Is progress real?

[ziegenpeter]

I'd like to know what leads you to the assertion "'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way." because I think this is highly debatable.
Is this a) an empirical observation you did yourself or b) do you have a source fo that? If a) I wonder what your definition of progress is, why this is a modern construct and how progress can make things worse.

[WinsingtonIII]

I'd like to know what leads you to the assertion "'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way." because I think this is highly debatable.
Is this a) an empirical observation you did yourself or b) do you have a source fo that? If a) I wonder what your definition of progress is, why this is a modern construct and how progress can make things worse.

Well, it all depends on how you define progress. Here are a couple definitions I found:

"the development of an individual or society in a direction considered more beneficial than and superior to the previous level."

"developmental activity in science, technology, etc., esp. with reference to the commercial opportunities created thereby or to the promotion of the material well-being of the public through the goods, techniques, or facilities created."

Now, the first implies that progress is a development that is "considered more beneficial," which does not mean that everyone agrees with that claim. It means that the dominant culture of society considers it beneficial, not necessarily everybody. For example, when the French Revolution occurred, a lot of people benefited and received rights, but a minority (the nobility, who I realize it is difficult to feel sorry for) got screwed. If you agree with the conflict theory of social change, then social change will inevitably lead to winners and losers, and "progress" certainly isn't beneficial to the losers.

The second definition is more specific, but I think it's actually more useful because it shows modern, Western society's bias in assigning the term progress. Here, progress is improvement in material well-being. That says a lot on it's own. What about social, mental, or spiritual well-being? They aren't included, what we call progress is an improvement in the public's economic position. Marx's view of the progress made in the transition from feudal to capitalist society fits in here well. He acknowledges that the proletariat are actually in a better economic position as workers then they were as serfs, but he says they are socially alienated from their work and their fellow workers. He also says that though everyone's position will improve in capitalist society, inequality will also increase, so the relative position of the poor will be even worse than before. It's not just Marx either, plenty of people view economic and technological "progress" as detrimental to their way of life.

I think ASM is right on some accounts. Progress is a subjective word, we cannot say whether it is inherently good or bad, because someone is (almost) always going to be hurt by what society considers progress. As for empirically testing whether progress in it's entirety is beneficial or not, I wish you luck, that's an extraordinarily vast sociological undertaking.

If you want a source, read Capital by Karl Marx, or The Division of Labour in Society by Emile Durkheim. I'd like to point out that though Marx is of course a famous socialist, it is not only socialists that take this view of what we call "progress," but in fact many other sociologists, such as Durkheim, who is actually considered to be conservative in some aspects.

[antisocialmunky]

I'd like to know what leads you to the assertion "'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way." because I think this is highly debatable.
Is this a) an empirical observation you did yourself or b) do you have a source fo that? If a) I wonder what your definition of progress is, why this is a modern construct and how progress can make things worse.

K... You introduce mechanized agriculture to a developping country. You can now grow more food. However tons of people are now out of work since 1 guy can now do the work of 100. They flock to the cities, can't find jobs, and set up shanty towns.

Congrats you are now like 70% of the world.


You set up a massive irrigation network in the desert. You grow massive amounts of food for 4 years before you destroy the soil due to salt and mineral build up. The land is now useless.

Congrats, you are now Sonora, Mexico.

[bobbin]

You invent Penicillin and save the lives of millions of people...

People have always been trying to better their situation, its certainly not a modern concept.
I suppose the problem is that the term "progress" implies that there is a final goal to be reached which when you apply to human civilization as a whole is a pretty vague ideal of making people safer in the long run, there is no real scale to measure our achievements against.

[antisocialmunky]

Since everyone seems to have an imprecise definition. The closest definition to what I'm defining progress is the one on Wikipedia.

Progress is a change in ideologies, technologies or methods which allows mankind to engage in activities which it was previously unable to engage in or allows it to engage more efficiently in existing activities.

Its hard to not do a circular definition. I would define it more broadly as working towards a preceived benefit. In modern western society, this is unconditionally good. Progress will fix everything. However, back in the day progress was more of a neutral thing.

