eclipsing progress
they believe in a mythical thing called Progress, a power that shapes human fortunes, but which simply does not exist (at least, not as they imagine it.) Things do not get better by the simple passage of time, and the arrangements of the past are not necessarily worse (or better) than the arrangements of today. dpmonahan
People who talk this way have no concept of history. I believe in Progress. I think it is a power that shapes human fortunes. Things more often than not get better by the simple passage of time, and arrangements of today are generally better than the arrangements of the past.
Why? Because humans thrive on knowledge and understanding. We are inquisitive creatures with a prominent streak of empathy that ensures we strive to improve conditions for ourselves, for our children and for future generations. We have developed advanced methods of recording, cataloging and sharing our knowledge, which allow us to continue to build on the work of past generations. We learn the lessons of failure and tragedy from those who have gone before us and from those who live around us.
When it comes to the quote above, only a rich, white man in the western world could spout such nonsense. You ask any woman, anyone from an ethnic minority or any person born into a low income family if they’d rather live now or 30 years ago, 100 years ago or a 1000 years ago, and if they have any concept of history, they’ll understand the huge strides that have been made for our rights – strides of progress that ensure our living conditions have improved a hundredfold. And that’s before we even talk about progress in education, healthcare, technology, welfare, travel, working conditions and every other aspect of life for humans.
I believe in Progress. And I can only hope we continue to progress and don’t get dragged back to the bad old days when marital rape wasn’t a crime (the 1980s), when women weren’t entitled to equal pay (the 1970s), when homosexual acts were illegal (the 1960s), when abortion was a back-alley bloodfest (1950s), when there was no universal healthcare (1940s). We may stumble along the way but hopefully our innate human desire for progress will ensure we don’t fall.
Since the 1970s, the high water mark of equality in Britain, our society has got increasingly unequal. Governments, even allegedly left wing governments, tolerate tax dodging by the rich and suppress house-building so that houses become unaffordable. As technology makes jobs more scarce workers earn less, more precariously, and that ingenuity seems to be making us more unequal rather than less.
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I did say we stumble – progress is broad. Quality of living has generally improved in our part of the world. Would you want to live back then?
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I thought this post was going to be on the progress of the eclipse today up your way. Yes, my mind played tricks on me. Oh well.
Perhaps DP can give us an example of a time in the past when things were “better”?
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It was a pretty tenuous title to link to my lovely picture – isn’t it lovely?
DP thinks things were better when abortion was illegal and there was no welfare state. Bet my hat on it.
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The point of the post in question was not to argue the past was intrinsically “better”, but that past cultural arrangements were often adequate to the situation. The idea that those arrangements were horrible is a myth used by politicians to make themselves look good in spite of their failings.
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Can you give an actual example to help me understand what you’re trying to say?
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There are examples in the post, I’d rather discuss from there rather than from memory.
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I’m amazed at how much you know about my economic situation.
1) Knowledge is morally neutral; it can be used for good or evil. More knowledge does not mean better behavior. For example, if the human race in the 20th century was endowed with more knowledge than the human race in the 18th, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the 20th century would have been more peaceful and humane than the 18th? Now go explain that to Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
2) Accumulation of data is useless without criteria by which to evaluate it. Those criteria are usually a-priori, unexamined, and they filter out contradictory information. So the question is not, “what is the data” but “what sort of person is looking at it.” In questions of good or evil, not much data is necessary.
3) All this stuff about identity is just an attempt to win an argument without having to argue. It is also false. Plenty of white Western men who actually are rich would disagree with me. Plenty of women and “people of color” would disagree with you and say they would rather live in a world where abortion was illegal, women should stay in the home with the kids, and gays stuck in the closet. (Personally, I’d like to see abortion heavily regulated but am on the fence about legality, women have the freedom to work or not as they see fit, and I don’t care about other people’s private living arrangements.)
You should say instead “people who agree with me, regardless of their race or background, agree with me” but that would lack rhetorical flourish and moral trappings.
