I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry [the aged], stealing, fighting.
Shakespeare: The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeare’s Bohemian shepherd was perhaps understandably jaded since Europe in the late 16th century was a harsh context in which to find a satisfactory life. Would shepherds today or anyone else say that the last 400 years have brought progress for humanity? Sounds like a ridiculous question, but is it?
The relationship among history, time and progress is not what most people would assume. In the Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World we find that, “progress seems to be the central basis in the modern philosophy of history.” Progress throughout human history is indeed “central” to the human story in P-B but whether that is true or not depends, of course, on how progress is defined. Western philosophers have tended to define progress as the slow and steady movement toward perfection.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. All things were made by him; and without him
was anything made that was made.
The Gospel According to St John
Nowhere in the Bible or in any sacred literature or wisdom of the mystics is anything said about the Homo Sapiens’ capacity for the “slow and steady movement toward” the creation of perfection or perfection of any kind for that matter. Creation as we humans will one day come to know was instant and complete as the Bible clearly states for those who can “hear.”
And the light [perfect Creation] shineth in darkness [P-B]; and the
darkness [unconscious false self] comprehended it not.
The Gospel According to St John
We live in our perfect natural state which is obscured by our being asleep or, as they would tend to say in the East, mesmerized by ignorance. Believing that we will over time evolve into a state of perfection expresses this blatant and arrogant ignorance and flies in the face of our experience throughout our history.
We post-modern humans tend to think that technology and evolution are moving the “creature that reasons” forward. We have, after all, landed a man on the moon and conquered the scourge of most of the “old” diseases like measles, whooping cough, smallpox, polio, the plague, etc. Surely we have evolved into a more civilized species. We have relative “peace on earth” for the last 40 years, that is to say, no world-wide wars.
But there are other criteria for measuring progress that we could and should look at. Happiness is difficult to measure but the mental health of a population would have to be considered a factor in assessing the success of a human community. Many would cite the United States as one of the most technologically sophisticated and historically evolved of the world’s nations. And yet!
“The number of Americans who receive Social Security Disability Insurance for mental disorders has doubled during the past 15 years.” There are now (2013) 11.5 million American adults with a debilitating mental illness, on whom the country spends about $150 billion annually for therapy, drugs, and hospitalizations.
The mentally ill in America would probably not say that their experience of life is the result of human progress. “All together, our cumulative mental-health issues—depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, among others—are costing the U.S. economy about a half-trillion dollars. That’s more than the government spent on all of Medicare during the last fiscal year.”
Rates of suicide would have some relationship to how happy a given population perceives itself to be. In the U.S., the age group 50 to 64, the so-called Boomers do not appear to be experiencing progress. “The suicide rate in this age group rose 45 percent between 1999 and 2010, with even higher increases for men in their 50s (a 48 percent rise) and women 60 to 64 (a 60 percent rise).” Let’s return to the record of human evolution over the last 2,500 years in the West which was largely responsible for modern technology.
Thucydides [471-400 B.C.E.] the Greek historian felt that humankind could learn from its history. “Knowledge of the past [is] an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it.” Today it would be hard to make the case that humanity has learned from history as it attempts to create a sustainable community on earth.
Instead, we would have to conclude that self-destructive and unconscious people have dominated the unfolding human story. Adam Smith and Thucydides recognized the powerful influence that the security energy center or human acquisitiveness had on human behavior. “Both Smith and Thucydides judge economic improvement in terms of increasing opulence, the growth of capital reserves, the expansion of commerce, and the enlarged power in war or peace which greater wealth bestows.”
One thing that we can say we have learned from history, which Smith and Thucydides apparently didn’t know, is that the accumulation of power and wealth is not progress. Aristotle [382-322 B.C.E.] was somewhat more insightful because he knew that the pursuit of plenty and power would not result in progress over time for humanity. “The avarice of mankind is insatiable; at one time two obols was pay enough; but now, when this sum has become customary, men always want more and more without end; for it is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it. The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the nobler sorts of natures not to desire more.” Aristotle like Buddha understood that one source of human suffering was craving.
Unlike Smith or Thucydides, Karl Marx did not see capitalism as the path to progress. To him it was an improvement over feudalism on the way to communism. Progress to Marx was a classless economy. The bourgeoisie would overthrow the landed aristocracy and would create the proletariat which would in turn eliminate all obstacles to the perfect communist democracy.
