Are We Progressing?

 

 

As we know that Progress is a controversial term. It’s difficult to determine what progress exactly means: mere changes?, material progress or urbanization?  Progress ought to make us happier than before. Since some criterion is needed to determine progress, we can take happiness as the touchstone. But different people get happiness in different things; so even this is vague. Nevertheless, sound health, economics securities, social friendship, mental satisfaction are things desired by all.

Progress in the field of medicine: In this field there has been great progress. Life is less painful; more diseases are now curable; the average life span of mankind has gone up.

Machine have made our life more comfortable: Machines have provided us with extra limbs and relieved us of drudgery. But we have also become depended on them. For example- we cannot go without things like AC, fridge, computer etc. If I am able to write this article on blogger it is just because technology and machine.

Education has spread on a large scale: There is more enlightenment, less superstition, less religious fanaticism. Even women have been emancipated to a certain extent. However, there is more anxiety and tension now. We have lost faith in God as wee as in human beings. Life has become extremely fast and competitive. So we are always full of anxiety and tensions. Also we haven’t attended moral and mental maturity. Our life is still of jealousy, selfishness, etc. Emotionally we are still very backward. So what is the conclusion of whole points I mentioned above? It is undeniable that life is changing, but it is very difficult to say that we are progressing towards greater happiness.

Let’s talk more about such points:

If evolution were progress, we could confidently claim as well as demonstrated our progress. But the two terms are not synonyms. And there is total disagreement on the implication of the world,”Progress.”

The miracle of the modern world elicit instantaneous praise, but primitivism all does not lack supporters. Any change in the world brings about a qualitative or quantitative reshuffling of the existing order. It involves a net gain and to counteract it, a net loss. Material progress involves declines of spiritual values. Urbanization has provided us with new facilities of the life but it has caused congestion and it has alienated  man from nature. Thus it appears to be a tricky business to designate changes as decline or progress.

One might suggest happiness to be a touchstone of progress. A change that is conductive to happiness is progress. But happiness too is an ambiguous idea. Some people find pleasure in austerity and self-denial; to an epicurean, happiness consists in self-indulgence. There can certainly be no meeting ground for the two.

We are living in an age of machines. Machines have been described as our extra limbs. We have devised them to relieve us of monotony and drudgery. They have knitted the universe into a single unit. They have also bought everything within the reach of everybody. But we have allowed the machines to become our masters. We have been reduced to helpless dependents on the genie we ourselves control. If the new atomic weapons are also included among machines- and undoubtedly they are machines- one wonders who controls whom. Are we at the mercy of these murderous weapons or are these weapons dead stones without us? Let an Aladdin answer. Similarly, we shall soon be asking: do we control computers or do computer control us?

There has been considerable material progress. Production is quicker, cheaper and at a much larger scale. It has provided man with numerous comforts of life. It has offered new channels of occupation. But industrials production has caused economic disparity. Money has concentrated in a few hands. Economic exploitation has increased. It is like making a man conscious of the need of economic employment and security and then depriving him of any such security.

Today, the school master is also go abroad. There are powerful movements all over the word to educate the masses. We are now more enlightened, less superstitious. Woman has also been emancipated to a certain extent. There is certainly a great deal of awareness in the air. But if we recall the storm against Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, we realize that religious fundamentalism is still very strong. If we think that the concept of a liberated woman is only a myth. We may dream of a world government, but the fact is that more and more countries are getting fragmented. So where is progress?

Our standards of life have gone up breeding unhealthy competition. Our horizons have widened but our life has become dizzy fast. We have no blind faith in any power. In fact, we have no faith at all. Science has shattered our faith in God without giving us any equally powerful substitute. At the same time, Darwin and Freud have introduced us to the seamy side of human nature. WE have thus been provided with all material comforts but someone has snatched from us sprit to enjoy life. We are always strained and tense. We are being singed by the heart of the fire we kindled to enlighten and warm ourselves.

And a word more: Morally and emotionally man has not changed. He is as selfish, as jealous, as possessive, as brutal today as he was in the stone age. But today with the introduction of powerful weapons of war, his jealousy can be fatal for his fellow beings. A power maniac like Hitler can explode the world in a jiffy. This was not possible in the primitive age, is this Progress?

Charles Darwin who propounded the theory of evolution argued that since evolution is continuous, “All corporal and mental environment will tend to progress towards perfection.” Pretty optimistic and assuring, isn’t it?

We are slowly but steadily moving towards perfection. But shall we deny the freedom of expression to such a cynic as Wendell Philips who says, “Every step of progress the world has made has been made from scaffold to scaffold and from stake to stake.”

If you think that this article is worth reading, then please leave your comments and tell me about your own views about progress!