Coping with an increasingly secularized world

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

A lot of people simply are not nice.

 

The latter is celebrated.

 

From the moment we are born we are promised "progress" if we will just follow the rules.

 

However, if you follow the rules you get stepped on and run over by the people who are making the rules.

 

The people who do not follow the rules rise to the top, supported by those who promise us "progress" if we will just follow the rules.

 

Then when things do not go well us who follow the rules are to blame. The goal posts are moved. If we would just give African-Americans equal opportunity... Well, we elected an African-American to two terms as President of the United States of America--an office considered to be the most powerful in the world. Alas, things are not going well. Among other things, anthropogenic climate change is getting worse. I hear the goal posts moving. It is our fault--us who have followed the rules. If we would just elect a woman President of the United States of America, we will get "progress".

 

Does any of this remind you of "The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf!' "?

 

Morris Berman, in his blog "Dark Ages America" pointed out in a post that Americans do not treat each other well and that the sitcom "Seinfeld" was created to show us how we treat each other.

 

It is like some of us are fools who have been duped. We have followed the rules. We have supported the ideologies, causes, political candidates, etc. that we are supposed to. We have run a fine-tooth comb over our thoughts, words and actions and eliminated all of the politically incorrect behavior from ourselves that we can. We have switched from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent lamps. Yet, our reward is that we get treated like crap. Progress!

 

Steven Pinker even lambastes us in books like "Enlightenment Now" for not being appreciative enough and grateful enough. If you point out that, oh, we killed millions of Native Americans to carry out this Enlightenment you will be told that you are a "progressophobe". Have you no shame?

 

The problem is that there is no escape. Even if there is something sacred; something deeply spiritual; something intellectually and spiritually holistic; something transcendental; etc. out there, it is very well obscured and hidden. I work all day almost every day of the week just to survive. I do not have the luxury of the time, energy and money to use to find this escape.

 

Forget about organized religion in its present state. They have been playing by the rules themselves. Kind of an illusion to believe that you are escaping--look at all the cars in the parking lot.

 

Will we even be able to enjoy a quiet walk in nature much longer?

 

Show me a political candidate calling for the sacred to be restored to public space and I will show you somebody probably being threatened by the ACLU.

 

Progress. The West's gift to the universe.

[uhtred]

I don't think its a bad as you think it is.  There are advances and backslides, but over time I think the advances have outweighed the backslides. 

 

Just in the last couple of days, Saudi Arabia gave women the right to drive. Should have happened long ago, but at least its improved. 

 

When I was young it was illegal to be gay in many parts of the US.  Now we have openly gay politicians, and characters in popular movies.

 

Despite the impression the media gives, worldwide hunger war, disease are all declining. 

 

Climate change is bad - but action is being taken. I've seen the huge wind and solar farms in China - a country that used to have no concern at all about the environment. 

 

There is open space in the US.   Even in "crowded" California there are huge wilderness areas.  There are place you can walk for over a week in a nearly straight line and never see a road or town.  There are dozens of miles of coastline that can only be reached by multi-day hikes.   In empty states like Idaho or to take an extreme, Alaska there are vast areas of true wilderness, no trails, nothing. Places where bears will eat you if you don't know what you are doing.

 

There are still huge problems but there is improvement. 

 

What sort of spiritual are you looking for?  It still possible to live far from other people in a quiet small community or even isolated house if that is what you want.  Of course doing so you have to give up many of societies technological innovations, but that seems a fair trade. 

 

What sort of sacred do you want? People have very different ideas of what is sacred to them.  Near where I love there are churches, mosques,  Buddhist prayer wheels, wilderness, etc.  

 

 

 

[gisiebob]

progress isn't a destination. the things we achieve do not become lesser for wanting to achieve more.

progress isn't a single direction. for every mind there is a different desired way to go. we are walk through the wilderness and where we have never been there are no trails.

now, as far as rules go, I promise you everyone does their share of blindly following the rules. but again everyone has their own different copy of the rules. for every unjustified thing done to any of us someone had a justification.

 

don't know what this all has to do with secularism

 

[Karst]

OP, you're not drawing a clear thread of cause to effect.

 

  As for your point about the Enlightenment, it was, at least in part, a reaction against various forms of brutality.  Consider, for a moment, how many philosophers of that era spoke out against slavery.  Just about every major thinker was firmly against it.  Without the Enlightenment, we wouldn't have many ideas that are indispensable today, such as cultural relativism.  Before you tear out a tree, consider the soil its roots are holding in place.

