Photo by Paulina Milde-Jachowska on Unsplash
Maybe it’s just me, but I always hate it when an author starts their story defining a term. That is some grade school shit as far as I’m concerned. Don't do that unless you are talking about a term that most readers are coming to for the first time.
You either insult your reader's intelligence or tell them to think like you. Most everyone will know the word, so give them credit for that. If you feel compelled to set out a definition to set the terms of the story you are telling, you are telling a boring story.
Language doesn’t work that way. People bring their own experiences to the words they use. When I say “progress” some people may see mankind always forging toward a brighter tomorrow. Some may see a human history of colonial exploitation in the name of “progress”. Both are correct, and there are likely about 8 billion different legitimate thoughts on that word.
I’m not going to define progress for you.
You can do that for yourself.
But I think we as a civilization have been worshiping at the altar of progress for too long, and for no good reason.
I’m probably more guilty than most.
So, I’ll tell my story of progress, and then where I stand now.
Then you can tell me yours, or you can tell other people yours.
My first thoughts on progress as a child.
As a child, I loved science fiction stories, particularly about the future or alternate worlds that seemed futuristic. Star Wars, Battle Star Galactica (the first one), Flash Gordon, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clark.
I wanted to travel to the moon, I wanted flying cars, I wanted to walk on Mars. I wanted the future to get here in a hurry.
But as I matured, I realized that those stories weren’t really about light sabers, or laser guns, or flying cars, or trips to Mars. The wrapping of science fiction was just a new way to tell the stories we have been telling ourselves for thousands of years. Many of them were some version of the hero’s journey, or a comment on humanity and our civilization that I missed when I was ten, but got when I was sixteen.
As a child, I saw progress as something new, something more. Today, I see it as prioritizing survival.
Progress is the marketing pitch of everything.
Progress is a pretty attractive thing to sell. Progress is things getting better. Who doesn’t like that? But for the last 100 years or so, we have been sold progress as “more”.
An interlude for advertising.
Look at any advertisement anywhere. For the most part, we are being sold what we don’t need, and may not even want. But advertising aims to tell us that what they are selling isn’t only a want, but a need – and something we need to show others how important we are. A better car, better clothes, shoes, makeup, beer; anything can be turned from a want to a need. How often are things sold to us with a discussion of how they are meeting a practical need? Almost never.
Advertising is an interesting story in and of itself. We weren’t always told we needed stuff we didn’t need. The ads that began to appear in the 19th century print media were quaint in their directness of simply trying to meet human needs. But in the mid-twentieth century, a man named Eddie Bernays, who learned at the feet of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, began to turn our unmet wants and desires against us.[1] The psychoanalysis that Freud developed and Bernays understood, preys upon our desires, emotions, fantasies and insecurities, just as much as – if not more than – our reason. Without advertising that weaponizes our own insecurities and subconscious desires for profit, where would we be? We would likely not be in the environmental and climate catastrophe we find ourselves in. Without advertising, we wouldn’t have overconsumed for the past century.
A quote from an investment banker sums up the sordid tale of how we got here. Paul Mazur, an executive at Lehman Brothers back in 1927 said it best in an article for the Harvard Business Review:
“We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”
Let’s be honest. If advertising wasn’t invented about a hundred years ago, it would have been at some point. I understand that. But we should all be aware of what is going on, to be active consumers, and not passive ones. If you don’t even consider the fact that your subconscious desires and wants are being used against you, you can’t make a conscious choice about what you need. If you do understand that the car commercial, beer commercial or pharmaceutical ad on television is something that you can view critically and dismiss if you want to – you at least have a fighting chance.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program …
Change progress from the material to an idea.
We have to change our view as a society on what exactly progress is. I know that isn’t easy, and won’t happen overnight, but it is necessary to get to where we need to be.
One of the arguments you often hear when talking to someone about what we need to stop climate change or live within our planetary boundaries is, “But I don’t want to go backward.” That argument implies that having less wealth and possessions is a backward step, it is the end of progress.
We need to move away from thinking that progress is having more of things that you can physically touch, to having more of things you can’t. Progress isn’t more private jets, more money, more food. Progress is more time, better health, more education, a healthier biosphere, and a healthier ocean.
What is progress for you?
So define progress for yourself. What is it? You can share it or keep it to yourself.
For me progress, proudly speaking is a world where sufficiency in the things we can touch leaves more space for us to value the things we can’t.
yes, real "progress" involves a mental reframing from material growth beyond genuine basic human needs, to improved quality of life. Universal basic needs are both material (food, water, shelter, basic health care, etc) and non-material (expressing an identity, leisure, having a role and voice in community). Many today do not have their universal basic needs met in a secure way. That would be a good place to start. The material basic needs are satiable - the non-material ones arent necessarily satiable, but they dont require material expansion. We can live well sustainably if we get the right balance.
Advertising -- the annual global budget for marketing and advertising is approx $1 Trillion per year - feel manipulated yet?
The Washington Post recently swapped out Spider-Man for a sort of refreshed version of Flash Gordon. I'd never even heard of it before but I'm finding it's a great change of pace from other superhero comics we're saturated with.