One could argue that religious pluralism has de-progressed, but ironically this isn't even something the progress narrative generally considers, because it begins with the hubristic assumption that religion itself is in the same camp as war, famine, etc; something to be cast off and left behind. — Noble Dust

If the enlightenment freed people from the constraints of religion then wouldn’t they also have the capacity to think independently about the progress narrative (pseudo religion)?

So isn’t that the past itself is bad, but that conditions were worse than now. If his conditions were to reverse he would have to say the past is worse according to his own measure. — NOS4A2

You've got to the heart of my post, which I appreciate. But I disagree. It isn't that conditions were worse, otherwise he wouldn’t have described present conditions as primitive. He would have described them as bad, unacceptable, or atrocious.

Now, of course I am not saying that he consciously believes that it's the past that's bad rather than the conditions themselves. I am saying that he, and we, slip into this way of thinking and reproduce it, imposing it on history as an abstraction and a myth, obscuring the fine details, dismissing the troublesome realities.

And of course I am not saying that he doesn't describe those conditions as bad elsewhere in the book. Focusing on one short passage, I'm examining how a mythic narrative seeps into our discourse, the result of which is to put the cart before the horse and explain away present evils as belonging essentially to the past.

I also realize that in the book he attempts to show that conditions were generally worse in the past, that general progress by means of Enlightenment is real. And if this is true, then you might say that he is justified in describing them as primitive even when we see them today, because, so the story goes, they characterize the past more than the present. But, even aside from how controversial his evidence is (which someone else might address), this is precisely the blindness of the narrative of Progress. Those conditions are not characteristic only of primitive or scientifically unenlightened societies.

But, even aside from how controversial his evidence is (which someone else might address), this is precisely the blindness of the narrative of Progress. Those conditions are not characteristic only of primitive or scientifically unenlightened societies. — Jamal

Think of primitive as another word for embryonic. Key here is the assumption of a necessary hierarchy of stages of progress, in which the end stage is prefigured in the beginning stage via an algorithm of change.

Good point.

I agree with your general point. “Slipping back” is progress of a kind, after all. To where and to what we are progressing is never mentioned. I wager we could even progress too far, off a cliff, right back into those “primitive conditions” or something far worse.

To where and to what we are progressing is never mentioned. — NOS4A2

To the advanced conditions prevalent at Harvard?

Sounds like hell, to me.

I’m not sure what you mean.

The truth is that nothing can absolve humanity of its crimes and nothing can make up for the suffering of the past, ever. Nothing and nobody will redeem humanity. Nothing will make it okay, and we will never be morally cleansed. We certainly ought to strive for a good, free society, but it will never have been worth it. — Jamal

Preach on. :)

Religion has always been handy for uniting people with common values and purpose in mass. That capacity is particularly useful in war. It was useful during the middle ages and the Crusades, for instance. I highly doubt the Pope could start a similar crusade today. That's progress, baby.

Pinker is good at making things sound simple. His rhetorical style and approach reminds me of Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape.

What is progress? You might think that the question is so subjective and culturally relative as to be forever unanswerable. In fact, it’s one of the easier questions to answer. Most people agree that life is better than death. Health is better than sickness. Sustenance is better than hunger. Abundance is better than poverty. Peace is better than war. Safety is better than danger. Freedom is better than tyranny. Equal rights are better than bigotry and discrimination. Literacy is better than illiteracy. Knowledge is better than ignorance. Intelligence is better than dull-wittedness. Happiness is better than misery. Opportunities to enjoy family, friends, culture, and nature are better than drudgery and monotony. All these things can be measured. If they have increased over time, that is progress.

― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

I can't help but feel Pinker is an old fashioned figure, the kind of public educator with faith in progress I grew up with. My question for you is could his position be enhanced by more rigorous philosophical knowledge? Is he essentially just another nostalgic modernist liberal?

I was struck by this:

Don't confuse pessimism with profundity: problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable, and diagnosing every setback as a symptom of a sick society is a cheap grab for gravitas. Finally, drop the Nietzsche. His ideas may seem edgy, authentic, baad, while humanism seems sappy, unhip, uncool But what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

I think "useful" is the wrong way to think about it. People are brought together by communally held beliefs (communism, for instance) because they give life meaning, from which value is derived. This isn't unique to religion.

Is he essentially just another nostalgic modernist liberal? — Tom Storm

Potentially. Thinking again of Islam, clearly things like health, sustenance, happiness, etc., are all things that muslims want just like anyone else. But the very structure of an Islamic society is fundamentally different than a western society; how they structure their world in striving for what might be called "progress" is different from the core. Shariah for instance, is central. Does this mean a religion like Islam needs to be eradicated simply because it isn't compatible with western notions of progress? Again, this smacks of hubris to me.

I can't help but feel Pinker is an old fashioned figure, the kind of public educator with faith in progress I grew up with. My question for you is could his position be enhanced by more rigorous philosophical knowledge? Is he essentially just another nostalgic modernist liberal? — Tom Storm

When I was growing up I was a big fan of Jacob Bronowski, scientist, TV science communicator and documentary maker. He was very much on the side of Enlightenment, but I feel he was more sensitive and humane than people like Pinker. I still retain a belief in Enlightenment partly thanks to him.