 

If you're trying to make the argument that science erases wonder and spirituality from the physical world, I'll happily offer my lived experiences as a counterexample.  I am both an ardent Christian and a science major, and I've never seen the two as mutually exclusive, or somehow contradictory.  The more I learn about how the world works, the more awe I feel in nature.  Consider, for a moment, the immensity of geologic time.  (I know this is becoming a bit of a tangent.  Give it a moment, and it will resolve.)

When I consider the billions of years that make up the lifespan of our planet, a phenomenon my ancestors knew nothing of, I feel an immense respect for this world, and for its Creator.  Without the science you're maligning, my contemplations would be much smaller and poorer.

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

8 minutes ago, Ardoise said:

OP, you're not drawing a clear thread of cause to effect.

 

  As for your point about the Enlightenment, it was, at least in part, a reaction against various forms of brutality.  Consider, for a moment, how many philosophers of that era spoke out against slavery.  Just about every major thinker was firmly against it.  Without the Enlightenment, we wouldn't have many ideas that are indispensable today, such as cultural relativism.  Before you tear out a tree, consider the soil its roots are holding in place.

 

If you're trying to make the argument that science erases wonder and spirituality from the physical world, I'll happily offer my lived experiences as a counterexample.  I am both an ardent Christian and a science major, and I've never seen the two as mutually exclusive, or somehow contradictory.  The more I learn about how the world works, the more awe I feel in nature.  Consider, for a moment, the immensity of geologic time.  (I know this is becoming a bit of a tangent.  Give it a moment, and it will resolve.)

When I consider the billions of years that make up the lifespan of our planet, a phenomenon my ancestors knew nothing of, I feel an immense respect for this world, and for its Creator.  Without the science you're maligning, my contemplations would be much smaller and poorer.

 

Before I can respond I need to know where I attacked the Enlightenment or maligned science.

[Karst]

23 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Steven Pinker even lambastes us in books like "Enlightenment Now" for not being appreciative enough and grateful enough. If you point out that, oh, we killed millions of Native Americans to carry out this Enlightenment you will be told that you are a "progressophobe". Have you no shame?

Here's that attack on the Enlightenment.

[Karst]

As for attacks on science, it was effectively implicit in your criticizing the notion of "progress".  In the groups I frequent, the term is pretty much synonymous with increases in scientific knowledge.

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

26 minutes ago, Ardoise said:

Here's that attack on the Enlightenment.

 

No, Steven Pinker attacks people for not showing appreciation and gratitude towards the Enlightenment.

 

In other words, it is not enough to follow the rules (continuously educate yourself to stay scientifically literate; support science financially and politically; etc.). The fact that I have been educating myself for several years about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, quantum physics, evolution by natural selection, and climate science and bringing them up in many conversations at work, with strangers, over Thanksgiving dinner, etc. is not enough.

 

No, you have to feel a certain way about science. You have to be nothing but grateful and appreciative towards science. Or Steven Pinker will tell you that you are a failure morally.

 

 

34 minutes ago, Ardoise said:

As for attacks on science, it was effectively implicit in your criticizing the notion of "progress".  In the groups I frequent, the term is pretty much synonymous with increases in scientific knowledge.

 

That is not what I am talking about.

 

I am talking about the utopia that we are promised from the moment we are born if we will just follow the rules.

 

Scientists should be able to appreciate what I am talking about. They have followed the rules but it is never good enough. No matter what scientists accomplish the goal posts move and attacks come from all directions. "We appreciate that your work has given us antibiotics, but do not question our economic practices with your climate science. You would not have jobs without that economy, you know".

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

15 hours ago, uhtred said:

I don't think its a bad as you think it is.  There are advances and backslides, but over time I think the advances have outweighed the backslides. 

 

Just in the last couple of days, Saudi Arabia gave women the right to drive. Should have happened long ago, but at least its improved. 

 

When I was young it was illegal to be gay in many parts of the US.  Now we have openly gay politicians, and characters in popular movies.

 

Despite the impression the media gives, worldwide hunger war, disease are all declining. 

 

Climate change is bad - but action is being taken. I've seen the huge wind and solar farms in China - a country that used to have no concern at all about the environment.

 

The goal posts keep moving.

 

No matter what you do, everything is your fault.

 

Like public school teachers who understood and followed the rules. Now they are told that everything is their fault. To add injury to insult, their pensions that they were promised are not being paid.

 

 

15 hours ago, uhtred said:

There is open space in the US.   Even in "crowded" California there are huge wilderness areas.  There are place you can walk for over a week in a nearly straight line and never see a road or town.  There are dozens of miles of coastline that can only be reached by multi-day hikes.   In empty states like Idaho or to take an extreme, Alaska there are vast areas of true wilderness, no trails, nothing. Places where bears will eat you if you don't know what you are doing.

 

For now, anyway.

