this week: defining progress
Progress is the problem
Illich was the first to point out to me the potentially toxic nature of the idea[l] of “progress.” And I have yet to come up with a satisfactory outlook on how to couch progress in a consistent, empowering, and safe way. I don’t want an asymptotic vision of progress that requires relinquishing our desire for scientific, technological, and artistic1 development: while it’s clear that people should have the option of refusing the material trappings of progress to live alongside Walden Pond, it is also clear that I do not want to approach social engineering with that as a unifying vision.
I want a vision of progress that provides for its material trappings while stripping away its psychological baggage. This will be the topic I’ll explore this week,2, but a provisional explanation follows.
What’s wrong with the world?
As I’ve tried to understand the overarching structure of those factors which make the world shittier, the need for a good definition of progress has appeared increasingly frequently.
If you consider the world’s problems, you can start backing out causes. Our judicial system is partly responsible for exacerbating many of society’s problems, ranging from drug crimes to corporate corruption. While fighting each problem is worthwhile, you are treating symptoms, not curing a disease.
As I trace the causes of the problems I see back further and further, I reach a relatively independent set of broken systems. “Independent” does not mean that they do not affect one another; it simply means they do not require one another. The judicial system is one example: even if the law affects our education system through its support for a litigious society, the law does not require schools to exist and botch other issues. Our approach to health care is another independent system. You could imagine compiling a list of these root problems, and then begin thinking about how to address them.
I’ve found that the several of the first-order solutions I dream up to these problems share a possible design defect: it is not clear to me why the current problems would not simply reappear, mediated by market pressures.
An example
To make this problem concrete, let’s consider consumerism and materialism. These words’ definitions are diluted; so, I want to begin our discussion with a constrained definition of consumerism: the placement of enough spiritual and emotional weight on the consumption of goods and services that the act of consumption and the products consumed become the primary modes to achieve “happiness.”
Now, even that definition suffers for a lack of precision — “happiness” is a slippery word — but it should be sufficient for our purposes. What if we break down consumerism into its constituents: what do people spend their money on? Food, housing, consumer electronics, entertainment media, appearance accouterments (clothing, makeup), etc. Each one of these pillars, holding up consumerism, seems like the right scale for a DIY revolution: it is on this scale that the technical concerns of making a set of activities and goods DIY-approachable converge. Furthermore — and perhaps, more importantly — it is on a scale at which social concerns also converge. If you wanted to popularize a set of tools and ideas in the DIY food and DIY science domains, you would suffer from a muddled message. The technical concerns involved in knocking down these pillars are straightforward. The social concerns are far more daunting. It seems that there is a proper scale: where you can both “stay on message” in hawking your solution and confront technical concerns cohesively. Independent of how convincing these broad strokes of a taxonomy are, if you are convinced that such a taxonomy exists, my uncertainty will be understandable.
Why is this a problem?
Division of labor evolved because of the productivity and quality gains it offered. This balkanization continues, with efficiency gains being eked out from further separation of concerns. Unfortunately, we passed long ago the scale of production at which individuals can derive personal satisfaction (a la “Shop Class as Soulcraft”): people often talk about how satisfying and empowering it is to cook one’s own food (much less farm it or make it from scratch). But at this point, we can have microwave dinners delivered to us. At some point along this spectrum of dependence, there is an efficiency sweet spot.
While there are plenty of savings to be made making and fixing things on your own, those savings come from trimming the fat that Main St. has slathered onto our existences by manufacturing demand. Here’s the real question: does DIY philosophy3 have as much of a place in an efficient, sustainable society as I hope?
Returning to the example of food: it is clear that making your own food is less sustainable than agribusiness could be (which is to say nothing of the industry’s current sins). What does this mean for where someone interested in revolutionizing how we approach food production and consumption should aim?
Assume DIY farming becomes mainstream. Even if DIY farming is empowering, market pressure will want to divide labor. And I don’t see4 how we can then avoid climbing back up the balkanization ladder — or even if there’s a reason to resist that ascent (other than avoiding our current situation).
