Progress and the Pursuit

It's become cliché to talk about the increasingly fast-paced nature of contemporary society, especially American society. But since we won't understand the implications of the new globalization period we're in combined with the advent of instant global communications and ubiquitous interconnectivity, that fact shouldn't stop us from having a conversation about, well, the whole point of our society's existence. [Insert another cliché about how to eat an elephant here.]

In all seriousness though, I think this question - what is the ultimate goal of our civilization - is a dangerously neglected one. Sure, people wonder all the time about the "meaning of life," or, put another way, "Why am I here?" but these questions focus only on the individual's existence. Thus, these considerations are inherently limiting. Focusing solely on them prevents or distracts us from considering or questioning many of the things we take for granted.

One of those things is, I think, the idea of "progress." America as a whole seems obsessed with it. The old DuPont slogan, "Better living through chemistry" comes to mind. We are a society transfixed with new conveniences and new discoveries that somehow make our lives better. I should make the distinction that I'm not talking about political or social progressivism, specifically equal-rights issues, but mostly inventions and scientific breakthroughs that are designed to increase the quality of our lives. A new golf club that helps us drive the ball further; automatic windshield wipers - I don't know what we'd do without them; detergent with 33% more scrubbing action; "Books are too difficult to carry around - maybe they'll invent something that fits in my pocket and can digitally store every book I have..." But perhaps my point is best illustrated by showing an opposite example.

Last summer, a group of traveling Buddhist monks visited Dartmouth for a one week residency. One night, they gave a presentation in our big auditorium, demonstrating how they traditionally carry out debates in their temples. Compared to the Americans in the audience, a casual observer knowing little about Buddhist culture might have called the monks relatively primitive. Indeed, their dress and dwellings are much simpler than ours. Their scientific knowledge is not as advanced. Certainly, their per-capita income, even adjusted for purchasing power parity, does not come close to that of Americans. And yet I have to say that their society is infinitely more advanced than ours. Without professing to know much about Buddhism, it's more or less true that they, as a culture, have reached the goal of their collective existence. All they really have left to accomplish is to, as individuals, find enlightenment through meditation and debate. Our society, meanwhile, hires hundreds of college grads each year just to figure out new ways to turn money into more money, without actually producing anything and with the money itself existing only as an idea - a bit of code in some computer somewhere. Meanwhile, we continue to obsess about the newest products to hit the market.

When will progress take us to where we want to be? If this question is impossible to answer, it is because rather than treating progress as a means to an end, we treat it as an end itself. It seems that rather than figuring out ways to progress toward a societal goal, we only work on achieving progress itself.

By all accounts, our Declaration of Independence is a brilliant and powerful document. But when Jefferson adapted John Locke's "life, liberty, and estate [or possessions]" to "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he helped cement an American mindset - that of the pursuit - that has grown steadily from our foundation to the pervasive monstrosity that it has become today. And in this pursuit of ours, for the things that we believe will help us achieve happiness, we seem to have forgotten what happiness actually is. Is it a coincidence that as America has become richer, our most commonly prescribed medications are for stress and depression-related illnesses? As the psychologist and social scientist Peter Whybrow says, "Americans are not as happy as they are rich." More on Whybrow later.

What I've written so far troubles me a little bit because its implications border on anti-intellectualism, and I am no anti-intellectual. And one can say that the Dark Ages were defined by a suffocating lack of progress, so am I arguing for a return to 11th Century Europe? These are some of the questions that, with your help, I hope to figure out. But it's worth considering - while a pocket machine that can hold all your books is empirically more useful, or, we might say, just better - than a library full of physical prints, does having it actually make us happier? And what are its costs?

But this argument is really just the beginning to many others. One of these focuses on the morality of science (indeed, the point of science, and another explores the reason that despite their growing wealth, Americans are becoming increasingly unhappy.

Your thoughts?