Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm

Jamal

In 2018 Steven Pinker published his book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. It was widely lauded and widely criticized. 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.

He writes:

In the memories of many readers—and in the experience of those in less fortunate parts of the world—war, scarcity, disease, ignorance, and lethal menace are a natural part of existence. We know that countries can slide back into these primitive conditions, and so we ignore the achievements of the Enlightenment at our peril. — Steven Pinker

On the one hand, we might think sure, seems reasonable. But is it satisfactory? Which assumptions are hiding under the surface?

It's revealing that he characterizes war, scarcity, disease, ignorance, and lethal menace as "primitive conditions". In a sense I agree, if we interpret Pinker to mean that we are still primitive, in contrast to an imagined better world--and as a kind of utopian I have no real problem with that in principle. But what he really means is that even if we do still suffer from some of those evils, they are relics. We are on the forward march, and it's only a matter of time before we consign them to the dustbin of history. So his answer to the question, Why do people still live with war, poverty, and oppression? is to say: Don't worry, those conditions are hangovers from the bad old days, and redemption is at hand.

Am I being unfair? I don't think so. The word "primitive" refers to the first, the original. Built into it is the notion of progressive evolution, a linear development in time towards something better. Thus Pinker is contrasting the present with the past, where the past is worse simply because it is the past. The present has superseded it and always must, despite the occasional and unfortunate "slide back" (notice that the slide is back). The use of "primitive" signals that for Pinker it is really the past itself which is bad, rather than the specific evils and their causes, and if we live with those evils today it is only because the present has not overcome the past fully. That a new appearance of the evils must necessarily be a "slide back" shows that the underlying, unquestioned assumption is one of inevitable improvement over time. I think that's a dangerous assumption.

Though it's not my focus here, I have a more mundane question: how have the "primitive conditions" he lists, namely "war, scarcity, disease, ignorance, and lethal menace," actually been alleviated or overcome by "Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress"? Certainly, the treatment and eradication of disease has made progress that we should all celebrate. But what about the others? I'll leave you to ponder that.

The idea of general progress is necessarily one of forgetting. It sits alongside a dismissive attitude to suffering, a callous and shallow triumphalism (I know because I was guilty of this myself). Not only that, but the narrative offers either the present day or a future utopia as a stand-in for the Day of Judgement, or perhaps for heaven, and it begins to look like a matter of faith. Faith that progress can redeem humanity, that everything will be worth it in the end.

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.

unenlightened

Saw you, and thought of this:

Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?

Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you're with them, you're always at ease. — PROFESSOR HIGGINS:

"Othering" it is called; a psychological trick to justify irresponsibility and maintain complacency in the face of injustice and suffering. As if Ukrainians have been "ignoring the achievements of the Enlightenment".How primitive of them!

Jamal

↪unenlightened

Yep.

I should point out that it's not just liberals who do this. It's obviously at work in Marx and in the revolutionaries who were inspired by him. Maybe this is the one issue where conservatives, of the more old-fashioned kind at least, get off the hook.

javi2541997

Though it's not my focus here, I have a more mundane question: how have the "primitive conditions" he lists, namely "war, scarcity, disease, ignorance, and lethal menace," actually been alleviated or overcome by "Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress"? Certainly, the treatment and eradication of disease has made progress that we should all celebrate. But what about the others? I'll leave you to ponder that. — Jamal

As you said, I don't have any doubts that we have overcome diseases thanks to Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

Yet, the others like wars and scarcity are eternal. I think Steven Pinker only sees the evolution of societies in a western-core-middle class view. I also feel that I cannot disagree with him about the progress since enlightenment, but at the same time I can't agree either. If we check out the functionality of our democracies we would feel that everything that was built is now back-peddling.
I am not understand when he purposes: The present has superseded it and always must, despite the occasional unfortunate and anomalous "slide back" [...] and if we live with those evils today it is only because the present has not overcome the past fully.
To be honest, I don't think there is no present or past. History teaches us that there is a vicious circle in the interactions and everything tend to be repeated. Who would say that in 2022 a war between Russia and Ukraine would start? And so the folks of 2011 Syrian war; 1991 gulf war; 1960's Vietnam war; Second world war; First world war, etc... Endlessly. So, in my view, it is difficult to accept a forward in the progress related to "end" wars or scarcity. The latter, is even worse in perspective because it seems that the people suffer of poverty and starvation more than ever and due to climate change, this only going to be worse each decade.

unenlightened

conservatives, of the more old-fashioned kind at least, get off the hook. — Jamal

One gets off the hook by not trying to get off the hook. This is old-fashioned:-- "We are all sinners..." Progress therefore is not made, because progress in life science entails equal progress in death science, progress in healing entails progress in sickening and torture. Individual life-expectancy has increased, but species survival expectancy has radically reduced.