No answers, yet
This specific example contains the seed of my problem: I don’t know how to reconcile my proclivity for DIY, decentralized solutions with market pressures. And this is why defining progress becomes important, and tricky. If we accept inefficiency, then this question is moot. Personally, as I said at the beginning of this post, I’m ambivalent. How do you reconcile a powerful desire for technological, scientific, and artistic development and exploration with an acceptable inefficiency?
I’ve painted an incomplete picture of these concerns, and as it stands, this concern doesn’t have any legs. Unfortunately, it will sprout some as the week goes on. But, please don’t let that prevent you from offering feedback of any sort!
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- And whatever modes you can fathom [↩]
- See this post for more information on my writing schedule. [↩]
- And yes, this is a poor phrase for a broad idea. I consistently have trouble characterizing this community — suggestions welcome! [↩]
- Note that by “see” I really mean “imagine how you could guarantee:” I’m not suggesting that these enormously complicated systems will play out as I guess they will, but I think I can make statements about what seems like a bad possibility [↩]
8 responses to 'this week: defining progress'
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The example of food production brings up some important issues that I don’t feel were totally explored. First, efficiency is an ill-defined thing because it ignores quality. The freshest food will come from your backyard, and the second freshest will come from your neighbors. Agribusiness will never be able to achieve that regardless of “efficiency”. Additionally, efficiency is a funny thing. Saving one minute of time per product will save a large business many thousands of dollars, but as a producer for oneself a minute is near nothing. I certainly waste an hour of time every day, and don’t need to make 60 things every day. At some point being more efficient just does not matter in a sane world, and I think one can pull of many examples where while size might increase efficiency it stifles innovation.
It also brings to the fore that DIY versus big business is just a silly notion. Obvious everyone is not going to make all their own food, grow their own wheat, mill it, etc. There is a proper scale for all things. My main question would be, how does exchange occur in an intelligent way across many scales? Because I think it is the means of exchange that drives many market forces. For instance, it is easiest for me to shop at a supermarket because I know I can get everything I want. It is easiest for a supermarket to buy from large suppliers to ensure consistency. It is centralizing information by centralizing institutions.
This has been a long comment.
Two things:
1.) Culture’s pre-occupation with symbolic reasoning (e.g. reasoning about “progress”) does not imply that its terms have (or can have) semantic content outside of the cultural sphere in which they are used. The meaning of “progress” is like the meaning of “god,” in my opinion - largely produced by complex social interactions.
The reason we can’t define “progress” so as to talk about it usefully in a philosophical setting is the is-ought problem.
2.) DIY is individualistic - cultural forms are lasting stable. Do you think that this causes problems? How can you have a culture of individuality? I think another culture would kick its ass. The borg always wins. Always.
I these “weeklies” wouldn’t last. Oh, and which fan on flickr do you think is the best.
[…] dialogs, you have to use humor, or other apolitical ways to generate interest. As some people have pointed out, I flaked on keeping my thinking about last week’s question open. But, I think I’ve […]
“Returning to the example of food: it is clear that making your own food is less sustainable than agribusiness could be (which is to say nothing of the industry’s current sins). What does this mean for where someone interested in revolutionizing how we approach food production and consumption should aim?”
The techniques (technologies, types of labor, use of land) which agribusiness uses are more productive than the techniques which can realistically be used by a small-scale “DIY” farmer. The problem of course is that the priorities of agribusiness (profit) conflict with the priorities of humans (care for the health of the land, biosphere, and the human population; preservation of the rich relationship between humankind and its food).
Having said that the problem is the priorities of agribusiness, I now have to turn around and say that the real problem is the fact that the techniques of agribusiness are in some ways indissociable from the priorities of agribusiness. That is, certain social assumptions are built in to the techniques: use of mass-scale technologies implies that land, workers, and consumers are all interchangeable. This necessitates that everyone eat the same stuff, all land is capable of supporting the same crops, all workers do the same work. And of course this is only possible given the (highly negative) systems of fertilization and pesticide use to homogenize land; work supervision and training to homogenize labor; consumerism to homogenize consumption.
“Assume DIY farming becomes mainstream. Even if DIY farming is empowering, market pressure will want to divide labor. And I don’t see how we can then avoid climbing back up the balkanization ladder - or even if there’s a reason to resist that ascent (other than avoiding our current situation).”
