Essays
 

What Is Progress? Or How to Tell a Hawk From a Handsaw
An Essay by Geoffrey L. Breedon

In a world that seems to many people to have gone slightly mad, if not completely insane, it is helpful to some clarity about the ideas that shape it. The idea of progress is a concept that from one angle looks like a hawk and from another, a handsaw.

Progress, development, growth, and sustainability are four words that crop up repeatedly in discussions about the future of our world, particularly in the contentious debate about the merits of globalization. To one camp, globalization represents progress pure and simple. To the other it is at best a perverted growth of the current system and at worst a reversion to the ill-conceived paradigms that gave us the worst evils of the first Industrial Revolution. Much of the problem in deciding who is right in this debate comes down to how poorly these four special words are usually defined.

Most folks don't define progress and development the way I do. I'm not a government policy wonk, a politician, or a lobbyist for corporate interests. Neither am I a ranting anti-globalization protestor, although I do rant and I am critical of the current mode of globalization. I'm just a regular guy who took a year and a half out of his life to research and write a book about spirituality and globalization. Okay, so I'm not that normal. But I do think I have a different perspective on these issues that is markedly different from what you will find in the mainstream discussions of progress and globalization.

The way we think about progress shapes the way we respond to the scientific advances and technological creations that in turn shape the world we live in. As Herbert J. Muller writes in his book The Children of Frankenstein, "… not before Francis Bacon had writers proclaimed that man could steadily, indefinitely improve his state on Earth by his own unaided efforts, for only with the rise of science did they possess a clear means to steady progress. As the novel faith in progress began spreading over the Western world in the Age of Enlightenment, it introduced a fundamental difference in man's attitude toward change. Through all the changes beginning with the neolithic revolution men had never really banked on change, never believed that it would naturally be for the better or would go on so indefinitely." Equating change with progress, which is really only development, we have created a society addicted to change. Everything must be the latest and the most advanced. We clamor for the newest styles of everything, even if the functions have failed to change for years. How different are cars from those sold a decade ago? They might get better gas mileage, but that seems unlikely in the wake of the SUV craze. The latest fashions are certainly different, but what do they offer that is new? The latest computer? More power, yes, but how much power do you need for word processing? Lots of development, and not much progress in sight. Where is the quality of life in all this? Do newer more plentiful products mean that we are living better lives?

Mistaking development for progress is a rampant error among those who promote or caution against both. It is all the more devastating because few who promote or criticize progress tend to give much attention to the human aspect of the situation. Edward Goldsmith clarifies this with his comment in Turning Away from Technology when he says. "Progress is thereby seen as not having proceeded fast enough, for if it had the problems would quite clearly not have occurred. Thus, increasing floods are seen as occurring because we have not built enough dams and embankments. If the crime rate goes up, this is because we have not built enough prisons, hired enough police, or installed enough burglar alarms. If people are sick, this is because they have not consumed enough pills or not built enough hospitals." Jacques Ellul summed up the essence of the problem in his classic book The Technological Society when he wrote: "If a whole people is oriented toward the search for justice or purity, if it obeys in depth the primacy of the spiritual, it does not suffer from the lack of material things, just as we today do not feel the inverse need of the spiritual."

We define progress in part by our needs. What are humanity's needs? What is progress for humanity? Is progress greater material wealth or closer families? Is it a manufacturing industry of low paying jobs or is it meaningful employment? Is it being able to shop for everything in one multinational megastore that you have to drive to or is it being able to walk to several locally owned shops, or is it ordering your goods on the Web and having them delivered to your door?

The gross national product of a country is often touted as a sign of its progress. But is it really? Everything that costs money is included in the tally, not just sales of products. The terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center actually increases our GNP because of the costs of rescue, clean-up, and reconstruction. A person dying in a hospital raises the GNP. So does a tornado. So does robbery, because you have to buy things again. There is no debit column to the GNP, particularly not in human terms. However, Ted Halstead and Clifford Cobb have created an alternative measure of the quality of human life that reaches beyond simply economic interactions for its input. They call this the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). In addition to economic productivity it attempts to examine data on social stability, social welfare, environmental welfare, among other things. For more information see their site Redefining Progress.

Economic growth is often seen as a sure sign of progress, but this is a category error as Lewis Mumford noted in his seminal Technics and Civilization. Writing about the way the English ideas of progress were implemented technologically and economically in the colonization of India he wrote that; "In the name of progress, the limited but balanced economy of the Hindu village, with its local potter, its local spinners and weavers, its local smith, was overthrown for the sake of providing a market for the potteries of the Five Towns and the textiles of Manchester and the superfluous hardware of Birmingham. The result was impoverished villages in India, hideous and destitute towns in England, and a great wastage in tonnage and man-power in plying the oceans between: but at all events a victory for progress."