 

 

15 hours ago, uhtred said:

What sort of spiritual are you looking for?  It still possible to live far from other people in a quiet small community or even isolated house if that is what you want.  Of course doing so you have to give up many of societies technological innovations, but that seems a fair trade. 

 

What sort of sacred do you want? People have very different ideas of what is sacred to them.  Near where I love there are churches, mosques,  Buddhist prayer wheels, wilderness, etc.

 

In the simplest terms: anything that has not been objectified.

 

It is awfully, awfully difficult to find something that can be appreciated for its intrinsic qualities and to have the time, energy and other required resources to experience that appreciation.

 

The culture that I been enculturated into and cannot escape has no patience or tolerance for the sacred. Everything either is the next new thing that must be consumed or is an impediment to "progress".

[Anthracite_Impreza]

4 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

In the simplest terms: anything that has not been objectified.

 

It is awfully, awfully difficult to find something that can be appreciated for its intrinsic qualities and to have the time, energy and other required resources to experience that appreciation.

 

The culture that I been enculturated into and cannot escape has no patience or tolerance for the sacred. Everything either is the next new thing that must be consumed or is an impediment to "progress".

Just because others have objectified things doesn't mean you have to. Most people objectify vehicles but I don't, I fucking hate it and will defend them til my dying day no matter what anyone says. Everyone who knows me knows I won't give in to their shit and treat vehicles like dirt, like they've been taught to do. I know better, you know better, stand by it.

[mausgrau]

Well, I've never encountered anything "sacred"/"spiritual"/"holistic"/"transcendental"/"obscured and hidden" etc. that wasn't a con, as far as I could see.

 

[FindingTheta]

Politically incorrect behavior depends on what political ideology is the norm. An anarchist burning a flag and yelling ACAB would be politically incorrect behavior to the conservative and the neoliberal, so would my criticism of the political mainstream's goal of more women CEO's in environmentally damaging and politically destabilizing industries. An African-American president is fine to the mainstream, so long as he doesn't challenge the status quo that has made us rich at the expense of the global south and the Middle East.

 

Progress is mostly aesthetic in nature, but made to give that feeling of accomplishment while serving capitalism. Consume now, and we'll donate a fraction of a cent of the dollar we made to save the whales, while the item one purchased will end up in a landfill in a short period of time. Any challenge to capitalism is absorbed and commodified, or redefined and vilified.

 

 

[Alawyn-Aebt]

7 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

The culture that I been enculturated into and cannot escape has no patience or tolerance for the sacred.

What is this sacred you are after? You say, "anything that has not been objectified," but everything has had and always will have the possibility of being objectified. You can stop objectifying things for yourself, but by definition nothing that exists physically can be intrinsically subjective.

8 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

No, you have to feel a certain way about science. You have to be nothing but grateful and appreciative towards science. Or Steven Pinker will tell you that you are a failure morally.

Science has granted humanity enormous benefits. Yes humans have messed up, but the legacy of colonialism is not directly connected to science or progress. Did the people of the time claim on (pseudo)scientific grounds that what they were doing was good for the colonized? Yes, but one runs into the same logical issues similar to saying the USSR was communist.

The USSR was never communist, it was never even truly socialist (one could argue that its economy was socialist, but it lacked other socialist features. But that is another argument); anyone who has read Marx can easily see how the USSR differed from anything he wrote.

Same thing with science. The colonizers justified themselves by science, but anyone who knows a smattering of science can easily see how the (pseudo)science the colonizers used differed from the prime principles of science.

[Karst]

@Aebt, good point.  The only way to dispel the kind of pseudoscientific myths that people have, historically and in the present day, used to justify hurting others is through good science.  

[Calligraphette_Coe]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm only alive because of that nebulous thing called 'progress'. I sure wouldn't want t to return to less secular times-- such as the Middle Ages where everything was viewed through the lens of 'the sacred'. Except that when 'the sacred' came up against the Black Death, which killed half the population of Europe, it was completely powerless to stop it and tried to say that it all happened because it was God's punishment for whatever the religionists didn't like at the time. During that time, Jews were often the scapegoats and were slaughtered.

 

I somewhat agree with Pinker-- we still have a long way to go, but that alone can't expunged the horrors of the past. And the only proof we have against all this happening again is a reliance on the scientific method and the instintual human tendency to bind together when finding one's society in the face of extinction. That people are real shits to each other is just part of the evolutionary version of the game called The Prisoner's Dilemma.