The old attitude was something along the lines of:
"Your new method might be better but and we can already do that just fine."

Its not until you have capitalism + humanism that you have the idea of comparative advantage and the notion that A is better than B so we should do A now because we can make more money or do more X or make more Y and humans are the masters of our own destiny and humans can decide what's best on their own.

There's a reason why none of those totally awesome inventions back in the days of Heron and Archimedes were adapted for common use. There's a reason why China innovated so many things and didn't take them any further. There's a reason why Europe took over the whole freaking world and capitalism owns all previous forms of economies.

[WinsingtonIII]

You invent Penicillin and save the lives of millions of people...

People have always been trying to better their situation, its certainly not a modern concept.
I suppose the problem is that the term "progress" implies that there is a final goal to be reached which when you apply to human civilization as a whole is a pretty vague ideal of making people safer in the long run, there is no real scale to measure our achievements against.

It is a modern concept in that the philosophical idea of progress was introduced in the Enlightenment. Before that, the philosophy was that God(s) makes society and we can't do anything, mere mortals that we are, to improve it. That doesn't mean change didn't occur and ideas and tools were not invented or used to benefit people, it was just that people didn't really think of these instances as being a progression towards a better society. That part of the idea came later.

The problem is that we are so used to the term "progress" that we tend to use it as a word meaning "change." But it doesn't really mean that. It's an abstract philosophical idea created by modern, Western society that encompasses far more than simply change, it's also the accompanying idea that society itself has been "improved" in the process. What ASM is arguing (and also what I was arguing in my earlier post at the bottom of page two) is that this intellectual position, that technological, scientific, and capitalist economic advancement tends to improve society, is not always true. However, there are other modern ideas of progress (namely the socialist idea of progress towards a socialist utopia) that do not follow this model. But this model (the neo-liberal model) that puts a lot of emphasis on technology, science, individual liberties, and unregulated capitalism as the basis of a better society, is the vastly accepted model in the Western elite (and hence the definition we see in the dictionary), and is driving the movement for globalization and global economic liberalization, which is in turn screwing over small farmers worldwide.

That is not to say that the neo-liberal model of progress does not introduce much good into this world, as in the case of Penicillin. But it also can produce bad outcomes, which is why saying "progress" is universally good doesn't compute. It has its good moments and its bad moments.

The old attitude was something along the lines of:
"Your new method might be better but and we can already do that just fine."

I don't really think that's true ASM. Sure, many ancient and medieval societies were conservative, but others were more open to change, and it's not like new ideas and inventions were never accepted into pre-modern societies. What about the development of the three-field crop rotation in the early Middle Ages? That was certainly the introduction of a new idea, and people (especially nobles) jumped to incorporate it, because it made them more rich. The distinction is that when these introductions occurred, there was no idea that society was going to be improved or perfected by the introductions. That's the difference between modern "progress" and the earlier introduction of inventions and ideas, it's not that nothing new was introduced into society before the Enlightenment, it's just that this idea of social progress did not accompany that introduction.

[bobbin]

It is a modern concept in that the philosophical idea of progress was introduced in the Enlightenment. Before that, the philosophy was that God(s) makes society and we can't do anything, mere mortals that we are, to improve it. That doesn't mean change didn't occur and ideas and tools were not invented or used to benefit people, it was just that people didn't really think of these instances as being a progression towards a better society. That part of the idea came later.

Ah I see now, very good point.

That is not to say that the neo-liberal model of progress does not introduce much good into this world, as in the case of Penicillin. But it also can produce bad outcomes, which is why saying "progress" is universally good doesn't compute. It has its good moments and its bad moments.

I wasn't arguing that "progress" is always good as its plain to see it isn't in many cases.

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

Yes it has gone a bit OT, but I think the question was answered a while back (not definitely though)

I'm not one of these factions historians, so I could be wrong. But I believe they agreed not to make a female unit but potentially have a rare female within a unit.