Could Pinker’s position be enhanced philosophically? Maybe, although he’d probably end up with a rather different argument and thesis.

And yes, he probably is another nostalgic liberal modernist, but he’s not just that.

I was struck by this — Tom Storm

The passage is polemical, so it’s unfair to analyze it philosophically. But I’ll do it anyway.

Don't confuse pessimism with profundity: problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable, and diagnosing every setback as a symptom of a sick society is a cheap grab for gravitas — Tom Storm

Here, a problem is just a setback. This goes back to the OP, the claim that in this idea of progress, everything is a problem because it is at a primitive stage of development. Are there not problems that might make us pessimistic which are not setbacks on a road to happiness and prosperity for all, but are rather a result of how we are travelling down that road, and even where the road is leading? Isn’t that a legitimate question, and possibly a profound one? Can nobody point out that society is sick? Granted that diagnosing every problem as a symptom of a sick society is probably wrong, so what if we just diagnose some of them as such? At what point am I making a cheap grab for gravitas?

As it happens, that last paragraph of mine is a cheap jab, because as I say, the passage is polemic. As far as it can be taken seriously, it’s as an expression of the ideas that are at work in our culture.

Finally, drop the Nietzsche. His ideas may seem edgy, authentic, baad, while humanism seems sappy, unhip, uncool But what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? — Tom Storm

Enlightenment must critique itself, and few did it better than Nietzsche. Enlightenment cannot stop questioning the way things are, or it’s not Enlightenment any more. Enlightenment is not just science, but reason too, and reason isn’t worthy of the name when it’s no longer critical but only instrumental (this is straight from Adorno & Horkheimer of course, and I’m trying on their critique for size).

Anyway, his targets in that passage are pessimists and anti-humanists. I think I’m neither, but I can still be critical. We can find Nietzsche exciting and incisive without embracing all of his thought. Dropping him is a bad idea.

Nice work.

Enlightenment cannot stop questioning the way things are, or it’s not Enlightenment any more — Jamal

Can this process eventually transcend Enlightenment? Is post-modern thinking an inevitable outcome of such an Enlightenment process? Isn't the eventual trajectory of questioning and more questioning anti-foundationalism?

Can this process eventually transcend Enlightenment? Is post-modern thinking an inevitable outcome of such an Enlightenment process? Isn't the eventual trajectory of questioning and more questioning anti-foundationalism? — Tom Storm

Great questions that I hope to respond to tomorrow :smile:

:up:

I’d recommend Graeber and Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything. It is a critique of Darwinist progressive accounts of anthropological change as seen in Pinker, Diamond and Harari. — Joshs

:100:

In 2018 Steven Pinker published his book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. — Jamal

"Progress" towards what? and for whom (and not for whom)?

Btw, I haven't read this book. Also, like Nietzsche, I think h. sapiens is merely a means and not an end; thus, I'm pessimistic about the future of our species yet optimistic about the future of intelligence. "Scarcity" seems the fundamental driver of dominance hierarchies and imperialism that no amount of "progress" has put an end to or significantly diminished, so the title of Pinker's book doesn't recommend itself to me. That said, Jamal, why do you think I should read it?

I think "useful" is the wrong way to think about it. — Noble Dust

It's the wrong way for believers or followers to think about it, certainly, because if they do it will tend to be less useful. When people realize that they're being manipulated by a false narrative they tend to be less cooperative with those that try to use it.

Otherwise, there's value in tradition, sure, though things do change and not changing with circumstances can be maladaptive and harmful.

People are brought together by communally held beliefs (communism, for instance) because they give life meaning, from which value is derived. This isn't unique to religion.

Which only underscores the superfluousness of religion.

"Scarcity" seems the fundamental driver of dominance hierarchies and imperialism that no amount of "progress" has put an end to or significantly diminished, so the title of Pinker's book doesn't recommend itself to me — 180 Proof

Absolutely.

That said, Jamal, why do you think I should read it? — 180 Proof

I don’t. This discussion is not about the book.

It's the nature of life that is cruel, not humanity itself, and moral improvement almost always coincides with increased mastery over the conditions of life. It's not about will or goodness, it's about capacity.

The only embarrassing feature of the assumption that things will improve is that the improvement is an accomplishment of philosophical and cultural enlightenment.

Why does humanity need redemption? Humanity is just better at killing and dominating than other animals. Life is about killing and domination, competition and conflict, eating and being eaten, and suffering and causing suffering. Shouldn't humans be praised for trying to rise above that, and having any kind of success?

It seems OP is just a question about what measuring stick we should use... And you've decided it should be extraordinarily high. Isn't that the source of your relative pessimism?

When you get around to posting on religious subjects, I'm always pleased. I find your insights helpful.