Marx’s theory of progress was that by improving institutions over time, humanity would also improve. This raises the question which, if we have been paying attention to history, we should be able to answer quite easily. Is progress accomplished by the improvement of human institutions or by improvements in the identity and behavior of humans?
Aristotle thought the improvement in human political institutions was the answer. Progress would be achieved by replacing the tribal form of government by constitutional government. He thought when kings and subjects were replaced by statesmen and citizens, progress would be realized.
Immanuel Kant [1724-1804] was able to imagine the “world state” (an inclusive United Nations) as the ultimate in political institutions. John Stuart Mill [1806-1873] had faith that democracy given enough time would “promote the virtue and intelligence of the people themselves.” Like Mill, Thomas Aquinas [1225-1274] thought progress was only a matter of time. “It seems natural to human reason to advance gradually from imperfect to the perfect.” Alas, time may be running out before humanity’s ship reaches port.
History would have taught those who were also paying attention that human reason, the pursuit of wealth and power or perfecting human institutions have not resulted in progress for humanity.
In questioning human progress, we are not talking about the distinction between absolute and relative progress but instead whether humanity has made any progress at all. Comparing the global village to a pirate ship, we could use that old joke: “The floggings will continue until morale improves.” The likelihood for historical progress, as it is defined in P-B, is slim indeed.
The “floggings” we just referred to on humanity’s historical voyage refer to the universal truth that “life is suffering;” hence, our definition of progress would be the end or at least the beginning of the end of suffering. Does the record of human history show a lessening of suffering over time? Most of us would answer in the affirmative. Surely the quality life has gotten better over time in many areas of the world. But is that the same as reduced human suffering? Now we must define suffering to move our discussion forward.
Obviously what we are saying is that morale (the human condition) has not improved on our ship because flogging (suffering) continues unabated despite the fact that most of us would deny it as we point to human history. So who is right, the defenders or deniers of progress?
Risking overloading this essay with metaphors, we will move from the high seas to the plantation. Progress could be likened to freedom. A slave on a cotton plantation might feel he has made relative progress by being sold to a less sadistic owner and experiencing fewer or less vicious floggings. Whether he would admit it or not that slave may experience less suffering in a relative sense but there has been no progress in his fundamental situation. He is still a slave. He remains shackled within an institution inimical to his natural state as an awakened human being.
If Harriet Tubman shows up some evening and invites him to “follow the drinking gourd” would he have the courage to choose freedom? When you, dear reader, have a flash of insight while reading a Simple Reality essay, would you have the courage to decide to unshackle yourself from the slavery of living on the plantation of P-B?
Being whipped everyday by our Simon Legree-like overseer (our false self) we can hardly say that our history shows any progress. We are either free or we are not. We do not achieve freedom over time by intellectual or institutional progress. Freedom strikes like lightening in a blinding flash. One moment we are cowering slaves and the next, if we so choose, we are soaring eagle-like above the clouds of space and time, beyond all attachments to form, beyond the reach of suffering.
When we use the Titanic as a metaphor for the ship occupied by humanity we have to realize the only rational course of action for survival is to abandon ship before it is too late. Similarly, we have to admit that we cannot sail on a ship where flogging is seen as the way to improve morale or make progress. Remaining on such a pirate ship, the population of the global village might as well be beating a dead horse to make forward progress. Only a shift from the sinking ship to a radically different vessel holds any hope to end human suffering.
Suffering is easily defined in the context of Simple Reality as reactive behavior. Anyone who is reacting is suffering, anyone who is resisting life as it is, anyone who is not living in the present moment and embracing life’s perfection is suffering. The ability to respond to life has nothing to do with history (when, where or what is happening) but everything to do with the story, identity and the resultant behaviors of the responder.
We can all transcend the illusion of history with the beliefs, attitudes and values of Simple Reality. That would be progress and could be (or could have been in the past) accomplished by anyone with the courage to let go of the pathetic pursuit of plenty, pleasure and power.
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References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in the Simple Reality books:
Where Am I? Story – The First Great Question
Who Am I? Identity – The Second Great Question
Why Am I Here? Behavior – The Third Great Question
Science & Philosophy: The Failure of Reason in the Human Community
