What do we mean by progress?
From left to right, this year’s Interregnum XVI Committee includes students such as: Holly Shavelle, Thomas Gatt, Jackson Fordyce, Abby Smith, Brittany Schrader and Micah Long. I I Photo credit to The King’s College
The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.
Is our world better off than it was 500 years ago? It seems that way. The average lifespan has more than doubled: it used to be a mere 35 years, but now the global average is 72. In the past 50 years, deaths of children within their first year of life has dropped from 18 to 4 out of 100. People can travel around the globe in hours rather than months, and can communicate with people thousands of miles away in seconds. Recently, we’ve gained access to worlds of information all in the palm of our hand through the internet and tiny computers. Further, the institution of slavery in the United States was abolished, women gained the right to vote, and political freedoms like freedom of speech and religion have risen for people all over the world.
It seems as though we’ve made progress!
However, we wonder if that’s all there is to the story. Is material well-being the only standard for progress? Here are some other telling indicators: depression is on the rise among Millennials and Gen-Zs. Those devices we carry in the palm of our hands may be part of what’s causing it: screen time, hyper-connectivity, and loss of face-to-face community are some of the leading factors in the increase of mental illness. Our life expectancy is higher, but suicide is the second leading cause of death for people from 15-44 years old. Race-based slavery is illegal, but sex slavery is on the rise, with over 400,000 victims in the United States. Infant mortality is on track to being zero, and yet 18 out of 100 pregnancies end in abortion.
Have we really made progress? It depends on what we mean by progress.
Here’s my question: what is the goal of those measures we usually call “progress”? Technological advances so often get to march by, praised and unquestioned. But what are they progressing towards? That’s usually left unasked. In a world of perpetual technological advancement and social change, we risk hurtling forward on an unexamined path with unexamined ends.
A study of progress demands we examine the assumptions underlying the notion of progress and the competing conceptions of the Good towards which we aim.
There are two competing narratives that the Interregnum readings explore. Brave New World depicts the extreme end of one of them. The “World State,” revolving around science and efficiency, seems to have eradicated disease, sadness (just take Soma!), and uncertainty. Yet the certainty and sterility is uncomfortable: they’ve conditioned emotions and individuality out of each person, and there are no lasting relationships as “everyone belongs to everyone else.”
What motivates this “Progress Gone Wrong”? Around the time of the Enlightenment, people began to treat science not as something used to categorize and understand the natural world, but instead as a tool used to conquer the natural world. Francis Bacon wrote of a world where science replaced God in the temple, and scientific advances were used by man to overcome scarcity and pain. For Bacon, conquering nature with science was the highest end of politics. B. F. Skinner, influenced by Bacon, took this one step further, writing not only about conquering nature, but controlling human nature. This conception of progress leaked into much of modern thought, convincing us that human nature is perfectible and fundamentally limitless, and that natural reason deserves our submission more than revealed truth.
Their goal? Utopia. Perfection. That’s the end of progress.
Philippians tells an opposite story. The “Philippian Hymn” in chapter 2 shows Jesus choosing not to exalt himself as equal to God when he could have, even though that meant humiliation and an awful death. However, his humility and sacrifice on the cross led to his glorification. This model colors the way we read the rest of Paul's instructions to the Philippians: the arc of Christ’s life, sacrifice before glory, should guide the Christian life. More broadly, it’s a model for human flourishing.
The Brave New World view of progress seeks to exalt man -- “we shall be as gods” -- to mold nature and human nature to their will. In the Philippians depiction, the man already in the likeness of God humbles himself, ultimately bringing all creation into subjection to the will and glory of God.
As the King’s community wrestles with the theme and readings for the year, I hope we’ll investigate what assumption underlies our race for progress.
Is progress motivated by the ambition to conquer nature and achieve perfection? Or do we progress in virtue by surrendering our interests to the demands of sacrificial love? What are other narratives underlying the idea of progress, aside from the two articulated above?
Progress ultimately seems to be about wanting a better life, a better world. But we must ask: what do we want that world to look like? And what are our means of arriving there?