A Christmas Message 5,000 Years in the Making...

In 1991 two German tourists stumbled across a body buried in the ice of the Alps between Italy & Austria. Initially thought to be the body of an early 20^th century climber, it turned out to be the body of a man who had died 5,000 years ago. Given the name Ötzi, he died of an arrow wound and it was theorized he was a shepherd.    

The most fascinating thing about Ötzi wasn’t where he died or how he died, or even when he died, but rather, the condition of his health. If we listen to people today, we’d imagine that Ötzi would have been an ironman, having never tasted Spam or M&M’s or Hamburger Helper and having eaten only natural, by definition, organic, food. As such, he should have been in perfect shape. 

But, sadly, he wasn’t. He suffered from a parasite, had been sick three times in the six months before he died, his teeth were full of cavities, he was lactose intolerant and his lungs were blackened by smoke. Estimated to be aged 45 when he died, Ötzi was not the posterchild for health one might expect listening to those who decry pesticides or canned food or GMOs.

The thing is, Ötzi may may indeed be a posterchild, but for something completely different.  The reality is Ötzi was old when he died.  For almost all of recorded history the average lifespan of humans has been below 30 years. A number of factors went into that, including high infant mortality rates – sometimes reaching 35%, war, famine, disease, dangerous working conditions, etc.

The bottom line is that for most of history, life for humans has been characterized by scarcity, war, slavery, poor health and short lives. Across the spectrum, from when men were hunting and gathering to when they developed agriculture, from when they were nomads to when they developed great empires, life expectancy stood between 30 & 40 years for the most privileged and usually less than that for the average person.

Why is any of that important?  Because as Christmas season is upon us, it might be a good time to step back and look at what we actually have.  Far too many Americans take civilization for granted, assuming that the way things are is the way they have to be.  They think the things they call “rights” such as healthcare, housing, food, etc. are somehow elements of nature that developed independent of the hard work of innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs and blue-collar workers of every stripe.  They are not.  Everything we have was developed by someone, somewhere.

The reality is, beginning about 200 years ago advances of almost every kind began an upward trajectory that more than doubled the life expectancy in the west and significantly improved it virtually everywhere else. To understand the degree of impact that upward trajectory look at the people living in abject poverty.  In 1820 the percentage of people around the world living in abject poverty – defined in this case by less than $1 a day (or the then equivalent) was above 85%.  Today, a mere 200 years later in man’s 200,000 year plus journey, that number has dropped to below 10%. 

But it’s not just the level of poverty that has changed.  On practically every single other metric, from the basic to the frivolous, the world has improved.

Transportation: In 1820 it took 4-6 months to cross the continent in a Conestoga wagon. Today you could drive (respecting the speed limits) from New York to LA in as few as four days, but if you wanted to fly you could be there in 3 hours. 

Communication: Prior to the invention of the telegraph in 1844 the fastest way to communicate was with smoke signals and the horses and riders of the Pony Express. Today anyone with a smartphone can talk to someone on the other side of the world in real time. 

Information: For most of our history almost all humans were illiterate, and most never even had a written language. People learned news and stories through listening to others or looking at stained glass windows or reading books or newspapers.  Today we have endless news, movies, sports and every conceivable form of media available from around the world at our fingertips 24 hours a day.

Housing:  In 1790 the average size of a house in the United States was 831 square feet with almost 6 people living in it.  Today the average size of a house in the United States is 2,496 square feet with an average household of 2.5 people.  That means that today the average American has 998 square feet of living space at home, seven times the 138 they had when the country was founded. 

And the conveniences in that house are exponentially greater.  From indoor plumbing to refrigerators to non-wood burning stoves to lights to televisions to wi-fi, air conditioning and much more.  Nor is it just the new inventions:  Those homes are also filled with things like furniture and pots and pans and beds of a quality and quantity that most people in history if they owned at all, were of the barest nature unless a member of the elite.

Clothing:  Through most of history people would typically have 2 or 3 sets of clothes which would include 2 for work and 1 for Sunday – at least in the Christian tradition. And those clothes would often be used until they fell apart and were rarely washed.  Today open the closet and or dresser in almost any American bedroom and you’ll find suitcases of cloths, many that go without wearing for months or years.  The same holds true for shoes, and like the clothes, the selection of the shoes worn by Americans today is lightyears ahead in quality and style choice of those worn by people of most history.

Work: Prior to the middle of the 19^th century, 90% + of the world’s population worked in farming or food harvesting of one sort of another. Today, in the US that number is below 5%, which essentially means that almost every job that any American has today didn’t exist for most of human history, and the resulting workplaces are dramatically safer as well. 

Democratic government:  Today, depending on how you count them, between 25% and 45% of the world’s population live in nations with some form of democratic government. That compares to essentially 0% when the United States was founded. 

There is of course, much more, from the selection of and accessibility to food, the quality of healthcare, the existence of leisure time and the variety of activities with which to fill it.

Of course things aren’t perfect and people still want to fix them.  Sometimes life’s unfair, people can be jerks and our government takes our money to give to grifters and the healthcare system is a clusterfark.  All of those things and many more are true.  But at the end of the day, for as much as things suck, in the big picture most of us have lives kings would have salivated over throughout history. Most certainly would think I think the pre-arrow Ötzi would have traded places with any of us.  I think that gets lost on too many people, particularly on the left.

The point of all of this is not to suggest that we hold hands and sing Kumbaya over the dinner table this Christmas season. Not at all. But sometimes, particularly around family in the tight environs of the holiday, it makes sense to step back and focus on what we have in common and what we’re grateful for rather than what divides us. There’s more than enough time for the latter once the new year rolls around. 

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