Progress — the word commonly employed to describe improvements and advancement with regard to the passage of time, invoking positive connotations. Yet is what we typically call progress all that good— for us and the world at large?
The passing of recent centuries, most notably the nineteenth to twentieth, has been described as steps forward for mankind. One would frequently come across commentators talking about the “progress” we humans have made since the 20th century. Indeed, we have been pushing the frontiers of science, making huge break-throughs in innovations and understanding. Average life expectancy globally is and has been on the uptrend with the advent of modern medical science. Previously hugely dangerous and potentially fatal child-birth has been conquered by knowledge gains in gynaecology and measures developed to counter the myriad of hazards. Innovative mechanisation of mundane and repetitive tasks like production lines have been turned over to more efficient robots. Judging by these yardsticks, no doubt we have progressed positively over the years.
Yet, on the other hand, the same period saw the exponential increase in military capabilities. We went from fighting localised contained wars into dreaming of global annihilation. From shooting muskets round by round on horseback in the Napoleonic Wars, we have “progressed” into mowing down advancing waves of each other with machine guns while hiding in the trenches of World War I. World War II saw the spreading of destruction from the battlefield into the population at large through indiscriminate allied airborne bombing runs. The Cold War brought about winds of change bearing nuclear bombs. Opposing sides began threatening each other with the ability to destroy each other’s half of the planet with a rain of nuclear detonations. In light of all these, militaries continue to use “progress” to describe the upgrading of their capabilities when all that does is to spur each other into acquiring progressively deadlier weaponry to keep up. How exactly is this “progress” beneficial?
On the political front, leaders who make little or no change to the status quo are described as conservative, even regressive — as opposed to leaders who make sweeping changes and supposedly help the nation progress. No doubt some positive quantum shifts have been made with regards to women rights and their roles in society. Yet more often than not, progress described as beneficial and introduced by “progressive” politicians are nothing more than policy oscillations between political leaders. Take the Woman’s Charter in Singapore for an example. In Singapore’s formative years, women typically took a back seat to males and the Woman’s Charter was hailed as a huge progressive step in the right direction for woman rights. Yet progress now is defined by the rolling back of certain parts of the Woman’s Charter and implementing the rolling-out of a “Man’s Charter” to enshrine gender equality. As such, how does a person even begin to ascertain the benefits of progress in the political sense when it is nothing more than skin-deep policy vacillations to suit voter sentiments of the moment?
Perhaps one can ask about the global economy – surely, we must have progressed in that aspect? No doubt average incomes and wealth worldwide have generally increased and by western standards, the standard of living has increased too. Yet absolute figures do not tell the whole story. Much of the world is labouring under the umbrella of capitalism despite its inherent imbalances. Capitalism generally rewards the person with the most resources at his disposal, leading the rich to get richer and the poor to get comparatively poorer as the gap widens. This is akin to letting the sprinter who jumps the gun and emerges first to win. In addition, who is to say that leading simple carefree lives by subsistence farming and living off the land, having shorter life expectancies as compared to leading a longer modern life of consumerism, makes a person any less well off? Thus, how exactly can such progress be said to be beneficial, if it can even be called progress in the first place?
Progress, as we know it today, is based upon the western world’s ideas of advancement and can hardly be described as universal. However, going by that yardstick, it is beneficial only in certain aspects where it is ambiguous at best for the rest. In this light, we should be more discriminating in areas for advancement and not progress for progress’ sake; rather, we should weigh the consequences of each advancement to allow the world to benefit from progress together.