The Pitfalls of Progress
by Mischa Gelman
(published 6/7/00)

  Progress. One wonders how anyone could be opposed to such a thing. It is
a term often used by politicians, writers or businessmen to claim they're
on the right side of the situation. Why do we favor it so much though? Why
is the future necessarily better in any sense than the past?
  Well, it need not be. As we 'progress', we often truly regress. For
instance, American parents now spend eleven fewer hours with their kids
than they did in 1960. Here we should be regressing, heading backwards,
rather than continuing forward. If we have more progress of this kind for
a long time, we'll reach the point where parents and children no longer
see one another at all - is that a good thing? We should be hoping for a
change in reduced working hours for both men and women and for increased
family hours. After all, isn't raising kids more important than raising
one's income? Yet neither of our major political parties dares oppose this
trend, citing economic progress as an excuse for waging a war on families.
  The cult of progress works on a very silly notion - it assumes forward
is better (indeed, 'to move forward or onward' is the dictionary
definition of progress). This is a particularly hard stance to accept,
within any rational analysis. If you were heading up a mountain path, and
were nearing a steep cliff dropoff, common sense would tell us to reverse
course - the progress propogandists frown on such backwards thinking and
idealism of the past and say to proceed at full-speed ahead. Regression is
often needed. Instead of writing off the past as passe, we should learn
its lessons rather than discarding them. Josiah Royce taught us well, that
"Avoid this restless longing for mere novelty.  Learn...to love not what
is old or new, but what is eternal."
  Who can oppose progress? Well, those who love tradition that has been
found tried and true, would understandably get upset at the latest fad.
Those who love nature also have their problems with progress. After all,
who likes construction replacing cows in Monroeville over the past 20
years? Who wants the paving over of a nice landscape to built another
monolithic mall for suburbia? Most people probably liked Ohiopyle State
Park more before the abundance of stores sprung up around it. After
all, as Andrew Bard Schmookler points out, "A person returning to the
place of his or her childhood would probably not lament upon discovering
that 'where there once was a shopping center, there now stands a wooded
glen.'" Yet, for some odd reason, it is the shopping center that many
identify as progress.
  This leads us to ask a fairly blunt question: what exactly is progress?
  Progress is insider trading. Progress is pollution. Progress is nuclear
missiles replacing swords. Progress is two parents having to work to
support a family. Progress is Bill Clinton occupying an office once held
by Jimmy Carter. Progress is people paying money so they can get the
privilege of putting chemicals in their hair so that it is uglier and less
natural. Progress is a mom n' pop shop or a Squirrel Hill Bookstore
getting replaced by a Wal-Mart or Barnes n' Noble. Progress is Britney
Spears replacing the likes of Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder. Progress is
hormone-affecting agents decreasing human and animal fertility and
endangering the future of the world.  Progress is the end of "Cheers" and
the beginning of "E!"(the gossip channel) Progress is another corporate
welfare payment. Progress is the wife-beating Wilfredo Cordero manning the
same position once held by Willie Stargell and Fred Clarke. Progress is
people getting carpal tunnel syndrome thanks to computers. Progress, in
other words, is less than it has been hyped up to be. 
   Of course, many things have improved with time and progress often is
good. A lower crime rate is to be cheered. Increasing interracial
marriages are a positive sign. Warren Morris is an improvement over Jose
Lind. Progress has a lot of positives - and the past has its flaws, which
are often ignored by nostalgia.  In the hopes of bursting the progress
bubble and "newer is better" mindset, though, I have stuck to the
negatives of one and the virtues of the other, as we rarely hear of
either. But it is very simple-minded and indeed very false to claim the
past inherently inferior to the future on the simple basis of it being the
past.

  Mischa Gelman has regressed by going to graduate school, where he learns
even less than he did in undergrad.