Globalization isn't about progress; it's about development and growth. Moreover it is largely about development and growth out of proportion to the constraints of any particular system, or the system as a whole. This will increase the standard of living for some, decrease it for others, and leave many more right where they were. Progress would be the emergence of a system of technological and economic development and growth that did not distribute wealth primarily to those who are already wealthy and then to those who are lucky. Real progress will come when we learn to measure out technological development against the growth of the human population and gauge them both against the needs that really define our human standard of living, not just our access to food, water and shelter, but our access to free time, to companionship, the company of family and friends, our mental health and our spiritual fulfillment.

When most people use the word progress, they are usually talking about what I call development, or growth, or some combination of the two. Progress is rare, while development and growth aren't. In fact, when development and growth are engaged in excessively they usually create conditions that actively retard the possibility of progress. Moreover, progress is not by definition beneficial to humanity. It implies a leap in complexity and novelty within a system, or the emergence of a new system. Unfortunately this does not necessarily mean that a new state of progress will be helpful to human societies, cultures, or individuals. For example, the progress, or complexity, created by the automobile has not always been advantageous for humanity.

In order to talk about progress, development, growth, and sustainability, it is helpful to define the terms of the discussion. But before we can talk about definitions, we need to introduce, just briefly, the idea of complexity. Complexity theory is a relatively new branch of science that looks at nonlinear adaptive systems, or complex systems. Interaction is the key to complex systems. The greater the level of interaction between the constituents parts of a given system, the greater the possibility that it will organize to new levels of complexity. On the other hand, if there is too much connection, too much noise, the system can disintegrate into chaos. Likewise, if there is too little connectivity, the system can be bogged down in order and lose adaptability. This point between order and chaos is commonly called the "edge of chaos." It's that sweet spot between order and chaos where novelty arises. Imagine for a moment a system of information, like the shared DNA of a bacteria colony. The information in the system can be represented by a bell curve. Too ridged or limited a field of information and the system stagnates in the face of adversity. Too much information in the face of adversity and the system falls into chaos. The "edge of chaos," where emergent properties arise, is on the cusp of the bell curve, where there is enough information to spark novelty, but not so much that the system falls apart; enough order to support this novelty, but not so much as to retard its development.

Complex systems can exhibit emergent qualities and experience organization to higher levels of complexity. An example of complexity in the Earth's physiosphere would be the interaction between the oceans, geological forces, and the atmosphere in the creation of the world climate system. In contrast to complex systems, a complicated system may have a large number of constituent components, but the system as a whole tends to be predictable. An airplane is complicated, while the weather and the economy are complex.

Systems theory, complexity theory, and the like are new paradigms, new tools that can be used to understand the universe, but they are not new worldviews. They are methods that can be used to see the world in a deeper fashion, but they are not the insight itself. Think of different paradigms as colored lenses placed before your eyes. The dark blue lets you see the sky in ways you hadn't while the yellow makes the shadows of the snow visible. Complexity theory doesn't replace the scientific paradigms that preceded it, but instead adds an extra layer of depth to our understanding.

So, now that we're clear on complexity, back to progress and development. First off, progress is a new order of complexity or novelty arising within systems, or systems of complexity arising from the interaction of non-complex components. This novelty occurs at the edge of chaos, between system stagnation and chaotic collapse. Secondly, development is the refinement of existing systems in such a way as to increase the efficiency of the system as a whole or of sub-systems, often in response to an external stimulus. Growth is then the addition to, or expansion of, a system or sub-system. This cannot be accomplished without interaction outside the system. Lastly, sustainability is the driving force behind the action of, and interaction between, progress, development, and growth. If any of the three is not attentive to the sustainability of the whole system, sub-systems, or individual components, there is the possibility of system wide stagnation, or chaotic collapse. Sustainable systems do not need to be balanced on the edge of chaos, but they cannot be immersed in too much chaos or too much order.

Confusing the traditional definitions of progress even more is the notion of "quality of life," which is what is usually meant when the words progress or development are used. Quality of life is what it sounds like. There is no real measure of how good our lives are, but we can take an integral approach and look at them from a couple of perspectives. What is the quality of the physical environment we live in? What is the government we live with like? Is it democratic or totalitarian? Does it have equal access, or is its access to power skewed toward those with wealth? What is our cultural setting like? Do we find ourselves the focus of racial, ethnic, or religious hatred? Are women valued in the culture? Are the elderly? What is our personal experience like? Do we have adequate access to food, clean water, and shelter? Do we have enough wealth to be comfortable? Do we have opportunities for employment? Do we have a stable family life? Is our community safe to live in? These are just a few of the aspects that contribute to the quality of life, and few if any of them are normally considered when talking about progress and development.

Now that we have some definitions, a few examples will help clarify what I mean. The examples focus on the four major aspects of being; the physical, the personal, the cultural and the social. Readers of integral philosopher Ken Wilber will recognize these as his Four Quadrants of Knowledge, a framework he has created for assessing the world from an integral perspective.