The proof that the argument from identity is dishonest comes from the mistreatment people with the right identity but who hold the wrong opinions receive. Here in the US it is always sad to watch people say “Black people think this!” Then a black person says “Actually, I disagree” and then he is subjected to the worst sort of racist slurs and insinuations from his white betters (Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc). The same happens with women who disagree with anyone who tells them what they are supposed to think as women: rich white men call them all sorts of sexist names. I’m not fond of Sarah Palin or Dana Loesch, but the sexist attacks on them are disgusting, and often perpetrated by white guys.
I don’t pretend to tell anybody what they are supposed to think based on how they look or what they have between their legs, why do you?
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“Knowledge is morally neutral; it can be used for good or evil.” I agree knowledge can be used by people with mostly positive intentions and people with generally harmful intentions. But I covered in the post that in general humans demonstrate empathy and the larger movement is towards improvement for all.
“wouldn’t it stand to reason that the 20th century would have been more peaceful and humane than the 18th?”
No. And this is what I mean by your concept of history (apart from simply having fun with your patronising turn of phrase). We see progress in myriad areas across these centuries and you’re focusing on war and inhumanity. We saw a growth in technology and population that enabled atrocities to cover a wider areas – we have learned a lot from these individuals, their actions and the responses. Progress is across more areas and a bigger view of time, and not stopping here.
“In questions of good or evil, not much data is necessary.” I disagree. If we’re looking in terms of what are harmful, neutral or positive outcomes for small sections and large sections of populations, we need to look at long-term and short-terms outcomes from specific groups of people over generations. Gay people have been vilified for centuries (since the beginning of human existence in most societies) because the rest of the population was ignorant about what being gay entailed, and it would affect individuals and society as a whole. It’s taken this long for the general population in western society to see there are no negative outcomes and start making changes to laws accordingly.
“All this stuff about identity is just an attempt to win an argument without having to argue.”
I know what you mean here, and obviously not everyone would agree. But unfortunately there is something is the much bandied ‘privilege’ argument. If you were a women, you’d have to consider that turning back the clock would lose you all your rights, if you were gay you’d have to consider that you could end up in prison or executed for having a relationship, if you were from an ethnic minority you’d have to consider that your life would be limited a certain corner of society, if you were from a low income family you’d have to consider that higher education would almost never be an option for you. If you’re an educated, straight white man, the changes to your life would be more limited to technology, medicine and convenience.
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The post in question had little to do with technological innovation, which has generally been a positive, if disruptive, thing. I’m focusing on cultural shifts.
You are falling into the trap of imagining the past as all wretchedness and evil in order to exalt the glorious present.
Sorry, gays have not been hated always and everywhere from the dawn of time: there have existed, and still exist, gay friendly cultures, even in the West. Women have not always had “no rights”: This will blow your mind: in the middle ages women could own businesses, inherit money and join guilds, it was with the Enlightenment (knowledge and progress!) that Roman Law was resurrected, taking those rights away.
Voting did not mean the same thing in a less individualistic, less industrialized society: one land-owning family, one vote made sense at one time. It wasn’t until the family and land ownership became less important that the old voting laws stopped making sense. It isn’t progress, just a rearrangement for a new situation. But because we lack imagination we just see the past as evil.
Empathy is very selective, boiling down to what makes you feel good at the moment. For example, we know much more about in-utero development of embryos now (knowledge and science!) than we did in the 70s when the abortion laws were liberalized, and now know that human cognitive development starts earlier than could have been imagined then, but that seems to have no impact on anyone’s selective empathy. You would prefer a legal regime that treats a dog better than a human fetus, because Empathy!, but it is a purely arbitrary decision on your part where you place your empathy.
Moral decisions rarely rely on information: “do not steal” is pretty easy to grasp and only requires a fact or two. It is only people who want to justify stealing who say “well wait, lets look at the whole picture! What are the social benefits of stealing as opposed to the negatives? Let’s collect some data.” Of course the data will tell them that stealing has a good aggregate effect.
You are right that it takes a minimal degree of moral imagination to place oneself in another’s shoes. In fact, that is exactly what the post in question attempts to do: to step out of the prejudices of the present and imagine a different cultural reality in which things that make sense now did not make sense then, and vice versa.
