Why always look in the past, we should also sing glories of our own generation

I often see many people glorifying distant past achievements of their ancestors, singing their praise, telling everyone how in the past their culture or civilization was rich, dominant, or superior to the rest of the world. Nothing wrong with feeling proud of our ancestors and taking inspiration from their achievements but this does not mean not giving any credit to recent achievements and breakthroughs. I hear in India all the time people singing glories from the past but are not willing to appreciate the present situation. I feel proud of many achievements of my ancestors in India, no doubt it was remarkable that they achieved so much with such limited resources and techniques, but at the same time, I am equally proud of the achievements of the present generation. Spectacular achievements in the field of science and technology, a revolution in the area of communication and medical care, progress in the area of gender equality, abolishment of slavery, all are recent phenomena. Most of these things happened within the last 100 years or so and I am really proud of all these achievements. They are equally important and great in every respect compared to any past achievements.

Actually, our generation has achieved tremendous progress in many areas. Revolution in the area of communication technology is just phenomenal, the world was never better connected than now. The amazing phenomenon called the internet has completely changed our lives is a recent invention Many path-breaking discoveries in the area of drug discovery have increased average life expectancy across the world. Recent progress in the area of gender equality is also impressive. Our ancestors didn't think about many of these problems for so many different reasons but we not only diagnosed these problems but are working hard towards resolving them. Let me also say that I am not trying here to claim that recent generations have solved all existing problems. No, that's not the case. Still, many problems need solutions, and work is still in progress. I am also not trying here to compare our ancestors with us, it would be very unfair to do this but whenever someone says that our ancestors were much better than us or they were much more developed, or superior I feel surprised by their attitude and ignorance. I fail to understand the logic or rationale behind this statement. I wonder on what basis people say this? If people say this because of the perceived moral degradation of society then also it doesn't make any sense. The current world is much better as far as morality is concerned compared to any ers of the past. In the past, there used to be wars, people used to discriminate, slavery was very common, people used to kill each other just because they belonged to different tribes or faiths, polygamy, and polyandry were common in many societies, there used to be barbaric punishment for crimes like stealing or lying or adultery, and the situation of women was not better than what it is today. So, I don't know on what basis people claim that our society was much better in the past compared to today. Rather, as a society we are much better today. At least there is democracy in most of the countries, democracies didn't exist in most parts of the wold just a few centuries ago.

The point I am trying to make is that there is no point in comparing two different eras against each other. Both have their own success stories and failures, and we can draw inspiration from them whenever we want. The discovery of gravity is as important as the discovery of zero and traditional medicine was as important for our ancestors as modern medicine is to us. There is no point in comparison, it's useless and a waste of time. We also don't have to always look back at our ancestors to draw inspiration we have enough examples from our own generation which can inspire us to do good work and achieve new heights in every field.  

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Were Our Ancient Ancestors Scientifically Advanced?
2. Signs in the Sky: The Irrationality of Astrology
3. Fraudulent Use of Obsolete Vaastushastra