What does progress mean?
For centuries, people have been using discussions about freedom and progress as excuses for offloading their opinions about different countries and the wonders or horrors of their political systems: freedom and progress in India, in Iran, in the Soviet Union, or Britain, or France -- but more than anything else, freedom and progress in the USA.
As it happens I'm in America as I write this, enjoying the liberal hospitality of the kind of eclectic, open-minded, properly-funded that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else in the world. So liberal that they sent a driver to meet me off the plane at New York and drive me 200 miles to this little heaven in Western Massachussets.
A nice, talkative man, my driver. A real rural American, Martin by name, from the ‘boondocks’ (his word) of New Hampshire, full of great tales about being hugged by a great Black Bear bigger than him, and close encounters with a moose. He likes listening to New York talk radio, so we listen to that before we get out of range. He likes they way they treat all politicians as buffoons. He guffaws at some professional New York jew whose line is: -- these politicians keep saying, America's the greatest country in the world, but they've never lived anywhere else, so what do they know.
Martin loves talk radio; and tells me with pride how a few stations in New York State organised a drivers' strike -- not that they stopped driving for a day, but they stopped buying gas in-state -- so they won a reversal of a proposed tax increase. He also tells be how he likes listening to the 大象传媒 world service at night.(it's transmitted in lots of parts of the US by . But he's pretty appalled when I tell him that the 大象传媒 is supported by a government-administered compulsory licence fee (NPR is supported by voluntary contributions and sponsorships).
I can see he's getting a bit nervous, wondering whether to broach an embarrassing subject, and then he says, in a tactful kind of voice – "well of course back in England you’re not allowed freedom of speech, really: I mean the 大象传媒 and all that, and it’s against the law to criticize the British government right?"
This bring out unexpected reserves of spluttering patriotism in me, and I try to stick up for my country. But I think I know where he's coming from. It's not just his impression of the 大象传媒; it's his sense of American history. After all when the American colonies revolted against British rule 230 years ago, freedom was indeed the issue: though it was not so much political freedom, still less market freedom, but religious freedom: the basic issue was the demand for equal civil rights regardless of your (Christian) denomination, unlike in England which had (and still has) its established church, and where public office and University education were off-limits for 'dissenters' and 'non-conformists'.
It made me think: it made me think that when we talk about freedom and progress today, we need to remember that we are dealing with issues that for our ancestors, and for many people today, are all about religion. And where does that leave those of us who are not so sure what to believe?
The thing that struck me about England during my 20 years there is that not that many people attend church regularly but a good proportion still consider themselves, perhaps vaguely, Church of England. The humanists and secularists of the 19th and 20th centuries--Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, and several others --have proved influential.
As a matter of historical record, it is worth pointing out that in the anti-Communist 1950s some dissenting Americans exiled themselves to England. The woman C.S. Lewis married was one of them.
Your taxi-driver shows that it is much easier to get into random conversations on this side of the water. When an eccentric Englishman who lived in New York for years said to a visitor that he liked the fact that everyone talked to him, his English friend remarked, "How dreadful".
Progress can be described from many viewpoints, anthropological, epistemological or philosophical. Some prefer to stay away from rigid frameworks when ruminating over complex subjects, allowing the issues to coalesce into clarity.
Progress implies direction, but what is the direction of humanity? To exist as mind? To exist in harmony with our accessible world? To understand ourselves and the universe around us? To overcome the limits, and tune the benefits of emotion? To survive? The question remains poorly defined and guidance comes in guises.
History provides evidence that what progress has been made came slowly and at enormous cost. Construction comes harder to Humans than destruction, and often progress is lost. Sustaining a system of beliefs from generation to generation strains the very civilisations that evolved them, and this alone represents a severe limitation.
Evolution, for some, is the process of creation from destruction and chaos is her mother. An ever changing surface ensuring that any structure remains temporary. In such a world progress is forced into the abstract, leaving only the flavours of values and the notions of ideology. Theocracy, Democracy, Autocracy, War, Famine, Wealth and Poverty are some of the temporary constructs available. Love, Hate, Fear, Disgust, Elation, Depression and Pain are the realities of the human state and although individual emotions are temporary the capacity to produce emotional states appears permanent and therefore must also evolve.
