Progress
Andoni Alonso & Iñaki Arzoz
The etymological origin of the concept is found in the Latin progredi, which in its participle is progresus. Originally, this term referred to the physical march of an individual or an army, that is, the steps taken in a specific direction. In its contemporary meaning, progress indicates improvement through the increase in the flow of technologies available to humanity as a whole. It refers to a quantitative advance in material, scientific and social conditions in generic or particular cases: GDP, number of doctors per inhabitant, kilometers of roads or high-speed trains, telephones and the like. On the other hand, it is understood that, despite the oscillations of more or less positive moments in history, in general, progress constitutes a kind of historical law that explains the path of humanity towards the final goal. And from there, it follows that the future, even if it is in the long term, a priori, will be better than the past. This idea is currently found in authors such as Stephen Pinker (2018) and Yuval Harari (2014) who published two bestellers on that subject.
Robert Nisbet (2014) proposes that the idea of progress is already embedded in classical Greece and that, with epochal fluctuations, it has constantly developed in European culture. But according to John Bury (2009), in Antiquity and the Middle Ages one could not properly speak of progress, for two different reasons. In the classical period, the notion of time was circular so there could be no progress since the perfection achieved at a certain moment would always be transitory and would lead to decadence eventually. This conception of time is expressed in Hesiod’s work Works and Days, where he lists the various ages of humanity: the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Heroic Age and the Iron Age. From the paradisiacal situation humankind degenerates into gradual decay until it reaches the suffering and injustice of the present time. Over time, the historical cycle would resume until another Golden Age was reached.
Christianity changes the concept of time and extends it in a straight line: from Creation, through the present to an end point, the Parousia and the Last Judgment. History is teleological, as defined by St. Augustine (2025), and we walk towards the heavenly Jerusalem from the earthly Jerusalem. While it is true that the linearity of time is a necessary condition for the notion of current progress, it is not a sufficient reason. History is governed entirely by God, both for individuals and for humanity as a whole. Theology names this government Providence and human history is its unfolding. In Providence it is not in the hands of mankind to improve its living conditions except by divine intervention. That is why human beings do not have control of history and are contingent (see Mechanicism).
In the sixteenth century, other concepts appeared that would emerge a century later in the Enlightenment conception of progress. Undoubtedly, the philosopher who comes closest to this idea of modern progress is Francis Bacon but, as Bury (2005) indicates, Bacon still accepts the idea of the contingency of the world and the possibility of its disappearance so that it remains in the hands of the divine. Despite this, it is true that some of the ideas were key for the French Enlightenment to take him as a guide in the eighteenth century. First of all, Bacon understands that knowledge is power, transformative power. Technique becomes the most important knowledge and ceases to be a purely artisanal practice, socially stigmatized, as it was in the Classical Greece or in the Middle Ages. This implies breaking with the Aristotelian idea of knowing as contemplation, as the highest self-referential activity – that is, one whose purpose lies in itself. Bacon’s proposal in New Atlantis (2006) means breaking with more than twenty centuries of conceiving knowledge in this way. The transformative power is directed to the control of nature. Nature, the given, in Baconian terms, must be dominated in order to precisely escape from its imperative and tyranny over the human being. Secondly, in the “dispute between the ancients and the moderns”, Bacon considers that the Moderns know more than the Ancients because the former have accumulated more knowledge over centuries. This was abbreviated in the eighteenth century by Newton, when he declared that he stood “on the shoulders of giants” and therefore could see farther than the giants themselves. Thirdly, in his utopia New Atlantis, he proposes the foundation of a “House of Solomon” where scientists meet and share knowledge – science is a collective enterprise – to improve and control people in a rational way (see Citizen Sciences).
Instrumental and technical rationality spread in the eighteenth century, in what has been known as the Scientific Revolution. The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers can be considered as a monumental example for putting into practice the Baconian idea of the accumulation of emancipatory knowledge. This work aims to synthesize the most important scientific and technical thought of the time, since this knowledge becomes a path to liberation. Its greatest propagandist then was Nicolas de Condorcet, who constructed a whole philosophy of history to prove the undoubted existence of progress as the destiny of humanity. According to this author, the human being can improve indefinitely, both morally and technically (1997). The means of bringing about such improvement is education in reason, with a view to eliminating the prejudices and ‘idols’ that Bacon had identified in his time. What is more, it is not possible to go back on these improvements, for, despite the apparent vacillations of history, improvements cannot be erased from the minds of human beings. This last idea, expressed in his Sketch of a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit (1795/1997), clearly defines the notion of contemporary progress: History advances inexorably towards a perfect, egalitarian and free society.