[uhtred]

Hasn't science allowed us to appreciate some things more?  Faint lights in the sky are revealed as nebula, or even galaxies with hundreds of billions of starts with amazing symmetries.   We've learned about matter on fine scales as well, from the beauty of snowflakes to crystals to the still being discovered rules that drive the parameters of elementary particles.   We know that the universe is not just a few thousand points of light but ten thousand billion billion stars, many with worlds, some of which might be like ours.

 

Science and technology allows us to enjoy nature without being threatened by it.   The natural world is a very unpleasant place without the protections of technology.  (here of course technology includes technology developed by cultures that didn't necessarily have metal)

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

8 hours ago, Aebt said:

What is this sacred you are after? You say, "anything that has not been objectified," but everything has had and always will have the possibility of being objectified. You can stop objectifying things for yourself, but by definition nothing that exists physically can be intrinsically subjective.

 

We barely get the opportunity anymore to appreciate the intrinsic dignity, value, worth, etc. of things.

 

Through mass communication, mass culture, etc. nearly everything is presented as an object to be evaluated based solely on its instrumental value in secularized institutions and space.

 

The fuel that probably powers this objectification process the most is the myth of progress. Anything that is an impediment to progress, including entire populations of people, must go.

 

 

8 hours ago, Aebt said:

Science has granted humanity enormous benefits. Yes humans have messed up, but the legacy of colonialism is not directly connected to science or progress. Did the people of the time claim on (pseudo)scientific grounds that what they were doing was good for the colonized? Yes, but one runs into the same logical issues similar to saying the USSR was communist.

The USSR was never communist, it was never even truly socialist (one could argue that its economy was socialist, but it lacked other socialist features. But that is another argument); anyone who has read Marx can easily see how the USSR differed from anything he wrote.

Same thing with science. The colonizers justified themselves by science, but anyone who knows a smattering of science can easily see how the (pseudo)science the colonizers used differed from the prime principles of science.

 

I did not bring up science. Somebody else brought it up.

 

I did not bring up colonialism.

 

I said that the goal posts get moved. We are promised "progress" if we will just follow the rules. We follow the rules. Things turn out bad. The goal posts are moved and those of us who followed the rules are blamed for things turning out bad. Steven Pinker apparently goes farther and says that if you come up short of the newly positioned goal posts you are a moral failure.

 

Pointing out historical facts makes you a moral failure.

 

Trying to see the forest rather than a few ideological trees makes you a moral failure.

 

Trying to show how everything is interconnected--that nothing happens in a historic, social or geographic vacuum--makes you a moral failure.

 

Get out of your pessimistic, unappreciative, ungrateful funk, you wolf! Do not be bringing up historical and geographic facts like the ones that remind us that other people did not invent the wheel like us geniuses did because there were no animals in their environment that were suitable for domestication. You are impeding my flock known as progress! "Wolf! Wolf!"

 

I wonder where the goal posts will be moved next. Maybe after we have all given up religion like we are supposed to and things still turn out bad we will be told that it is all our fault and if we would just give up the illusion of free will...

 

Progress. The West's gift to the universe.

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

7 hours ago, Calligraphette_Coe said:

Maybe it's just me, but I'm only alive because of that nebulous thing called 'progress'. I sure wouldn't want t to return to less secular times-- such as the Middle Ages where everything was viewed through the lens of 'the sacred'. Except that when 'the sacred' came up against the Black Death, which killed half the population of Europe, it was completely powerless to stop it and tried to say that it all happened because it was God's punishment for whatever the religionists didn't like at the time. During that time, Jews were often the scapegoats and were slaughtered.

 

I somewhat agree with Pinker-- we still have a long way to go, but that alone can't expunged the horrors of the past. And the only proof we have against all this happening again is a reliance on the scientific method and the instintual human tendency to bind together when finding one's society in the face of extinction. That people are real shits to each other is just part of the evolutionary version of the game called The Prisoner's Dilemma.

 

For a long time I intuitively sensed that people I interacted with were acting according to something I did not have. I searched and searched for many years trying to figure out what it was. Then I had a breakthrough. I discovered that Western philosophers invented something several centuries ago: the idea of progress.

 

The idea of progress was what other people had that I did not have.

 

I continued to dig deeper. Then I made another discovery: a significant number of thinkers have argued that the idea of progress is a myth.

 

Then, this past winter, I discovered an idea that even I on the fringes/margins of the contemporary intellectual landscape probably never would have imagined: not only is progress a myth, it is a myth steeped in racism, sexism and imperialism. I was somewhat shocked by this discovery. However, once I recovered from the shock and it all sunk in, I did not feel the least bit surprised. To be honest, I felt like a massive, debilitating weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt relieved.

 

I had taken an almost constant beating for a long time for what is apparently a major crime in the society that I was born in: not believing in progress.

