Is empathy the key to humanity’s evolution?

In history we’ve developed empathy (love, caring about one another, affinity, etc) as we’ve developed intelligence. In ancient history we are the only hominin to survive because (and this is one of the most accepted theories) we were able to form groups and cohabitate. This gave us the chance to build tools and homes together. In turn we were safer and better able to defend against outside attacks. The Renaissance gave us a cultural rebirth that emphasized human potential and achievements over solely religious concerns. This lead to less people being ostracized and more people being accepted into communities. In turn we discovered any early advancements that paved the way for more things to come. The twentieth century showed the most rapid breakthroughs in all areas related to intellectual ideas, but also the most rapid breakthroughs in all areas related to humanity (I am generalizing here. I know there were and still are marginalized groups during these times, but this was also the first time we actually got the momentum to put a stop to those things.)

In history we also moved backwards in our evolution when we lacked empathy. There are other examples, but The Dark Ages is probably the easiest to explain. It was a time marked by warfare and persecution. It's known for its decline in culture, science, and the economy. As humanity worked to hurt/control/belittle other humans, we saw our own decline in intelligence and thus backpedaling our evolution.

Empathy is some sort of evolutionary key to keep us moving forward, but only if we are ‘good’. You can say it's God, the universe, karma, a soul, whatever you want to call it, it's there keeping us on track. As we keep pushing our empathy we can move forward. Somehow we know this on some basic level because logically it would be easier to follow some arbitrary rules without emotions (sort of like animals - Speaking of this, smarter animals are shown to have more empathy!), but we are only rewarded if we show and push that empathy. Half of us think that our strength is a weakness when it's the only thing that has brought us this far. You can see it, every day we are pushed backwards. There are examples everywhere of people getting stupider. Humanity is only rewarded when we show love and connection.

We are heading into our own Dark Ages because we are rejecting empathy.