Is the World Getting Better or Worse?

Humanity is progressing, but not in a straight line. Intellectual and moral development do not always move at the same pace, so progress can coexist with injustice and violence.

It may be resisted or delayed, but it cannot be permanently stopped.

Marie’s Video Answer

watch in widescreen

Marie’s In-Depth Answer

  • Seeing more suffering does not always mean there is more of it

    The world can feel increasingly violent because we now witness suffering almost instantly, even when it happens far from us.

    Injustice that once remained hidden can become impossible to ignore.

    Greater visibility can make an age feel worse while also revealing that our moral expectations have changed.

    Sometimes being more disturbed by injustice is itself a sign of progress.

  • Progress is not a straight line

    Spiritism does not describe humanity as improving continuously from one year or generation to the next.

    Societies can advance in one area and regress in another. Old prejudices can return. New freedoms can be resisted. Violence can reappear in different forms.

    Progress can be delayed, resisted, and contradicted without being permanently erased.

  • Intelligence can advance faster than conscience

    Human beings can become extraordinarily capable without becoming equally wise.

    Technology, science, organization, and knowledge can expand faster than compassion, justice, or responsibility.

    The same intelligence that cures disease can also make exploitation or destruction more efficient.

    Knowing more does not automatically teach us how to use what we know well.

  • Moral progress changes what we are willing to accept

    Progress becomes visible when cruelty that was once considered normal begins to be questioned.

    It appears when rights expand beyond our own group, vulnerable people receive greater protection, and power is increasingly expected to answer for the harm it causes.

    A better world is not one without wrongdoing, but one increasingly unwilling to call wrongdoing normal.

  • Progress still needs us

    Spiritism does not offer either automatic optimism or permanent despair.

    Humanity advances through individual and collective choices: what we tolerate, what we challenge, what we teach, and how we use the freedom inherited from previous generations.

    Progress is real. But it still asks for our participation.

Doctrinal Source | Grounded in The Spirits’ Book by Allan Kardec, especially Questions 779–793, concerning human progress, resistance to change, the unequal development of intelligence and morality, civilization, and the moral signs of social progress.

Related Questions

  • What Does Justice Mean Beyond Laws and Punishment?

    Explore why social progress requires more than rules and punishment—and how justice connects protection, responsibility, repair, and equal dignity.

    Explore the answer

  • If All Souls Are Equal Before God, Why Is Life So Unfair?

    Explore why spiritual equality can coexist with profoundly unequal lives—and why injustice creates responsibility rather than justification.

    Explore the answer

  • What Is Moral Law, According to Spiritism?

    Explore the principles that guide conscience, justice, responsibility, and the way human freedom can become moral progress.

    Explore the answer

  • Individuals and societies can return temporarily to violence, intolerance, prejudice, or forms of domination they seemed to have overcome.

    But Spiritism does not treat every setback as the destruction of all previous progress. Ideas about dignity, rights, justice, and responsibility can remain present even while people resist applying them.

    Progress can therefore be uneven and reversible in particular moments without becoming meaningless.

    Humanity can move backward for a time without returning completely to where it began.

  • Because acquiring knowledge is often easier than transforming character.

    We can learn how nature works, build powerful technologies, organize complex societies, and expand our abilities without overcoming pride, selfishness, prejudice, or the desire to dominate.

    Intelligence increases what we are capable of doing. Moral development affects how we decide to use that capacity.

    Human power can grow quickly. Learning to use that power responsibly usually takes longer.

  • Crises can expose problems that were already present but ignored, tolerated, or hidden. They can force societies to confront consequences that ordinary warnings failed to make visible.

    But this does not mean suffering was deliberately created in order to teach a lesson. Harm remains harm, and those responsible for causing it remain accountable.

    The opportunity for progress lies in what happens afterward.

    A crisis does not become good because we learn from it. But what we learn can help prevent the same harm from becoming normal again.

More About This Question