In the nineteenth century, with positivism, progress is taken as the real form of the historical law that governs humanity. Auguste Comte (1858) will divide human history into three stages where we will gradually and inevitably approach the stage of perfection or Scientific State. Its binomial of Order and Progress endorses the true advancement of humanity (which, for example, will end up as the motto of the Brazilian flag). Another important theoretical framework of progress, Darwin’s theory of evolution, was extrapolated to indicate the perfectibility of the human species and to explain the degree of different civilization that could be seen in the various human communities on the planet (see Darwinism).
However, Darwin never suggested that his theory could be applied to the future of humanity; consequently, his biological theory is misused, and in the 21st century it still manifests itself in the concept of ‘Social Darwinism’, which is characteristic of capitalist society. During the nineteenth century, adherence to the idea of progress became a political banner and even a kind of secular religion. This is, for example, the unifying dogma of the United States and its “manifest destiny”, based on technological progress, innovation, and production. The technological achievements of the nineteenth century, exhibited in the various Universal Fairs, seem to prove this new ideology right. Thus, the engineer together with the inventor becomes the hero because they dominate nature and create wonders such as the telegraph and the railway. Advances in medicine, communications, or in the production of cheap goods obtained thanks to the Second Industrial Revolution promised endless progress and the complete emancipation of the human being from all physical or natural limitations (see Limits).
Nonetheless, the certainty of humanity’s progress will be profoundly questioned in the twentieth century by the two World Wars. The question will then arise as to whether the progress that actually exists is limited to the technical sphere, whilst moral and social progress has been sidelined; this issue relates to the meaning of ‘progressivism’, the left-wing political and social doctrine. Those who led precisely to a sharpest critique of this concept of enlightened progress were the Frankfurt School with its “Critical Theory of Culture” and the analysis of industrial society or mass society. In short, his critique affirms that instrumental reason, technology, not only does not liberate and emancipate human beings, but enslaves and alienates them in a consumer society (see Capitalist Way of Life).
The critical state of the environmental crisis has also been cited as another objection to the very notion of progress. Progress can hardly be considered positive if it threatens the existence of humankind and the rest of the planet’s species. Environmental awareness has forced us to view nature differently from how Bacon proposed: it is neither an enemy nor a domain over which to exercise free dominion; we must find ways of coexistence, of symbiosis between humans and nature (see Animism and Gaia). Cultural studies have also maintained that progress has been a destructive force for the so-called colonies and has been the excuse for predation by the West of the Global South. The same could argue feminist movements because progress clearly have favored men and disfavored women in general Eco-feminism has united both movements in criticizing patriarchal progress (see Ecofeminism).
Perhaps, one of the most original and profound critiques of progress was put forward by Ivan Illich in the 1970s, based on the idea of counterproductivity – a concept that the environmental movement would later come to call ‘degrowth’. This author demonstrates how progress has given rise to concepts directly related to it, such as ‘development’ or ‘innovation’, which have led to a tragedy of global proportions. Thus, the “gospel of progress” has evolved into the “gospel of development”, as was denounced in the collective publication The Development Dictionary.
At present, faith in progress, driven by digital culture and Artificial Intelligence (see Green Artificial Intelligence), has become a philosophical-political trend: the “accelerationism” which considers progress a force, perhaps unstoppable, of capitalism and that, despite its negative effects, will solve all the problems produced by it, so it is necessary to embrace it and accelerate it, to reach the final utopia of history. Definitely, the concept of progress, in the current context of the ongoing eco-social crisis caused by it, has become a powerful myth rather than an effective reality. It is true that it drives and dominates the development of human enterprise – especially its technological implementation – but for better and for worse, including the horizon of an ecological catastrophe. Its validity and usefulness as a tool, or its lethal danger for the destiny of human beings will depend on its analysis, questioning and proposal for reformulation.
Bibliography:
Bacon, F. (2006). Nueva Atlántida. Akal.
Bury, J. (2005). La idea de progreso. Alianza.
Comte, A. (1858). The catechism of positive religion. Chapman.
Condorcet, M. J. D. C. (1997). Bosquejo de un cuadro histórico de los progresos del espíritu humano y otros textos. Fondo de Cultura Económico. (Original work published in 1795)
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Harari, Y. N. (2014). Homo Deus: Breve historia del mañana. Debate.
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Sachs, W. (Ed.). (1992). The Development Dictionary. A Guide to Knowledge as Power., Zed Books.