What is Progress?

With the election coming up in a few days there has been a lot of thought nationally about what progress looks like. Obviously "progress" as a concept is a highly subjective state of affairs. One man's societal progress is another man's societal decline. However, it follows that since there are moral absolutes there could be an underlying concept of progress that is also absolute.

The idea for the post came from a radio piece on NPR about George Santayana. He was the guy who coined the origin of the phrase "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He had a concept of progress simply put that progress is being able to remember the past better. I think that that concept is certainly part of progress, but I am not sure it can hold the entire definition by itself.

I am pondering this as I write, so we'll see where I end up.

What kinds of progress are there?

1. Economic progress (more advanced/nicer/more stuff)
2. Social progress (more/better relationships)

You could obviously break those down a lot, but I don't think you can really merge those two.

Economic Progress
Making more stuff, making it nicer (longer lasting), and more effective (more advanced) improves everyone's life. It raises standards of living. It allows us to focus on things we would rather spend our time on instead of just making do.

For example, China between 1981 and 2012 reduced its poverty rate from 88% to 6.5% (% of people making less than $1.90/day). That adds up to over a half billion people. That's huge.

Social Progress
Developing more and better relationships is arguably harder to do. It inherently involves people and that is always messy. However, when there are good relationships across a society that makes a huge difference in peoples lives. There is less conflict (wars, lawsuits, arguments, disunity). There is more sharing and helping (philanthropy, community, service). Even when there is a lack of economic prosperity strong social structures can lead to a pretty decent quality of life.

Conclusion
While I do think that knowledge of history and past experience is an important tool of progress I do not believe it is progress itself. I think progress can be measured by one simply explained thing: How well society, and the individuals in it are living out their G-d given purposes.

When you are scrounging for food and shelter, and on constant guard against attack you are not in a good position to live out anything resembling a calling. So social and economic progress are important enablers to allow us to serve G-d in the way we are made to.