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I hate pulling this card but you’re so patronising with your history chat. My degree is in history, mainly medieval, so you’re unlikely to blow my mind with any little facts you got from your Republican Selective History of the World book. I don’t lack imagination – I know that living standards are generally higher and traditionally oppressed groups of people have bucket loads more of opportunity to be treated fairly, to be educated and to live how they please.
You have a completely ridiculous take on abortion. It’s not simply about having the right to terminate the growth of a potential person within your body (although that is part of it), it’s about avoiding the blood bath of botched abortions by untrained individuals in unsanitary conditions. That scenario causes more death to more women and the same amount of terminated pregnancies. Abortion is something that needs to be avoided by access to birth control, a change in attitude to women and better education about our bodies and our desire for sex. That comes with progress.
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Why on earth did you study history? The point of studying history is learn how to think outside of one’s own temporal prejudices. You seem to have studied it to be reassured that the whole of human history does in fact reach its peak in your personal opinions and empathies.
The abortion example was not to recommend a legal policy, just to point out that your empathies are selective and have nothing to do with the progress of knowledge.
I am aware of the argument about dangerous illegal abortions, but you (predictably) overstate the wickedness of the past. Abortion was less common before legalization, not just as common, and was often preformed by doctors, though sometimes by untrained people.
The real reason abortion was legalized was because it is convenient, for men just as much as women. It had nothing to do with reducing illegal abortions.
But we are off topic.
We’ve never established what relationship knowledge has with progress when it does not reduce war and inhumanity.
And I’ve never figured out what makes you the spokesperson for all women and minorities everywhere and for all time, even the substantial percentages who disagree with you about what is best for them. (But I’m the patronizing one, see.)
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“The point of studying history is learn how to think outside of one’s own temporal prejudices. ”
Perhaps you’re right. I entered my course as right wing Christian.
“The real reason abortion was legalized was because it is convenient, for men just as much as women. It had nothing to do with reducing illegal abortions.” Source? In the UK it was introduced as a matter of public health, due to the numbers of women dying and being harmed in illegal abortions.
http://www.efc.org.uk/young_people/facts_about_abortion/uk_abortion_law.html
“We’ve never established what relationship knowledge has with progress when it does not reduce war and inhumanity.” Your post wasn’t about war and inhumanity, was it?
“And I’ve never figured out what makes you the spokesperson for all women and minorities everywhere and for all time” Okay.
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So the only possible solution to the problem of abortion related deaths and injuries is more abortion? That is the reason to rearrange the whole body of law? Does not pass the smell test.
Maybe there is a cultural issue: the “back-alley abortion” trope is brought up as an excuse in the US as a reason to keep our extremely permissive laws as they are. The legal basis of the SCOTUS decision was patient-client privilege (privacy), which even pro abortion advocates consider a weak legal argument. The judges decided to legalize abortion, and then made up the legal rational.
My post was not about war and inhumanity, but your thesis was that progress exists because of increasing knowledge. I brought up war and inhumanity to show the non-relationship.
What sort of knowledge leads to what sort of progress?
If you went through a process of conversion from a politically conservative Christian to a politically progressive unbeliever, it is because some new pattern of thought made you adjust your mental furniture, rearrange values and such: what was the new thought or information?
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So what did you study? Apart from hunting and little girls? And generally being offensive.
Really interested about what makes you such a world expert on history, women’s rights, and well, everything really. Clearly history degrees cut no ice. Why would one study the past if we don’t learn from it. So what else would one study?
Again, what did you study?
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Violet’s approach to history strikes me as being like the “Whig version of history”: all history finds its culmination in Whig politics. Her politics are different, but the attitude seems the same. The question is not about the expertise, but overall interpretation, how she arranges her data.
As for being offensive, I’ve never challenged anybody’s character or native intelligence, just their ideas. If you find ideas offensive, please grow up. If my offense is having a snotty tone when I argue a point, I am probably guilty and you are right to call me out.
