A Reply: Drowning in Progress

In response to Vivaquijote's post on his blog...

I think you make some good points in presenting an optimistic view on progress, hermano. However, I think you both missed my point and played perfectly in to my hands with your response.

Yes, the Temeraire was old, and replacing old technology with new technology is a good thing. I dearly hope that our aims of improving everyday life by building better technology are successful.

But that's not just the type of progress that I'm concerned about. Recall, I am not an economist, and I spent much of my time studying the impact of a progressive/materialistic/hegelian mindset on the mindset of mankind.

While progress is greatly beneficial in the field of improving our material surrounds, progress has also proven deadly in a philosophical sense as those important concepts that "have nothing to do with progress" are swallowed whole, digested, and replaced with new (and frightening) views of morality and the human condition.

For example, the free love movement was seen as progressive, and look how well that turned out. The same is true for hippie culture, and we all know how that turned out.

The fact of the matter is that not all that is done in the name of progress is, in fact, beneficial to mankind as a whole. Lewis, Schaeffer, Boice... all of them had a healthy distrust for the idea of progress because they saw it as more than mere technological and social advancement. They saw it as the opportunity for human nature to do what it does best: take an excuse to ignore what is good and right and replace it with warped values and erroneous standards of perception.

As for the fact that we still have Cervantes and Turner with us, I could not agree with you more. Yes, it is wonderful that we still have these powerful symols with us to remind us not to lose our values in our march towards progress (or is the march progress itself?). And I am glad that you and I both see that.

But that's just the trouble. We are but two men who realize the purpose of these powerful symbols. Now think of how many do not.

Frequently, in the Old Testament, God charged Israel with one task: Remember. Remember the things that I have done for you. Remember the miracles I performed in the desert. Remember all the awesome wonders that your own eyes have beheld. But they forgot. Again and again and again. And as a result, history kept repeating itself.

Not all forgot, of course. Many prophets tried their hardest to stir the rabble to remembrance (and ultimately to repentance), but they resisted. And we all know what happened in the end.

Increasingly, people ignore sound reasoning (most don't even know what such a thing is) and throw themselves into a deluge of pleasure and irrationality. Classic logic, moral decisionmaking, and faith are looked at as "outmoded" and "useless" artifacts of an earlier stage of man. Even the ancient philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, are viewed through an evolutionary lens.

"Sure, those ideas were great for that time period... but with what we know now, they would never hold any water."

Sadly, Plato and Aristotle knew more about the world than we did when it came to things like truth, justice, right, wrong, inquiry, education, and law.

Outdated? We have never escaped the domain of their work! In many ways, we never can.

My point (and my concern) is that others do NOT see the lessons from these symbols, and it is to those that do not that I wrote. Will they listen? Well, that's up to them. But I think you got it right in saying that your post was complimentary to mine.

Only on one point do I have to say I really, truly disagree. Within the realm of mankind's capacity for improvement, I see absolutely no hope. Left to our own devices, the world will not become a better place. (And in many ways, I wonder if it is improving at all...)

Thankfully, I do not believe that we have been entirely left up to our own devices...