 

"How can you not believe in progress?! We abolished slavery. Women now have the right to vote. If you have a toothache you don't die from it--we have modern dentistry. How can you not believe in progress?!".

 

Well, as the philosopher John Gray has pointed out, not believing in progress is not the same thing as not believing that we have made improvements.

 

Not believing in progress means not believing that we are on a linear path where things will only keep getting better and better for more and more people. Not believing in progress means recognizing that while technology helps solve problems it creates new problems. Not believing in progress means recognizing that bad things have not been eradicated, they have just changed form--the institution of slavery was simply exported to Third World sweatshops, Gray says.

 

However, I do not think that you can really understand how anybody could not believe in progress without understanding this: the rejection of the idea of progress is, I believe, at its core really the rejection of the idea that a world made in the image of Western white men is utopia and that anything that does not match that image must be eradicated.

 

According to what I have read in books like "Grassroots Post-Modernisn: Remaking the Soil of Cultures", by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri-Prakash, there are people in the world who have managed to maintain their cultures, identities and land in spite of the devastating interruptions of the past 500 years; these people have only suffered from "progress"; and they are waiting for the opportunity to resume their journey on their own paths.

 

It has been a long, difficult, trying, yet spiritually and intellectually fulfilling journey as I have become conscious of and struggled with the myth of progress.

 

Wisdom is hard-earned.

 

I never really understood or appreciated how hard-earned wisdom is until I read what I read this past winter about the true nature of what I had been struggling with for so long. Do you want to see my source? It is "The P Word", by Stan Goff: https://medium.com/@stangoff/the-p-word-a-half-assed-political-autobiography-cee0992f3992

 

Now, no longer with such a heavy load to carry, I am trying to figure out how to live outside of the myth of progress. I already rejected it a long time ago. I have already heard arguments like yours countless times before. Life, the world, and the future look much better from the outside, to be honest.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

1 hour ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

 

For a long time I intuitively sensed that people I interacted with were acting according to something I did not have. I searched and searched for many years trying to figure out what it was. Then I had a breakthrough. I discovered that Western philosophers invented something several centuries ago: the idea of progress.

 

The idea of progress was what other people had that I did not have.

 

I continued to dig deeper. Then I made another discovery: a significant number of thinkers have argued that the idea of progress is a myth.

 

Then, this past winter, I discovered an idea that even I on the fringes/margins of the contemporary intellectual landscape probably never would have imagined: not only is progress a myth, it is a myth steeped in racism, sexism and imperialism. I was somewhat shocked by this discovery. However, once I recovered from the shock and it all sunk in, I did not feel the least bit surprised. To be honest, I felt like a massive, debilitating weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt relieved.

 

I had taken an almost constant beating for a long time for what is apparently a major crime in the society that I was born in: not believing in progress.

 

"How can you not believe in progress?! We abolished slavery. Women now have the right to vote. If you have a toothache you don't die from it--we have modern dentistry. How can you not believe in progress?!".

 

Well, as the philosopher John Gray has pointed out, not believing in progress is not the same thing as not believing that we have made improvements.

 

Not believing in progress means not believing that we are on a linear path where things will only keep getting better and better for more and more people. Not believing in progress means recognizing that while technology helps solve problems it creates new problems. Not believing in progress means recognizing that bad things have not been eradicated, they have just changed form--the institution of slavery was simply exported to Third World sweatshops, Gray says.

 

However, I do not think that you can really understand how anybody could not believe in progress without understanding this: the rejection of the idea of progress is, I believe, at its core really the rejection of the idea that a world made in the image of Western white men is utopia and that anything that does not match that image must be eradicated.

 

According to what I have read in books like "Grassroots Post-Modernisn: Remaking the Soil of Cultures", by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri-Prakash, there are people in the world who have managed to maintain their cultures, identities and land in spite of the devastating interruptions of the past 500 years; these people have only suffered from "progress"; and they are waiting for the opportunity to resume their journey on their own paths.

 

It has been a long, difficult, trying, yet spiritually and intellectually fulfilling journey as I have become conscious of and struggled with the myth of progress.

 

Wisdom is hard-earned.

 

I never really understood or appreciated how hard-earned wisdom is until I read what I read this past winter about the true nature of what I had been struggling with for so long. Do you want to see my source? It is "The P Word", by Stan Goff: https://medium.com/@stangoff/the-p-word-a-half-assed-political-autobiography-cee0992f3992

 

Now, no longer with such a heavy load to carry, I am trying to figure out how to live outside of the myth of progress. I already rejected it a long time ago. I have already heard arguments like yours countless times before. Life, the world, and the future look much better from the outside, to be honest.