As for educational experience: I started college studying classical humanities but ended up with a degree in philosophy, then got a second BA in theology.
My tendency towards cultural relativism comes from lived experience: four years in Italy, and ten years living embedded in Mexican communities in the U.S.
No, I did not study women’s issues, poly-sci nor (formally speaking) history. That has nothing to do with my capacity to form an opinion on these subjects. Likewise you are free to speak about things you did not formally study, which is how it should be.
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Violet, that is an *entrancing* pic of the eclipse…absolutely gorgeous!
As for the topic at hand, I have some mixed opinions on it. Of course I would not see us go back to the days of bloody back-alley abortions, slavery, genocide, mass death from preventable diseases, etc. However when you break it down into a smaller view, I have to agree with Clare. Inequality is a massive problem. I don’t know where you live Violet…is it in the UK? If so, you might have access to universal healthcare over there, but we don’t here in the US.
Here in the States I have as much access to healthcare as someone in a third world country…I can’t get it for either myself or my family. Medications are available for people with my disease, but neither insurance nor government programs cover the cost of treatment, which is around $40,000 to $100,000 per year (depending on the drug you use). Neither can we afford the outrageous costs of therapy for my son, who suffers from autism. All this improvement and knowledge in the medical system is useless if only the rich can access it.
Is the current inequality and lack of medical care a “blip” in the overall progress of humanity? An argument could be made for that, I suppose. In my personal situation it’s very real and painful, regardless of the bigger picture.
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Thank you! I love picture praise, and since I don’t get out with the camera much these days and have been forced to recycle old pictures, the picture praise has been few and far between.
I think we have to look at the much wider view. Because of progress made by humans, there are treatments that exist for many conditions that in previous generations would have been completely untreatable. The USA is a peculiar area, but you can see that Obama has started the changes to move your country to universal healthcare. It’s going to be an uphill struggle given the financial interests invested in your current healthcare provision, and the misconceptions about universal healthcare being circulated there. But it’s inevitable that with the spread of information Americans will eventually run out of arguments against it.
There is massive inequality across the world, and I didn’t even touch on countries outside of our western bubble. But consider that the lives of people on low incomes are much improved – that doesn’t mean for a second that it isn’t a struggle and constant improvement isn’t required.
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This is an interesting topic. I think that as a society we are steadily changing and evolving over time. With technological advances, population growth, and scientific advancements, our world is vastly different than it was ten, twenty, 100, 200 years ago.
I think you’re right in the sense that we do have more equalities than we used to in the past. However, I also think that in today’s world we also have problems we didn’t have in the past. I think that things are mostly progressing in a positive way though. We’re continuing to build on what we know and attempt to improve (hopefully).
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I think so too. It’s doesn’t mean I’m blinkered to inequalities and horrors that continue to this day. But taking the wider view, we’ve evolved into a more peace-driven and socially aware species, and I see no reason why this should change drastically in the future.
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That’s true. While there are always new problems that stem from our advancements, we seem to be moving forward. We have better quality of life and have learned so much more than we knew about the world in the past.
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Based on this article from New Scientist, you are correct. The world is progressing.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029380.200-is-the-world-getting-better-or-worse.html#.VQzybuGGNWE
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Thanks for the link. I used to get furious and frustrated about the lack of progress in a lot of areas, but I think I’ve settled with the broader view over a much longer period. I hate that we sit in relative comfort with easy access to food and freedom to explore the world, while millions are desperate, oppressed, hungry and trapped where they are. I hate that so many people continue to take animals for granted, and we built huge industries around farming them for profit so we can unnecessarily chomp on their flesh. I hate that there are so few women in real positions of power. But I do think that change is complicated, the world is complicated and it takes many generations to spread information and change attitudes. Taking the broad view, we’re definitely moving in a positive direction and intentions are generally good.
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This is one occasion where I almost want to agree with dp. Between the average person of 1800 and that of today, there is little difference. He or she may know slightly much more but that is where it ends.
The average person is still stupid, superstitious and ignorant. Just look at the numbers of those who believe Jonah swallowed the whale.
