Contemporary Issue(s): TIME Magazine Cover Article

TIME Magazine’s December 3rd cover story, “What Makes Us Moral,” provides insight into what physically and mentally makes us both good and evil. It discusses in eloquent detail how “the savage and the splendid can exist in one creature, one person, often in one instant.” Attempting to explain why this is the case, the article provides several discerning estimations that hint at an answer to my big question. I especially liked the concluding paragraph which states:

“For grossly imperfect creatures like us, morality may be the steepest of all developmental mountains. Our opposable thumbs and big brains gave us the tools to dominate the planet, but wisdom comes more slowly than physical hardware. We surely have a lot of killing and savagery ahead of us before we fully civilize ourselves. The hope—a realistic one, perhaps—is that the struggles still to come are fewer than those left behind.”