None of this answers the question at hand: What is progress? Perhaps there is no single answer, and it is certainly a subjective issue as our existence is based wholly in the experience of reality. Some obvious examples of progress would be; Peace, Harmony and Freedom and in part these are available for some. Perhaps the greatest driving force for progress will stem from inner enlightenment? Yet, even the truly free mind seems limited by environment and experience, its voice, influencing bounded spheres struggles to be heard and reasoned.
To live in hope is progress.
Ask epicurus and thoreau :)
I'd agree with much of what Richard O'Shea wrote, including that the notion of progress involves some sort of direction. I am assuming the question relates to the more significant "spiritual" issue rather than other questions e.g. of science and technology. The latter can "progress" in terms of our understanding of the world about us (science) and the stuff we make use of (faster, better, cheaper technology etc.), although of course there are costs that go with any benefits of new "product".
I'd put forward one limited aspect of progress in "human nature" (for want of a better phrase). This would be the greater,genuine, realisation that we are only 1 of several billion people on this particular planet and that our actions all have consequences far beyond what is immediately apparent. In this connection I'd also temper the view that greater "freedom" is a mark of progress. Generally, yes - especially in terms of negative freedom - not suffering, hunger, disease, oppression etc - obvious things like that. Freedom to have, and do, more "stuff" however is more problematic, I'd suggest.
jon
When humans discuss progress it is all to often with reference to their external environment. When the subject of spirituality -which automatically presumes the existence of a spirit- is cited, it is usually with vague notions, or worse the meta physical, which cannot be substantiated into physical reality.
How much effort does the Human race put into understanding their internal environment? It must be considered that in order to shape the external environment (generally to the meet desires of the internal) this internal pressure must be fully understood. If the internal pressures of an individual are mis-interpreted then the resulting change in the external environment will not be a reflection of the internal desires, thus promoting more desire ad infinitum.
The emotional aspects of the Human species have long been neglected and efforts to understand the emotional states of individuality are usually framed within the context of psychology where results are placed into dusty books to be forgotten. Religion often claims ownership over the spirit and frequently discussions about the inner self degrade into religiocity and ingorance.
As to the Human race and its blind stumblings only one truth must be concidered. The Human race is no more important than a randomly chosen blade of grass in a randomly chosen field on a randomly chosen planet of a random galaxy. Life itself does not care if it is realised by a tree or by a walking talking ape. When the Human species gets over its ego it may be able to progress.
Progress suggests a migration of individual human and spiritual realisations into the social realm. Both have perhaps distinctly different realms, natures and purposes.
That is not to say that there isn't a relationship but that it is not a clearly defined one. It seems as if by magic that the mechanisms of progress avoids our instinctual needs for control which uncomfortably accompanies our drives to understand.
The ideas of progress seems to sum up the unfortunate image of a society that attempts to overturn mortality by the building of bigger and grander buildings and structures.
Progress? Well, I know some of the things I DON'T want. I suppose many will see progress in whatever promises to dispose of their negatives: not poor, not sick -- not having a life disturbed by crime or prejudice.
As you've said, going for seemingly magical, catch-all, answers is bringing our hopes into the dust, repeatedly. Does this indicate a flaw in our way of looking at the problem?
We can reasonably, profitably, use the word "progress" to describe how we're getting on with a job. "Yes dear, I mowed the lawn. Then I painted that door. We're progressing."
It's when we try to extend these familiar notions too far that trouble erupts: "There'd be progress for us, boys, if all the bad people were properly called bad and locked up." That kind of thing. One man's utopia can well create hell for others.
What sort of social tinkering WOULD help: and what sorts should we just not have, on principles that we might elucidate here?
When I was young I thought of progress in terms of advancing science and technology - the sick would be made well, the lame healed, the weather improved, cream cakes made healthy etc. All very 19th century and quite religious in its impulse if not its overt character.
I guess this has happened - modern technology does cure all sorts of ills. But as I grew up I felt a need for a deeper progress - a structural or moral progress. I realised that although people were better off in absolute terms (at least in the UK) relative levels of wealth, access and opportunity had not changed. Inequality was still rife.
Perhaps this is the difference between the progress offered by Capitalism and the progress attempted by Socialism. Should I stop moaning and be happy that people are living longer or should I keep striving for a deeper sense of progress? If I dont believe in god and I dont believe in Socialism as a practical possibility what else is there?