Market pressure is not an abstract force. The pressure to have cheaper tomatoes acts in concert with the pressure to eat bland, consumer-focused crap, and the pressure to give over land for industrial use. It is difficult and questionable to fight the pressure for cheaper tomatoes, but the other two tendencies can be fought on a social and political level, respectively.
The assumption that natural resources such as land, air, or petroleum should go to the highest bidder is certainly not a precondition for a system of free-market competition. And consumer culture is highly unhealthy - already there is a backlash. If these two tendencies were counteracted, then farming would change even under a free market system. It wouldn’t necessarily become entirely small-scale, but agribusiness as it exists today would certainly die. A DIY farmer probably is able to produce “a cheaper tomato,” given that the tomato farming respects a democratic system of collective land ownership, and integrates into a food culture which demands high-quality, healthy produce.
How does this relate to the larger question of progress as such? I have questioned the definition of agricultural “productivity”; and I would similarly question any particular definition of “progress.” Progress is only well-defined in the context of a particular system of production; and systems of production always include certain assumptions about the role of the consumer, etc. To me, “progress” is almost a useless term. As you say, it is at the wrong level: we need to be talking about how we are approaching food, how we are approaching science, how we are approaching medicine. Progress for the sake of progress is certain to be a waste, when the same energy could be expended towards a concrete goal in the realm of human needs.
In other words, why not to climb the Balkanization ladder has several concrete answers: consumerism is alienating, industrial work is alienation, fertilizer is environmentally harmful, etc. Similarly in an area such as medicine or law. Why to climb it, on the other hand, has only the most self-justifying sort of answer.
I hope these quickly written thoughts are helpful in your “weekly” essay on this subject. I’m looking forward to reading it.
The problem of course is that the priorities of agribusiness (profit) conflict with the priorities of humans (care for the health of the land, biosphere, and the human population; preservation of the rich relationship between humankind and its food).
Eating is a priority of humans. Preservation of the “rich relationship between humankind and its food” could only be a priority of someone with the time/resources/education to cast “liking to eat good food with other people” in such terms.
Profit in any business is a means of abstracting value, buying even those who do not profit in cash the luxury of focusing energy in a direction other than sustaining life. Agribusiness supplies what people will eat- sometimes at an awful cost in collateral damage to the environment, but cheaply, and despite the fussing of intellectuals, it supplies what people prefer. “Food culture” does not exist for most people. It’s an arid and vacuous term to anyone who has to figure out how to afford to eat.
Culture’s pre-occupation with symbolic reasoning Which you demonstrate by reifying ‘culture’. People reason. They reason with concepts, symbolically. This is a property, not a symptom.
Someone who is dirt poor knows well what progress is, even if others have forgotten. ‘Is-ought’ comes after the basics are provided. Then one has the luxury.
So to long for days when everyone toils for her own bread is crazy. If it is just the option you want, you have it. DIY. Just don’t prescribe it for everyone.
Hi “Groucho”,
I’m not entirely sure how to approach your comment. I would like to clarify my points, because I’m sure that I was unclear in some places, but I don’t really see how your response even relates to my comment.
You seem to be objecting to political discussion in general. For example, if I said that I wanted the Democrats to gain power, since the Republican Party has an essentially Fascist conception of executive power, would you tell me that abstractions like “fascism” versus “democracy” are less important than necessities?
The reason that I talk about abstractions is because a higher-level understanding of a problem is necessary to bring about any change. Everyone is interested in solving problems like famine, ecological destruction, violence, poverty, political oppression, etc., but they are not at all being solved. Evidently, they don’t know how to solve these problems. I am trying to talk about possible strategies that could be adopted to solve some of these problems.
[…] As people have pointed out, I’ve been derelict in living up to the “weekly” name in addressing a question. And I’ve found that I’ve made the silly mistake of delaying writing about other things because I want to get out “this week’s weekly” first. So, I’m suspending them. Which doesn’t mean I’m actually suspending them, just the named practice. I’ll continue to ask and answer questions, but I think getting off a schedule is a good thing, particularly because I’m not going to be thinking wholly about that question each week. In fact, my activities are pretty far removed from the questions I’ve asked so far. […]