Jamal

I also feel that I cannot disagree with him about the progress since enlightenment, but at the same time I can't agree either. — javi2541997

I feel the same. I call it "dialectical". :grin:

But despite the melancholy behind the OP, I don't share your pessimism. I don't think war is eternal and that conflicts will repeat cyclically forever. I just don't think an overarching idea of progress is the right way to look at history.

By the way, I created this discussion after I saw you post something in another thread about the inevitability of war.

Isaac

Which assumptions are hiding under the surface? — Jamal

Having read Pinker's book (and found nowhere a satisfactory answer), I'd say...

1. Nowhere is it established how we (enlightened countries) justify such a discreet separation from those benighted countries of war, famine and pestilence. It's as if Pinker treats borders as having some deep cultural/psychological fence around them such that cultures within can be judged in isolation.

2. The assumption that recorded history is equal to 'the past' which, of course it isn't. What goes into the records is a selected subset of everything that actually happened. One of the main critiques I've read of Pinker here is that he takes a single, fairly famously biased, source for his data on Hunter-Gatherer tribes, for example. We shouldn't confuse the academic canon with the lived experiences of the people there.

I like (though hadn't thought of it before) your noting that 'the past' is simply assumed to be source of these evils rather than actual material conditions (which, obviously could re-materialise). I agree it dangerously implies we need do nothing, that just passively 'allowing' progress will result in the benefits assigned to it. It has a disturbing paternalistic feel that I don't think is accidental. Pinker's target, after all, is not the forces which keep these benighted countries down. His audience is Western. His target is that particular branch of progressivism which sees technological and capitalist growth as a concern. His message is "stand aside".

Jamal

One gets off the hook by not trying to get off the hook. This is old-fashioned:-- "We are all sinners..." Progress therefore is not made, because progress in life science entails equal progress in death science, progress in healing entails progress in sickening and torture. Individual life-expectancy has increased, but species survival expectancy has radically reduced. — unenlightened

Nicely put. Seen in this light, the claim that the bad bits are just relics is especially preposterous.

Jamal

1. Nowhere is it established how we (enlightened countries) justify such a discreet separation from those benighted countries of war, famine and pestilence. It's as if Pinker treats borders as having some deep cultural/psychological fence around them such that cultures within can be judged in isolation. — Isaac

Wouldn't he just say that in actuality, the Enlightenment was only realized in nation-states, and especially in the US, where he and his friends stand at the pinnacle of history?

2. The assumption that recorded history is equal to 'the past' which, of course it isn't. What goes into the records is a selected subset of everything that actually happened. One of the main critiques I've read of Pinker here is that he takes a single, fairly famously biased, source for his data on Hunter-Gatherer tribes, for example. We shouldn't confuse the academic canon with the lived experiences of the people there. — Isaac

Yes, those are the critiques that I've seen too.

I like (though hadn't thought of it before) your noting that 'the past' is simply assumed to be source of these evils rather than actual material conditions (which, obviously could re-materialise). I agree it dangerously implies we need do nothing, that just passively 'allowing' progress will result in the benefits assigned to it. It has a disturbing paternalistic feel that I don't think is accidental. Pinker's target, after all, is not the forces which keep these benighted countries down. His audience is Western. His target is that particular branch of progressivism which sees technological and capitalist growth as a concern. His message is "stand aside". — Isaac

Exactly. At the same time, I share Pinker's animus towards some of that progressivism. It's complicated.

Jamal

Incidentally, I got the phrase "insufferable enthusiasm" from Nietzsche, writing about progress. Elsewhere he wrote this:

Progress. — Let us not be deceived! Time marches forward; we'd like to believe that everything that is in it also marches forward— that the development is one that moves forward. The most level-headed are led astray by this illusion. But the nineteenth century does not represent progress over the sixteenth; and the German spirit of 1888 represents a regress from the German spirit of 1788. "Mankind" does not advance, it does not even exist. The overall aspect is that of a tremendous experimental laboratory in which a few successes are scored, scattered throughout all ages, while there are untold failures, and all order, logic, union, and obligingness are lacking. How can we fail to recognize that the ascent of Christianity is a movement of decadence? -That the German Reformation is a recrudescence of Christian barbarism? -That the Revolution destroyed the instinct for a grand organization of society? Man represents no progress over the animal: the civilized tenderfoot is an abortion compared to the Arab and Corsican; the Chinese is a more successful type, namely more durable, than the European. — Nietzsche, Will to Power

I quite like the idea of humanity or history as a "tremendous experimental laboratory in which a few successes are scored, scattered throughout all ages, while there are untold failures."