I think "useful" is the wrong way to think about it. People are brought together by communally held beliefs (communism, for instance) because they give life meaning, from which value is derived. This isn't unique to religion. — Noble Dust

Yes, I thought @praxis's way of saying it is a misreading of how cultures and societies work.

Which only underscores the superfluousness of religion. — praxis

This just highlights the criticism I expressed in my comment on the same text you responded to. I think the way you describe social and cultural institutions and practices is shallow.

It's the wrong way for believers or followers to think about it, certainly, because if they do it will tend to be less useful. When people realize that they're being manipulated by a false narrative they tend to be less cooperative with those that try to use it. — praxis

I disagree. I don't accept the binary of religious belief and secular belief; they're different flavors of the same thing, and again, what they do is give the lives of believers a sense of purpose, meaning and value. If this sounds corny, just reflect and examine your own life, beliefs, and what you value. Even a nihilist or rigorous individualist does not function outside of this reality. Religion is, in a sense, simply an organized narrative around which groups of people orient their lives, beliefs and values. You are no different than a muslim in this way. That's why I think the concept of "usefulness" in regards to "religion" (you're actually using it in regards to a set of beliefs) is misleading. Religion is not the opiate of the masses; rather, belief is what keeps people going, religious or secular.

Thanks. You motivated me to respond to Praxis.

In this post I'm just looking at a small excerpt, not really to criticize the book itself but to dig out the meaning of the narrative of progress which we find at work, not only in Pinker's thinking, but more widely in the culture. — Jamal

This is a really good discussion. My attitude about progress is complicated, which is a more complimentary way of saying "confused." When I think about it, I have a hard time coming up with a comprehensive description of my thoughts, so I'll just toss off some in no particular order.

I'm most comfortable with a cyclic view of life, and to a certain extent I think it is undeniable. People have been born, grown, worked, had children, gotten old, and died for 10,000 generations. And that doesn't count earlier humans and then, going back farther, to bacteria 3.5 billion years ago. The sun comes up every day, the Earth revolves around the sun every year, and the sun revolves around the center of the galaxy every 250,000,000 years. My own life feels cyclical. The older I get, the less I sense any story or direction in my life. It feels like all one thing.

But then, it's also undeniable that there has been progress, that there is a direction to history. Tribes become cities become states become nations, become empires. Even though they usually fall apart, the move toward large political groupings seems unstoppable. Work goes from hunting, to farming, to trades, to jobs, to careers. Technology is one thing that is obviously directional. Each new generation gets to keep what earlier generations had and add more. I can listen to Beethoven, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and Lyle Lovett on a single device. I can even put Pandora on shuffle and listen to them all in a row. People live longer, are healthier, eat better. We communicate and intermix more and more quickly. And there, at the peak of progress, is Google Earth.

We call it progress, but that is probably a self-congratulatory way of looking at it. Technology advances, but just in my lifetime humanity has become able to destroy ourselves. It's not just nuclear weapons now; there are pandemics, global warming, genetic and biological manipulations, increasing computer intelligence, any of which might lead to catastrophe. I fear for my children. Tradition and cultural value is lost. There seems to be less common ground. At the same time, we become more homogenous. Malls all over the world have the same stores and the same products. People become more isolated. Corporations and governments become larger and more intrusive. Now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Sorry. I can't resist showing how eridous, erodant, smart I am.

Technology advances, but just in my lifetime humanity has become able to destroy ourselves. — T Clark

Technology is another important factor in this discussion. Not to get esoteric, but there's a sense in which technology could almost be thought of as the anima/animus of the Enlightenment; a subconscious mirroring of the concepts of reason and enlightenment that gives birth to something we're not fully conscious of, i.e. the bewildering proliferation of ways in which technological innovation affect our lives, both positively and negatively. My brother sent me this article, which is one example.

But certainly, technology seems to be the most obvious form of real progress, and therefore the form that we question the least. I don't think this is a good thing.

I disagree. I don't accept the binary of religious belief and secular belief; they're different flavors of the same thing, and again, what they do is give the lives of believers a sense of purpose, meaning and value. If this sounds corny, just reflect and examine your own life, beliefs, and what you value. Even a nihilist or rigorous individualist does not function outside of this reality. Religion is, in a sense, simply an organized narrative around which groups of people orient their lives, beliefs and values. You are no different than a muslim in this way. That's why I think the concept of "usefulness" in regards to "religion" (you're actually using it in regards to a set of beliefs) is misleading. Religion is not the opiate of the masses; rather, belief is what keeps people going, religious or secular — Noble Dust

Nicely put, and I agree.

I just want to add for anyone who doesn’t know that in the sentence before “opium of the people,” Marx says that religion is the “heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”

But certainly, technology seems to be the most obvious form of real progress, and therefore the form that we question the least. I don't think this is a good thing. — Noble Dust

I'd just repeat - we call it "progress", which has a positive connotation, but what it really is is directional advance, independent of whether or not it is good for us.

That's a great point. We're progressing (verb form), but whether or not it indicates progress (noun form) is what is in question.