The essential task of replacing ourselves

Our most important task as human beings is to successfully replace ourselves. Our lives are a transient moment in history and even the greatest of us will one day be forgotten. Recognising our own transience does not mean that our lives are meaningless, rather that our lives are part of a sequence, a very long sequence of lives. For many of us, this sequence is most immediately from our parents to our children. We hope to replace ourselves with descendants who know more, will lead better lives, and will ultimately be wiser. Replacement is important too for those without children. They can hope to inspire and teach the young, and to work with others to ensure their best values are continued. Our significance, therefore, lies in our impact on the lives of those who come after us. 

Replacement is the ongoing work of civilisation. Each generation as a whole must teach its successors the accumulated knowledge of the world, the skills needed to maintain the social and material standards of life, and the obligations we have to each other. Societies aim to achieve this through its schools and universities, but replacement is also the central task of communities, organisations and families. Successful replacement includes the preservation of human achievements, buildings and landscapes. Yet what we teach differs from what we ourselves learnt as children because we have experienced a generation of learning and adaptation. Our preferred values change over time. A world with more travel and communication is one where there is greater awareness of other ways of life and greater personal experience of different types of people. In such societies, social harmony therefore requires mutual tolerance and acceptance of diversity. But the same awareness may also generate a destructive hostility and suspicion of change. 

Replacement can therefore fail, when people refuse to learn and adapt, when children and parents no longer communicate, when institutions do not teach skills to a new generation, and when the aim of leaders becomes to create a false immortality rather than ensuring the continuity and wellbeing of their people. False immortality results in the construction of monuments to themselves. These monuments rust and crumble because egocentric rulers have little interest in putting aside the resources needed to maintain them, and so their monuments eventually remain only as trunkless legs of stone in the desert.  

This is of course a reference to Shelley’s poem Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Dangerous journeys

Men and women live in separate worlds of danger. Coming home late at night, a man will take the bus or train and then walk to his house. In most cases (in this country anyway), he will be untroubled and not consider himself at risk of assault. By contrast, a young woman travelling late at night will be alert for danger. When taking a late-night taxi journey, she will only book a taxi from a reputable firm, sit behind the driver to avoid eye-contact, check that the route is correct on her mobile phone, speak as little as possible but mention a husband or partner at home (even if she lives alone), and ask to be dropped off near but not at her front door. A YouGov survey in 2022 found that 74% of British women aged 18 to 29 feel unsafe when travelling in a taxi by themselves. Yet other surveys report that women still regard taxis as safer than buses. 

Women’s fears come from personal experience and what they have heard from their friends. A survey by the British Transport Police in 2023 found that one third of women have experienced sexual assault or harassment on public transport. ‘Harassment’ ranges  from touching and groping, to catcalling and improper suggestions. One of the most common types is when a woman sits alone on an empty train or bus and a man chooses to sit next to her. Danger can arise not just when travelling, but also when waiting for a train, bus or taxi. Suburban and country railway stations are unmanned, particularly at night. Even in mainline stations, there may be long dark platforms, large and poorly-lit carparks, and no obvious refuges. Many trains and all buses are driver-only, which means there is no source of help to passengers in case of threat. The walk home in the dark from the bus stop or station can feel unsafe, and many women use their mobile phone to speak to a friend or relative so that they can call for help quickly. 

Responsibility for the personal safety of women on public transport therefore largely falls upon the women themselves. But much more could be done by public authorities to reduce risk. Railway stations should be better lit and better staffed. Transport authorities should employ officers to patrol bus routes which have a high incidence of abuse, while CCTV on buses and shelters can be monitored centrally to spot problems. Taxi services need a central register of approved drivers, and licenses should be reviewed regularly and taken away from drivers with a record of harassment. 

We also need education so that people who work in public transport know how best to manage any harassment they observe, how to respond if they are approached by someone needing support, especially to avoid minimising the situation or blaming the victim. Most important of all, we need to educate men. Most men have little idea of the risks women face in public places and how this shapes their behaviour. Many are influenced by the vast tide of malevolent information on social media, funded by neo-Nazi billionaires, which extol a fake masculinity which denigrates women as subservient beings who exist only to be impregnated and abused. We need to assert a better masculinity, which teaches that the role of men is to provide, to protect and to comfort.