"Change is by no means linear. You may find my findings surprising, perhaps even shocking. Egypt actually transitioned from equality to inequality not once, but twice."
Some people will read this essay and conclude that society can regress as well as progress, and that we ought to struggle to hold onto gains. My conclusion is less hopeful: there's not really such a thing as "progress" in human affairs; history no more has an overall direction than fashion does — not ever-greater freedom, not ever-greater equality, not ever-greater justice, not ever-greater circles of empathy.
We must evaluate social changes not as to whether they align with what we now think is the arrow of history, but on their own merits as beneficial or harmful. We should strive to consider affairs sub specie aeternitatis, to the degree we can.
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