Is progress possible – or will our problems always be with us, in new forms? Joseph de Freitas, Dorset
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There is no such thing as human progress. The idea itself is a teleological myth – it assumes that there is an end point towards which we progress. There is not. Our problems will always be with us; basically, we are still the same creatures as we were 10,000 years ago but, for better or worse, with fancier tools. We are violent, kind, cruel, generous, artful and destructive. Kant said: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.” John Gray deals with the subject very well in The Silence of Animals; well worth a read. notmuchappens
John Gray deals with this in The Silence of Animals, where his convincing take is that progress does happen but it can be undone and there is no reason to conclude that it will continue in a positive direction. One example he gives is torture, which was outlawed by international agreement (though not everywhere, obviously), only to be brought into play again by the US in their military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and also probably in Guantánamo. Unthinkable until it happened. In a different arena, I wonder how long-lived any advances in carbon reduction, ecological restoration and so on will be, since everything is so determined by political contingency. Direwolf
“Progress” has no meaning at all unless the aim towards which “progress” can be measured is also stated, ie progress towards food security. Likewise, “liberty” must be liberty from something. Problems seem to be what arise when humans have unrealistic expectations and, no matter which “aim” you choose, someone somewhere will have them, and share them with as many others as is possible (ie politics). An expectation can be impossible and perfectly realistic or whole unrealistic yet perfectly possible so care must be taken in using adjectives. empathyfreak
Dealing with problems is what spurs us to progress. If we were all happy all of the time nobody would do anything to change matters. CaressOfSteel
This question is a false dichotomy. Both statements are true. Progress is continuous and ongoing, but that progress itself brings a new landscape, with new, or reframed, problems. Bopsysdad
Dukkha – variously translated as “suffering”, “frustration”, even “friction” – is built into life itself, according to the Buddha. Everything is dukkha. So, yes, our problems will always be with us. BillTheGalacticHero
Progress for who? The Industrial Revolution was very progressive for capitalist factory owners but less so for the peasant class that moved to the cities and endured long hours, low wages and poor housing. For the common human, the Mesolithic age may have been the most progressive. Low populations lessened the likelihood of epidemics, varied diets meant famines were less common and the inability to hoard wealth meant for more equal society. rhubarbsonofnectan
Yes, progress is possible and has occurred. Horrible things used to be accepted as OK are now much reduced or even banned: hanging, flogging, bear-baiting, cock fights, burning of witches, imprisoning homosexuals, legal restrictions on those who follow a different religionare all gone, in the UK at least, though not of course everywhere. Of course, some problems remain, while our progress itself brings new problems. But on the whole I’d rather live in the present times than in centuries past, which itself is an example of progress. Mark_MK
Progress looks different from different viewpoints. One person’s increased income, more holidays, more consumer-driven existence is another person’s climate nightmare. One person’s dream of caring for children at home is another person’s trapped and isolated. One person’s capitalist utopia is another person’s homeless starvation. We can’t always measure progress or problems in any meaningful universal way. DrunkJam
Alas, what we perceive as progress has mostly been based on the exploitation of non-renewable resources. Progress without problems will only be possible when we can do it sustainably. Paulo777
The world has got better in many, many ways. Progress is always uneven, and there is always the risk of backsliding, but it is nonetheless real and concrete. If we can manage to work together globally to limit the effects of climate change and end the degradation of our shared environment, there is every reason to believe that the future of the world will gradually get better for most of its inhabitants. That’s a huge “if”. ProjectXRay
I think it depends on your time-frame. Since the political divide between left and right became clear in the French Revolution (the nobles and clergy sat on the right in the National Constituent Assembly, the commoners on the left) there has, over the long term, been progress. The sorts of victories the left has had – ending slavery, organising in trade unions, extending the franchise, entrenching human rights, introducing free state education, universal state-funded health care, minimum wages etc – are very hard to reverse, because most people value them. What seemed like extreme left ideas in times past are now accepted as commonsense consensus. The right of course wins a lot of little victories, even reverses progress for a time, but in the long term, the left always wins out – or at least it has over the past 200 years or so. GeoffCox
It’s irrefutable that we have progressed in many ways, technological and material, for example. But we don’t seem to have progressed too much in areas such as ethics, morality and compassion. And given the pace at which the former is outstripping the latter, it looks like we may well be consigning ourselves to oblivion. Cheerful thought for the day. counterculture
With all the accumulated wisdom of my 72 years, I can honestly declare: some things get better, other things get worse, others simply change, while others stay the same. But deciding which changes fall into which category is a more difficult question. Sooterkin17