[antisocialmunky]

I don't really think that's true ASM. Sure, many ancient and medieval societies were conservative, but others were more open to change, and it's not like new ideas and inventions were never accepted into pre-modern societies. What about the development of the three-field crop rotation in the early Middle Ages? That was certainly the introduction of a new idea, and people (especially nobles) jumped to incorporate it, because it made them more rich. The distinction is that when these introductions occurred, there was no idea that society was going to be improved or perfected by the introductions. That's the difference between modern "progress" and the earlier introduction of inventions and ideas, it's not that nothing new was introduced into society before the Enlightenment, it's just that this idea of social progress did not accompany that introduction.

True people accepted those things because they were better. However, that's a pretty simple one to implement because it wasn't very esoteric.

But when you get into the zone of medical science, machines, physics, chemistry, and other complicated things. You usually have periods of innovation in the lifespan of one person and then everyone just copied that one person instead of realizing that they should take it further.

So I guess I should clarify that to:
"Your new method might be better but its too complex to implement and we can already do that just fine."

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

Something about boobs quite possibly.

[Brennus]

It all depends if you consider yourself a Modernist or Post-Modernist philosophically speaking. Was the 20th Century a great period of human advancement (silicon chip, internet, anti-biotics, UN, space travel, unlocking the genome etc.) or was it a period when we realised that no matter how many technological advancements we made we were still stuck in a quagmire (c. 20,000,000 dead in WWI, c. 60,000,000 dead in WWII, destruction of the environment, new and efficient methods of killing each other, mass unemployment due to increased mechanisation and industrialisation etc)? If you think the former then you are Modernist and hence believe in the inevitability of progress, if you follow the latter you are Post-Modernist and thus do not believe in progress.

NOTE: I am an Archaeologist not a Philosopher or Sociologist so people mre qualified than me in these matters please feel free to correct me.

[machinor]

Well, while your point is valid, I personally do not like that kind of strict dichotomies. Progress is not either good or bad, it's ambivalent. There is a very interesting essay by Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist and philosopher, which deals partly with the self-understanding of Modern civilisation (basically Europe from the Early Modern Period on) as a civilisation that tries to force the world to become different than it is (in the sense of improving it). This is of course a noble goal on one hand, on the other hand it is also one that is very violent in its consequence.

[WinsingtonIII]

It all depends if you consider yourself a Modernist or Post-Modernist philosophically speaking. Was the 20th Century a great period of human advancement (silicon chip, internet, anti-biotics, UN, space travel, unlocking the genome etc.) or was it a period when we realised that no matter how many technological advancements we made we were still stuck in a quagmire (c. 20,000,000 dead in WWI, c. 60,000,000 dead in WWII, destruction of the environment, new and efficient methods of killing each other, mass unemployment due to increased mechanisation and industrialisation etc)? If you think the former then you are Modernist and hence believe in the inevitability of progress, if you follow the latter you are Post-Modernist and thus do not believe in progress.

Your philosophy seems sound to me, but I would agree with Machinor in that we cannot universally label something as huge as "progress" as good or bad inherently, or decide whether it exists or it doesn't. In my opinion, it's obvious that "progress" has lead to great things (the eradication of smallpox, awesome TW mods like EB) and also terrible things (nuclear weapons, DRM technology). I also think it's pretty silly to deny that any good things have happened simply because other bad things have happened too, that's just the nature of change. I think it's more useful to look at the issue from a sociological perspective instead of a philosophical one. The philosophers tend to try to put huge labels of "good" and "bad" around things like this, while sociology is much more objective. Remember that even Marx, who is remembered as the world's most vocal critic of what is considered progress by modern, capitalist society, still admitted that in many areas, the workers had been benefited by the switch from feudal to capitalist society. He just maintained that in other areas, things were worse than before. Of course, Marx has his own idea of progress (inevitable progress towards a socialist utopia) that goes completely against the neo-liberal theory of progress we are discussing here and just complicates the discussion even further. Marx is weird in that his critique of modern, capitalist society and its idea of progress is fairly objective and scientific, but in his creation of his own model of progress he is extremely philosophical and idealistic.