Sounds like a hit job on Progressives. It casts we who believe in Progressivism in the role of the Bad Guy or as dupes to be used and discarded at the proper time. It makes me remember the opening narration to a 60's TV show about fictional politics called Slattery's People. The opening narration is a voice over on a film noir backdrop:

 

Quote

Democracy is a very BAD form of government.  But I ask you to never forget. All the others are much worse.

See, humans by nature are lazy and that laziness begets just as much suffering as all the other ills. Without peole who refuse to embrace a Luddite philosophy, nothing would ever get invented. Without work, nothing would get done. Without progress, there would no improvements. The desire to make things better and the willingness to WORK to that end are what fuels that machine. Myself, I wouldn't ask people who don't share these thoughts and this work ethic to convert to my way of thinking. But please don't throw your sabot into my machine.

 

[Alawyn-Aebt]

2 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

We barely get the opportunity anymore to appreciate the intrinsic dignity, value, worth, etc. of things.

But those things are not intrinsic. Dignity is subjective. The value of something is either entirely subjective or merely equivalent to whatever effort was put into making it.

2 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

I did not bring up science. Somebody else brought it up.

 

I did not bring up colonialism.

I quoted when you did in the quote below.

2 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

The fuel that probably powers this objectification process the most is the myth of progress. Anything that is an impediment to progress, including entire populations of people, must go.

First off, I already explained how any pseudoscientific claims that entire populations of people stand in the way of progress and science and should be exterminated are nonsense. We objectify things because nothing can be intrinsically subjective, subjectivity cannot be intrinsic since we all subjectify things in differing ways, since subjectivity is subjective.

2 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

I said that the goal posts get moved.

The goal posts of progress always move because progress is not a destination.

Progress is unceasing and unquenchable, it drives forward whether we want it to or not, we can either choose to rally around it and try to progress to a better state, copy the ostrich with our heads buried in the sand hoping that progress ceases, act ambivalently towards it, or choose to fight against it which in the long run, as is hopefully proven by even a brief overview of history, near impossible and quite likely dangerous for humanity

2 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Steven Pinker apparently goes farther and says that if you come up short of the newly positioned goal posts you are a moral failure.

He is just one voice of billions, many people do not agree with him. Tossing any idea of progress out with him just because he calls people moral failures for not being extreme as him is like saying government-built roads are bad because Hitler built them.

2 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Maybe after we have all given up religion like we are supposed to and things still turn out bad we will be told that it is all our fault and if we would just give up the illusion of free will...

Am I to assume you see the weakening of Religion as a bad thing? Am I to assume you see the fact that free will might not exist as a bad thing? I do not want to put words in your mouth I am just trying to pick up from your statements

1 hour ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Then, this past winter, I discovered an idea that even I on the fringes/margins of the contemporary intellectual landscape probably never would have imagined: not only is progress a myth, it is a myth steeped in racism, sexism and imperialism. I was somewhat shocked by this discovery. However, once I recovered from the shock and it all sunk in, I did not feel the least bit surprised. To be honest, I felt like a massive, debilitating weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt relieved.

Two things:

Firstly, those ideas are not necessarily on the fringes of the intellectual landscape. I have been introduced to them since well before college and was even better aquainted with such ideas in all my basic history and anthropology courses my first semester at college.

Secondly, just because you felt relieved, does that prove anything? Do feelings matter in determining if something is true or not? As I know your fascination with Postmodernism I assume you side on the side that feelings matter, since everything is subjective and no authoritative truth exists in Postmodernism, but I want to make sure I understand you.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

1 hour ago, Aebt said:

 

The goal posts of progress always move because progress is not a destination.

Progress is unceasing and unquenchable, it drives forward whether we want it to or not, we can either choose to rally around it and try to progress to a better state, copy the ostrich with our heads buried in the sand hoping that progress ceases, act ambivalently towards it, or choose to fight against it which in the long run, as is hopefully proven by even a brief overview of history, near impossible and quite likely dangerous for humanity

Like evolution, it is as inexorable as Time itself- it waits for no one. Someone once said there are 3 kinds of people-- People that watch things happen, people that make things happen, and people that wonder what happened. It's a constant game of Finnegan, Begin Again. I used to be SOOO annoyed that I had to give up the drafting table on which I spent many an hour drawing bluprints to learn CAD. It was painful, but once I did, things became a lot better. It was more accurate, you could send drawings around the world as electrons and it was a lot quicker-- which meant I could do more things with the same 40 hour week. Less drudgework meant more time for creative work.