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Actually the whale swallowed Jonah just a minor correction
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Wally, Jonah swallowed the whale
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Ok lol better take a read
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Are you in the group of idiots that believe that story of Jonah swallowing the fish or you are just jesting
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No I don’t believe Jonah swallowed anything. I do believe a fish swallowed Jonah however. That is what the story says. I recommend that if you are going to critique the bible that you take the time to read it
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Wally, if you have any grey matter between your ears, you should be able to tell I don’t give a rat ass about who swallowed what
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That is obvious and I did not come here to argue. I assure you I have plenty of gray matter. The simple fact is you don’t know enough to critique the bible. You quoted that story wrong and that is all I wanted here.
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How do you know I quoted it wrong? How do you know my intent?
Let me explain something to you, something that you would have obviously seen had you any grey matter, that am writing that part in jest. That it is ridiculous to believe a man lived in a fish for three days.
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mak you said it then argued the point twice. Be honest have to read the story?
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Are you an idiot in real life too or just on the net?
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I am what I am in both.So have you the story?
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Hi Wally, you’re welcome here. I love it when Christians come to visit! Makagutu is a dearly beloved blogging buddy with a sharp wit. I think you missed his obvious joke and I’m quite sure he’s read the story many times. Hope that helps.
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Hey Violet thanks for the welcome. I think you know I don’t prowl the blogs of non believers to start fights. If I am wrong very sorry
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Just a wee reminder my dear
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You have been heard loud and clear
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Noel, I am dying laughing over here. I think you’ve figured out by now that Wally seems incapable of comprehending that you were jesting. I thought what you said was hilarious. 😀
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And it is for this simple reason I tell John the average fundamentalist is ineducable. They are insufferable idiots. Can’t tell their left leg from the right since all are in their mouths.
Hey V? Hope you have been well
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I’m hanging in there, my friend, considering that I live in the thick of these fundamentalists, in the most conservative, religious, and dysfunctional state in the Union. 😉
Hope your weekend going well. I’ll pop some more popcorn. 😀
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My weekend so far has been well. Pop lots of popcorn, it maybe a long afternoon especially if I even have to explain jests.
I don’t envy your living arrangements not that mine is any better. If I throw a stone from my flat, east, west or north, it would land atop a church roof.
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Hahahaha. I hear ya. I remember when my dad came here to visit. He lives in California. He said he counted 36 churches in a 9 mile stretch from I-10 (interstate) to my house. He was gobsmacked. 😀
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Is there a chance they could unite and have just one big church?
My neighbours are evangelicals, SDAs, the Catholic Church ain’t far off and the Anglican church is opposite the catholic one.
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Perhaps, Noel, but they tend to not get along very well with each other, as has been evident on Violet’s blog. 😉
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They should be making attempts to bridge the non existent gaps they have between them.
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Noel, they’ve had 2000+ years to do that. 42,000+ denominations later…. So far, not so good.
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I keep forgetting such small details. They have had schisms since day 1
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Are you in Louisiana if so I will hook when I pass is I am on the way to new Orleans
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No, I’m in Mississippi. Have fun in NO, and stay away from the alleys if you decide to visit the French Quarter. Enjoy your Hurricane, and no, I don’t mean a storm. 😀
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Thanks but on worries an getting on boat
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Boat?
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Cruise lol
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Cruise? lol
You’ve so lost me, Wally. What does a boat or a cruise have to do with alleys, the French Quarter, and a drink called a Hurricane.
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Sorry lol I am only going to town to get on a ship and float the sea for seven days won’t be going to the French quarter
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How fun. I’ve taken several cruises. Loved them. What are your destinations?
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They are completely awesome this is my fourth.This year key west and the Bahamas
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Excellent. Loved both destinations. Great time of the year to be going.
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Indeed and thanks for the well wishes
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You’re such a pessimist! I’m the only person in Blogland sitting with the glass half full. And to think people are agreeing with the squirrel killer!
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Am no pessimist nor optimist.
I think the squirrel killer is right. Even a broken down clock is right twice a day 😛
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Love it! I’m stealing that.
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Remember to repent though 😛
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