My temptation is to think beyond Nietzsche and say: one day we'll get it right. This would not be to endorse Progress, only to admit that we can find better ways of living.

Isaac

Wouldn't he just say that in actuality, the Enlightenment was only realized in nation-states, and especially in the US, where he and his friends stand at the pinnacle of history? — Jamal

I think he probably would try. I just can't see how one could conduct any sort of comparative study by nation. Pretty much since the first nation state, one state has traded, invaded, enslaved and stolen from, another. The state of one nation is as much caused by the actions of those around it as it is by its own internal cultural and political make up.

I share Pinker's animus towards some of that progressivism. — Jamal

Me too. I was watching the Munk debates on both capitalism and populism and the same theme struck me, that the motivating ideology of any movement is not the same as the product. There's a disconnect created by the fact that ideologies gather popular support and as such become tools in themselves which can be wielded in the service of other, completely different ideologies.

I think enlightenment, progressiveness, whatever you call it, is like that. The notion of trusting in science, the rule of law, reason etc is one thing. The purposes that such a trust is put to is another.

Joshs

↪Jamal

My temptation is to think beyond Nietzsche and say: one day we'll get it right. This would not be to endorse Progress, only to admit that we can find better ways of living. — Jamal

I wouldnt exactly call this ‘thinking beyond Nietzsche.’ More like bypassing Nietzsche. If you haven’t read it already, 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. Graeber shares your moralist individualism, asserting that each culture in each era of history makes valuative choices ( equality-inequality, hierarchy- nonhierarchy, statist- non statist) above and beyond geographical, technological and other material determinants.

Jamal

↪Joshs

I think beyond Nietzsche by bypassing him.

That book looks interesting. Still haven’t got around to Graeber.

Jamal

Me too. I was watching the Munk debates on both capitalism and populism and the same theme struck me, that the motivating ideology of any movement is not the same as the product. There's a disconnect created by the fact that ideologies gather popular support and as such become tools in themselves which can be wielded in the service of other, completely different ideologies.

I think enlightenment, progressiveness, whatever you call it, is like that. The notion of trusting in science, the rule of law, reason etc is one thing. The purposes that such a trust is put to is another. — Isaac

This fits with what I was saying recently about meritocracy. Whatever its… merits (and I question those), the idea functions as ideology to obscure existing inequality or even to justify it by implying you got to the top on merit, and I’m still poor because I’m lazy and talentless (though the latter is less often stated openly).

Joshs

↪Jamal

↪Joshs I think beyond Nietzsche by bypassing him. — Jamal

But you’re still a moralist, not yet beyond good and evil.

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

Jamal

But you’re still a moralist, not yet beyond good and evil — Joshs

And thus, in a sense, beyond Nietzsche.

But a nice point.

praxis

This fits with what I was saying recently about meritocracy. Whatever its… merits (and I question those), the idea functions as ideology to obscure existing inequality or even to justify it by implying you got to the top on merit, and I’m still poor because I’m lazy and talentless (though the latter is less often stated openly). — Jamal

It can be seen as progressive in the sense that as civilization developed at some point (I think China was first) power was given based on merit rather than kinship, which may have resulted power exercised more competently.

It’s been years since I read the book but the takeaway that lingers is that, because of headline news and our habit of focusing on the negative, I may not have realized progress was occurring, and to see an argument that it is occurring is hopeful and perhaps motivating. Also motivating is the threat of anti-enlightenment movements.

Jamal

It can be seen as progressive in the sense that as civilization developed at some point (I think China was first) power was given based on merit rather than kinship, which may have resulted power exercised more competently. — praxis

Yes, I was saying pretty much the same thing last week:

Before capitalism, social relations were based on traditions and obligations that had nothing to do with money, and the people at the top had other things to think about, like winning wars, getting in to heaven, or producing an heir (and if they did make money, they didn't actually make it but just took it). A clan chief was obliged to protect his clan members and they owed him loyalty and service; a vassal was obliged to fight for his king to justify holding on to his fief, and also to protect his peasants, who in turn owed him part of their produce; and so on across many variations and times up to the modern period. Capitalism swept most of this away. The result in connection to merit was, ideally, that at last people could be rewarded for their effort and ability, not for their existing attachments of family, class, guild, religion, tradition, obligation, and so on. — Jamal

Otherwise, I do agree that the pervasive sense that everything is getting worse obscures some real progress.