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

4 hours ago, Calligraphette_Coe said:

See, humans by nature are lazy and that laziness begets just as much suffering as all the other ills. Without peole who refuse to embrace a Luddite philosophy, nothing would ever get invented. Without work, nothing would get done. Without progress, there would no improvements. The desire to make things better and the willingness to WORK to that end are what fuels that machine. Myself, I wouldn't ask people who don't share these thoughts and this work ethic to convert to my way of thinking. But please don't throw your sabot into my machine.

 

It sounds like you agree that progress is a myth that exists only in people's minds.

 

It sounds like you go further and say that without that myth to motivate them people would never accomplish anything of value.

 

I have never had a progress myth to motivate me--I rejected it a long time ago. Therefore, you must think that I have accomplished nothing of value in this life.

 

The earliest civilizations did not have a progress myth to motivate them. They believed that history is cyclical. Therefore, you must think that they accomplished nothing of value.

 

The funny thing is that a lot of people who believe in progress are also people who reject theism. Yet, the philosopher John Gray says that the myth of progress is just a secularized, liberal humanism version of Christian theology and that without Christianity it would not exist.

 

What is even more ironic is that the Enlightenment was supposedly liberation from myths, yet it created its own myths such as the myth of progress.

 

It sure would be nice to be able to step outside of all of it--at least occasionally--and see life and the world from a different perspective. But that is going to be an extremely difficult challenge for anybody, even those who have a lot of time, energy and money. Just look at a lot of the responses in this thread and you will see what I mean.

[Sally]

27 minutes ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

 

It sounds like you agree that progress is a myth that exists only in people's minds.

 

It sounds like you go further and say that without that myth to motivate them people would never accomplish anything of value.

 

I have never had a progress myth to motivate me--I rejected it a long time ago. Therefore, you must think that I have accomplished nothing of value in this life.

 

The earliest civilizations did not have a progress myth to motivate them. They believed that history is cyclical. Therefore, you must think that they accomplished nothing of value.

 

 

What is the point of trying to impute what other people (in this case, other posters) are thinking?  It hardly moves the discussion farther; instead, it sticks your foot out to trip someone and force them to say again what they said before, and it bores the reader.  

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

16 hours ago, FindingTheta said:

Politically incorrect behavior depends on what political ideology is the norm. An anarchist burning a flag and yelling ACAB would be politically incorrect behavior to the conservative and the neoliberal, so would my criticism of the political mainstream's goal of more women CEO's in environmentally damaging and politically destabilizing industries. An African-American president is fine to the mainstream, so long as he doesn't challenge the status quo that has made us rich at the expense of the global south and the Middle East.

 

And if you go along with it--if you follow the rules--you are promised "progress".

 

Then when things go wrong it is your fault, but if you will just follow the new set of rules "progress" will be just around the corner.

 

Of course, maybe some of us are just fools and wise people know that the rules exist to be ignored, broken, or repealed when they become inconvenient. For example, when I accepted student loans I acknowledged in the paperwork that I signed that it was a loan and that I must pay it back even if I do not get a job. So I have paid it back--the balance on $10,000 dollars of student loans is now less than $400. I never got a good-paying job out of it--I have never made more than $30,000 dollars in a year. But other people--many of them--are saying "I have all of this student loan debt and there are no good jobs! I should not have to pay it back! The government should forgive my debts!" I guess they are wise and I was a fool to follow the rules.

 

 

16 hours ago, FindingTheta said:

Progress is mostly aesthetic in nature, but made to give that feeling of accomplishment while serving capitalism. Consume now, and we'll donate a fraction of a cent of the dollar we made to save the whales, while the item one purchased will end up in a landfill in a short period of time. Any challenge to capitalism is absorbed and commodified, or redefined and vilified.

 

It is kind of a myth-shrouded ethos that the system depends on.

 

However, systems and civilizations collapse.

 

I suppose if one has completely given his/her life to the system then the myth of progress is indispensable.

 

But not everybody--maybe not even the majority--of people have jumped off of the cliff and accepted that they will go wherever progress takes them. Some people--privately, if not openly--have reservations about all of it and take things one day at a time and keep all options open, probably. Others have completely given up on it and are bracing for--or relishing--the inevitable collapse that they see coming. Maybe if more people openly questioned the myth of progress a more realistic ethos could emerge.

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

On 8/2/2019 at 1:33 PM, gisiebob said:

progress isn't a destination. the things we achieve do not become lesser for wanting to achieve more.

progress isn't a single direction. for every mind there is a different desired way to go. we are walk through the wilderness and where we have never been there are no trails.

 

 

That is not what the myth of progress says.

 

Basically, to believe in Enlightenment progress you have to believe that non-Enlightenment institutions, traditions, practices, etc.--past and present--and the people operating under such non-Enlightenment conditions are "backwards", "barbaric", etc.

