Progress = Sisyphine tragedy

Did I already cover this? anyway quickly...

what a strange idea is "progress". I believe it says that tomorrow will be better than today and that things are improving. It argues that the past is to be forgotten, that our ancestors were stupid monkeys and that our children will be geniuses. It says that the sum of human happiness is always increasing.

The evidence is all around ... isn't it? Child death rates are always dropping, technology is always advancing and more people are employed today than ever before. How could people have been happy without modern medicine, without TVs and without mobile phones are computers. Clearly everything is getting better.

Yes! how could people have been happy without mobile phones.... yet we were! Turning the logic around doesn't it mean that our children will be happy than we are today? That our lives are wasted here in the 21st Century because by the 22nd century they will look at us like stupid monkeys. The idea of progress makes our own lives now pointless and backward!

It does the same to other people in countries right now that either do not celebrate technological achievement, or have not undergone economic transformation. Are their lives worthless and backward 2?

The obvious observation is that yes we were happy 10 years ago without mobiles, and 150years ago without electricity and televisions and 10,000 years ago when the only technology was stone.

That is a milestone in human thinking - the realisation that human happiness is not a product of our material circumstances. And that was realised a long time ago!

Is it not also true that were human beings to ever get the formula for life right, then progress would actually end up in changing that formula and so would make things worse!

Progress it seems assumes that there is no final goal to human endevour... I mean what is it that we are aiming for? and how would we know when we get there? Its a very vague notion at best.

Personally I believe that we had the solution to life a long, long time ago and we've actually being working away from that for at least 400years if not more. America for example has never existed during a time of reality!

The problem today is that our records of the past are written by the historians and they record only the political ficgures... and as I've argued already political figures, like countries and nations, are narrative inventions and have no reality, and certainly don't represent the "average person", the wisdom of the day or the way of life. We have only fairy tales about the past, and so have a distorted view of life... just as we do today from watching the news, films and books.

So what if we put the idea of progress aside... then the world looks very different! Actually we have rising violence, mental illness and unhappiness! People work longer hours than ever before, and the largest percentage of the population ever are in employment. How is it that with all the technological advancement we need to work even harder than before to get what we need to be happy? Remember only men used to go to work before, now both men and women go to work and have to do all the house tasks as well! The evidence points in the opposite direction that people are more unhappy! And, even the peoples once "immune from this stuff" (to quote Robert Palmer) in what the West calls "undeveloped" countries are now thinking in these terms... they look at themselves as being backward and unhappy!

Well being "undeveloped" is a blissful dream compared with being "developed", mke no mistake. Being developed means... to be "progressing" to eternity toward some vague unrealisable utopia. On an eternal tread mill we become like Sisyphus forever struggling toward a better world only to see it fade into the past and a new mirage appear in the glowing Progressive future. It is completely mindless and senseless, a narrative trap that too many people are beginning to talk with.

There is no Development, and no Progress. Whether we live in a hut in the forest with sticks and stones, or we live in a Californian mansion beside the sea with an executive position and a dozen hispanic slaves actually they are the same! The only question then is which is the more sustainable (ecologically, practically and fairly assuming that all people should be able to enjoy this) and the easier to come by... and i'd happy just walk into the forest and take up the first rather than have the hassle of working through college, and years of 9-5 on the off chance my goals came true... and then what?

And in the last paragraph hides the rub... the goals of progress become ever higher and more unobtainable.. and as they become scarecer the higher their price and the more people want them. Already the worlds resources can only just support the global population living the average lifestyle of the UK. That would mean raizing the entire planet for resources and land. The US consumes twice that of the UK and if anyone dreams of that let them remember that only 1 in 2 could ever have it and the other half of the world would die. And the global population will double anyway... so even to have the UKs level will mean the starvation of half the world. Oh but of course "Progress" will solve these problems... but for what purpose when Progress made these problems... and we can be happy with or without?

The reason for Progress i have argued throughout the blog is the status-quo. Drawing more and more people around the world into longer and longer hours labour, tricking them into giving up their lands and birthrights, and enslaving them in factories to make cheap goods that support the pinnacles of the dream that they struggle in vain to attain... that is the Sisyphine tragedy...

The donkey forever trudging toward the carrot that is held by its owner sitting on the cart it pulls, and who always promises that when you get the carrot you can be like me sitting on the cart. And the Ouroboros smiled!

Time for a new narrative. One of attainable happiness in the here and now for everyone, that does not get dished out by the establishment with meal tickets and wages, one that comes from within, that is secure and unbreakable... one that comes from being kind and good, that is the truth that we all once knew, but have since forgotten.