, what they have done with the time they have. Life is many things, but linear is not one of them. Death is not the end of the line, but simply one in a long string of events that may or may not end after our heart’s stop beating. Love and mirth and grief and inspiration cannot be traced on a grid. This world is one of seemingly infinite possibilities, but they are not all points on the same line between one event and another. Be it sphere, abstraction or blob floating on a plane of infinite happenstance, life exists neither here nor there. It has no end points, no corners, no direction. Life is dynamic and, quite possibly, simply one event in a series itself. We are no closer to perfection now than we were the day we were born.
Goodnight, Irene 