I grew up during the immidiate aftermath in the country responsible for, arguably, humanity’s darkest chapter. When asked about their part, my parents would answer that, while having had grave misgivings, they went along ‘because everybody else did.’ I resolved to never have to give the same answer about my part in history.
How to be on the right side of history?
That particular question has exercised my mind ever since. There is, I have come to believe, no definitive answer, so I have settled on the next best thing:
The Empirical Sciences, gifted to humanity during the period of Enlightenment, when eminent thinkers where finally freed from religious dogma and wilful authority. The results of empirical scientific enquiry are not guaranteed to stand the test of time or necessarily save our species, but it is the only human endeavour that contains within-it a self-correcting mechanism, peer-review. Like all ideas espoused by humans, their veracity must be subjected to perpetual scrutiny and vigilance, lest we become once more victims of the vagaries of the human condition.