Has humanity progressed over the years? Are we still progressing? Will we continue to progress? Will we ever stop? What exactly causes progress? What is progress?
Most (?) people look at Western history since the Renaissance and conclude that the West has generally been progressing ever since then (and now the rest of humanity is starting to catch on). I'd say there are four separate (but intertwined) threads of progress: knowledge (scientific progress and education), individualism (democracy, constitutionalism, free marriage and divorce, etc.), equality (abolition of slavery, granting of rights to women and other siphoned-off members of society), and economic growth. Maybe there are other ways of dividing it.
Regardless of whether this is all progress or not, it's certainly linear. Many countries have moved along this chain in one direction, but I'm not sure if there's ever been a significant example of a society going in the opposite direction (besides victims of warfare). And since I (for example) am a member of a society that over the years has moved in this one direction, it's only natural for me to consider the end better than the beginning. If I were born in 1800 I might not think the abolition of slavery would be such a great thing. That said, I'm confident in saying that individual liberty and equality are definitively good things, but if anyone wants to defend moral relativism and declare that the abolition of slavery wasn't progress, I'm all ears.
Do you think this progress (if you agree that it's progress) has made people generally happier? I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't (mostly because people don't think of themselves as "regressed" before they progress), raising the question of what its purpose is, or if it's just an end in itself. There's also the question of how much the individual has progressed. The aforementioned progress is mostly big-scale; have individual human beings actually progressed as well? If not, then progress lies in changes of some sort of social "mechanics," but what does that mean? What is actually going on? What causes progress? (I don't mean scientific and economic growth, which are clear enough; I mean cultural changes.)
Feel free to either branch off my fairly random musings or to just talk about human progress in general.
Most (?) people look at Western history since the Renaissance and conclude that the West has generally been progressing ever since then (and now the rest of humanity is starting to catch on). I'd say there are four separate (but intertwined) threads of progress: knowledge (scientific progress and education), individualism (democracy, constitutionalism, free marriage and divorce, etc.), equality (abolition of slavery, granting of rights to women and other siphoned-off members of society), and economic growth. Maybe there are other ways of dividing it.
Regardless of whether this is all progress or not, it's certainly linear. Many countries have moved along this chain in one direction, but I'm not sure if there's ever been a significant example of a society going in the opposite direction (besides victims of warfare). And since I (for example) am a member of a society that over the years has moved in this one direction, it's only natural for me to consider the end better than the beginning. If I were born in 1800 I might not think the abolition of slavery would be such a great thing. That said, I'm confident in saying that individual liberty and equality are definitively good things, but if anyone wants to defend moral relativism and declare that the abolition of slavery wasn't progress, I'm all ears.
Do you think this progress (if you agree that it's progress) has made people generally happier? I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't (mostly because people don't think of themselves as "regressed" before they progress), raising the question of what its purpose is, or if it's just an end in itself. There's also the question of how much the individual has progressed. The aforementioned progress is mostly big-scale; have individual human beings actually progressed as well? If not, then progress lies in changes of some sort of social "mechanics," but what does that mean? What is actually going on? What causes progress? (I don't mean scientific and economic growth, which are clear enough; I mean cultural changes.)
Feel free to either branch off my fairly random musings or to just talk about human progress in general.
now its spreading out more, and evolving.
