Is progress real?

[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.

[antisocialmunky]

I've always thought that isms are bad. They can pigeon hole you into a corner because each ideology comes with its own prepackaged barrel of monkeys. That and they are a rather limitting way of analysing something. Maybe for just looking at something from a certain perspective but getting stuck in those mindsets can do more harm than good.

Also, don't you think that 'post modern' is kinda a silly adjective?

[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.

[Parallel Pain]

Progress is real all right.

Basically there's three view of world history and trends

Cyclical: everything repeats and repeats. This is the sort-of Confucian theory of dynastic cycle

Unchanging: it never changes. This is the sort-of middle-ages concept that they exist in a time between the first coming of Christ and the Second and nothing else matters.

Linear: This is the sort-of "modern" concept in which everything changes and build on previous changes (now precieved to often be for the better).

All three are true in their own rights. History is changing and unchanging and cyclical and not. It's just which aspect of history a culture chooses to emphasize. Modern culture (itself a human construct in relatively recent times) choose to emphasize Linear aspect.

This does not mean there is no "progress" or one direction change taking place in the cultures with the other two views, but that they simply regard it as another piece in their puzzle, as modern culture regards the other two views the same way.

As for whether or not progress is a good thing, it is perfectly debatable. Good for what, to who/what, in what time frame and in what way.

To me progress is good because I know
- the life expectancy of my fellow countrymen is over 70 years as opposed to 25~35
- if I every have children the chance of they dying before age 7 due to disease is miniscule (as opposed to over 50%)
- famine and a sudden new disease would not combine to wipe out half the population
- that unemployment even in a recession wouldn't sky rocket to the point of causing a revolution (at least in my country) but is actually quite low (relatively speaking)
- No one, not even the leader of my country, can take away my belongings by force or extort me into giving away my property
- There are government and other institutions designed to help me survive and live a normal life no matter what my condition is
- That in my country there is a great deal of social mobility. My parents don't have to be an aristocrat and I don't have to go onto the battlefield and fight with distinction to obtain power if I shall ever wish to do so (and I'm not interested)
- That the government controls minimum wage and price of necessities strictly so that even at minimum wage a full time worker do not have to spend every single penny just to get by (unless spent unwisely).
- That I do not have to be extremely powerful or rich or trying to spread religion to travel to other places in the world, and I can do so for leisure purposes.
- That before the law all my countrymen are (in theory) equal. If I am convicted the same crime as my dying father, the general-in-chief, or the Queen I could be expected to recieve similar sentences instead of they paying a $1000 fine and me getting executed.

And lots more.

[Moros]

I think the problem is just that progress, good, bad, real, unreal, true or false ... is presented here as black and white. And that's simply never the case. There's nothing that's purely good. We all know that. So what's OP's point?

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Actually, I say that there has been both progress and degeneration since the year 1700. The most obvious facet, of course, is that of mass factory production generating more and cheaper goods.