Isaac

This fits with what I was saying recently about meritocracy. — Jamal

Yes, I read your argument there and thought it very compelling. There's something in all this of the urge to defend the status quo against a certain type of change. I can see some merit to that, having some small 'c' conservative leanings myself, but my gut feeling is it's mainly about exculpating Western democracies for their inequality at home and exploitation abroad.

Jamal

↪Isaac

Yes, the “othering” that @unenlightened mentioned is directed towards whoever is not in the West and not in the present.

Noble Dust

↪Jamal

One elephant in the room in regards to "progress" is it's inextricable connection with colonialism. I've been slowly reading The Battle For God: A History of Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong. Part of the book deals with the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in Iran and Egypt during the 20th century. She makes the case that this religious fanaticism is actually a fearful reaction to the alienation experienced through the process of "westernization" or modernization of a pre-modern society. And this was of course introduced through colonialism.

frank

Not only that, but the narrative offers either the present day or a future utopia as a stand-in for the Day of Judgement, or perhaps for heaven, and it begins to look like a matter of faith. Faith that progress can redeem humanity, that everything will be worth it in the end. — Jamal

According to John Kenneth Galbraith, progress, as an ideal, is rooted in Zoroastrianism (nod to Nietzsche). It's supposed to coincide with the uncoiling of cyclical time so that we're now headed into the unknown. In other words, it's not a stand-in for Armageddon and Judgement Day. It's the same thing showing up in the clothes of the present age.

Jamal

↪Noble Dust

That’s a fascinating angle. I can certainly see how the settler colonialism in Africa and India, with its “civilizing” mission, was part of the Progress narrative, but with the Middle East, I’m not so sure. I mean, you’re right, but there was a lot going on. For example, Ataturk, Saddam Hussein and other Ba'athists, the Shah of Iran, Nasser, and Gaddafi led modernization efforts, in many cases against the West. But I do agree that part of the original impetus for this was the encounter with the foreign imperial powers.

Noble Dust

↪Jamal

Sure, it's of course complex. Another interesting wrinkle in regards to the progress narrative is the role the Muslim world played during the middle ages, while Europe was mired in the "dark" ages. There was also considerable collaboration between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Middle East at the time. A rather sad comparison to much of religious relations today. 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.

Jamal

↪Noble Dust

I very much agree. Maybe I’ll say something intelligent about it tomorrow.

NOS4A2

↪Jamal

Pinker says “We know that countries can slide back into these primitive conditions, and so we ignore the achievements of the Enlightenment at our peril.” So it’s not clear that these conditions need be consigned to the past, only to wherever the achievements of the enlightenment are gone, forgotten, or have never manifested. But it is clear he is not speaking about the past as such, only the barbarity that is often found there.

Joshs

↪Noble Dust

Another interesting wrinkle in regards to the progress narrative is the role the Muslim world played during the middle ages, while Europe was mired in the "dark" ages. — Noble Dust

I think it goes something like this. In its heyday between 700 and 1000 A.D. , Islamic culture thrived by discovering and reinterpreting Greek philosophy. As these readings made their way into Europe along with Islamic innovations in various other domains, Europe began to catch up with the Middle East. The Enlightenment and Reformation, unmatched by a comparable movement in Islamic countries, secured Europe’s global hegemony with its arrival at the rational telos of historical progress.

Jamal

↪NOS4A2

But his use of “primitive” to describe those conditions is the clue to where he’s coming from. Of course he is acknowledging that those conditions exist in the present, but for him they are first and foremost relics, rather than the result of modern problems.

Joshs

↪Jamal

. Of course he is acknowledging that those conditions exist in the present, but for him this is first and foremost because they are relics. — Jamal

They are on their way to becoming us, the enlightened West.

Noble Dust

Islamic culture thrived by discovering and reinterpreting Greek philosophy — Joshs

That's an important point that I had forgotten.

Maybe I’ll say something intelligent about it tomorrow. — Jamal

I'm rather rusty myself.

NOS4A2

↪Jamal

His measure is not whether it is from the past, but whether these conditions have become better or worse over time.

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.

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.

Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm

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