 

Therefore, progress does have a direction: away from "backwards", "barbaric" people and their cultures.

 

But if those "backwards", "barbaric" people suddenly live under "progress" they are told that they are "backwards" and "barbaric for that. Their colonial rulers make and implement anti-sodomy laws; they gain independence; then their former colonial rulers tell them that they are "backwards" and "barbaric" for having laws that they did not make! Progress!

[InDefenseOfPOMO]

5 hours ago, Aebt said:

But those things are not intrinsic. Dignity is subjective. The value of something is either entirely subjective or merely equivalent to whatever effort was put into making it.

 

On the rare occasions that I have experienced things outside of culture the properties/qualities that they possess were free to be experienced on their own terms.

 

Experiencing the things that are there to be experienced when the line between subject and object is blurred is nothing short of ecstasy.

 

Alas, the subject/object dualism--which probably traces back to Descartes--is so powerfully imprinted in the DNA of Western civilization that we take it for granted. Being a rational subject objectifying things "out there" is our modus operandi.

 

Turning off the television, turning off the laptop, cancelling the New York Times subscription, etc. is not enough. Stepping outside for a quiet walk is not enough. One will still be a modernist/Enlightenment subject navigating a world of things that have been objectified.

 

I know what is not an escape. If I knew what is a reliable escape I could probably become a millionaire selling it in a book or some other form.

 

When people say that they absolutely love this way of life and that they feel like they won the evolutionary lottery, I do not believe them.

 

People are probably trying all kinds of things to escape. Meditation. Sweat lodges. Mission trips. Etc.

 

But are those really escapes or are they just more objects packaged as commodities for us as we play the well-rehearsed role of capitalist consumer?

 

There is probably a reason why the myth of progress is embedded in lies, ignorance, denial, etc.

[mausgrau]

It's not so uncommon to fixate on some random abstract concept and just throw all of one's fears and resentments and anger onto that scapegoat, or lightning rod. "Progress" may be as serviceable as any, especially if someone is of a particular bent.

 

Aren't hobby-horses fun to ride!

[Karst]

I have one last thing to say-

 

No one guaranteed you a utopia.  If we want a better world, it's on us to build it.  And it won't be easy.  Nothing worthwhile is.

[Alawyn-Aebt]

10 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

And if you go along with it--if you follow the rules--you are promised "progress".

I have no idea where you get the concept that rule following is progress. Mindless rule-following does not bring progress. People often need to either break the rules, bend the rules, rewrite the rules, or make the rules irrelevant to help society progress.

8 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

But if those "backwards", "barbaric" people suddenly live under "progress" they are told that they are "backwards" and "barbaric for that. Their colonial rulers make and implement anti-sodomy laws; they gain independence; then their former colonial rulers tell them that they are "backwards" and "barbaric" for having laws that they did not make! Progress!

Again, I and others have already explained how progress and science can be used to justify such oppression, but it is based on faulty reasoning. Using progress or science in that way is a misuse of the terms and ideas.

7 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

On the rare occasions that I have experienced things outside of culture the properties/qualities that they possess were free to be experienced on their own terms.

Would you elaborate so we can understand your perspective? Since there was little elaboration your post reads a bit like you had a mystical experience and suddenly started believing things can be subjective, if you could explain your experiences a bit we might be better able to understand you without the possibility of misunderstanding.

7 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

When people say that they absolutely love this way of life and that they feel like they won the evolutionary lottery, I do not believe them.

Are you saying they are suffering from false consciousness?

[Calligraphette_Coe]

11 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

 

It sounds like you agree that progress is a myth that exists only in people's minds.

 

It sounds like you go further and say that without that myth to motivate them people would never accomplish anything of value.

 

I have never had a progress myth to motivate me--I rejected it a long time ago. Therefore, you must think that I have accomplished nothing of value in this life.

 

The earliest civilizations did not have a progress myth to motivate them. They believed that history is cyclical. Therefore, you must think that they accomplished nothing of value.

If this is true ( and to me, it doesn't seem logcal for the reason I am about to introduce), then woudln't this be an indictment of anti-progressivism by virtue of the short life expectantcies and miserable lives of most of the human population for hundreds of centuries? I think the pursuit of longer life and the avoidance of pain and misery  is on the penulitmate human drives and a potent motiviation. Perhaps they just didn't know how and didn't know where to begin, but couldn't that be said to be due to a failing philosophical outlook and a reliance on revealed religions and dogma?

 

And what about the sea change of standards of living and the development of things like antibiotics speak to the effectiveness of the few seeking the betterment of the many through progress in just the last two centuries? How do you explain the flood gates being opened in this regard in just this short amount of time if not for the effectiveness of progress and its promulgators?