In the physical realm examples of progress include; the evolution from matter to life to mind; the emergence of a global atmospheric system capable of supporting life; the emergence from life to mind; and ecologies that emerge suitable to their respective environments, from jungle to desert to ocean floor. In the personal realm examples of progress would be; cognitive shifts between developmental stages of worldview, i.e. from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood etc.; the expression of creative insights; and the expression of cognitive, psychological, informational, or spiritual insight in novel and complex ways. In the cultural realm examples include; cognitive shifts of sociocultural worldviews, i.e. from traditional, to modern to postmodern; the shift from reverence of the male to reverence of male and female; the shift from reverence of nature to reverence of all life; and the shifts from affiliation for the family to affiliation for the community, to fidelity to the nation, to loyalty to the whole of humanity. In the social realm examples of progress would be; the shifts from theocratic to monarchic to democratic forms of government; the increasing representation of the individual in the process of government; a greater balance of the responsibility and rights of individuals with the rights and responsibilities of society at large; and the larger connections between individuals and groups to create novel systems.

Examples of development in the physical realm would then include; the continued adaptation of organisms to their changing ecologies and environments and the continual adaptation of the global weather system to changes in the levels of greenhouse gases. In the personal realm, examples would be the refinement of skills and talents and the realizations of ego-self nature resulting from self-inquiry. In the cultural realm examples of development would be changes in rituals and religions to embrace the ever more inclusiveness. Another would be the shift experienced as reverence for women increases in patriarchal cultures, and one more would be the shift as religions slowly change to accommodate women into positions of leadership and equal participation. In the social realm an example of development would be the refinement of the structures of government that extend the concepts of progress to all levels of a society regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Examples of growth in the physical realm would include; the expansion of ecologies across regions; the expansion of organisms beyond their original ecology; and the physical and biological expansion of an organism from birth through maturity. In the personal realm examples would be physical and psychological growth from birth to maturity and the acquiring of skills, talents, knowledge, etc.. In the cultural realm examples of growth would be the expansion of cultures through war, trade, communication, travel, colonization, or settlement. In the social realm, examples of growth would include population expansion due to increased birth rate or conquest of other societies and increases in personal wealth as well as access to resources.

A commonplace example of the difference between progress, development, and growth is the automobile. The invention of the internal combustion engine was not progress but merely development. It was not a novel new system and while it was complicated, it was not complex. It was a development in the creation of energy for use in industry and transportation, much like the steam engine or the electric motor. While the individual automobile was not complex, millions of them would create novel changes in the larger system of the country. Henry Ford refined the process of manufacturing cars (development) and this resulted in their wider availability. Increases in the number of cars (growth) resulted in increases in the need for roads (growth) and plentiful supplies of oil. This growth of cars and roads led to a new order of complexity (progress) allowing easy transportation around the entire country. This growth increased beyond the levels of sustainability and resulted in traffic jams (overloads of order) and global warming (overloads of chaos).

The way we think about progress, development and growth will in large part determine our future because it will influence the choices we make and the paths we follow. Our current paths are leading us away from real progress and toward a sham version of it consisting almost entirely of massive growth and some small amount of development. This is not to say that the increasing complexity of the world will not result in a genuine progress, such as might arise from a world of interconnected and highly advance computers with a simulacrum of intelligence. However, such a leap in complexity in no way guarantees increased prosperity for humanity at large and may instead provide scenarios that instead threaten human well being.

To change the world we have to contemplate it and the idea progress in particular. Through contemplation we can avoid Hamlet's existential angst, bypassing both feigned and real madness, to know for ourselves the difference between a hawk and a handsaw. So, with that in mind, I leave you with this exercise in contemplating progress:

Take a few minutes out of your day and contemplate the relationship between progress, development, growth, and sustainability in your own life. Do you feel like you are experiencing progress on a personal level? If so, in what ways? Are you engaged in some action of development or some process of growth? How so? Are these forces interacting in a balanced, sustainable way? How are these forces playing out in the relationships you that have with your family members and your friends?

Look around at the world you live in, your town, city, or state. Do you sense progress? What kind of progress? How do you define progress and how does it compare to what you are seeing in your city, your state, or your nation? You may hear about developed and developing countries around the world, but do they seem to be developing? Are they experiencing growth? What about progress? What are the factors that contribute to growth, development and progress in the world? Do you think the world is progressing, or simply growing? Do you feel that it is developing, and if so, how? Are these forces pushing our world system into chaos, or are they drawing us into a stagnation of rigid order? What can we do to contribute to the world system and all its nations remaining sustainable or evolving novel complexities?

Portions of this essay have been adapted from the book The Chrysalis Age: A Handbook for Spiritual and Global Transformation in the New Millennium