Death of a concept

There are some things in which the Beeb still excels and a Radio Four series examining the concept of progress ‘Whatever happened to progress,’ presented by Matthew Sweet was a case in point—it is well worth listening to. It asked very pertinent questions and heard from a wide range of contributors, current and from the archives. It does feel of course that ‘Progress’ has stalled, what with Trump, Putin and other bad actors stalking the international scene. Oh, and not to mention climate change. But what was meant by ‘progress?’

There are many things we can point to, and for me the invention of anaesthetics would come near top. All those people having legs sawn off with nothing more than a glug of whiskey and a leather thing to bite into is not something I would wish to contemplate. Medical progress is probably one of the most significant features of modern life which underpins the concept that progress has happened and will continue, all to be aided by AI and gene analysis of course. Against that, I believe that if human beings still exist in 500 or 1,000 years’ time they will look upon our period as at the very best ‘late medieval.’ Medicine may have been refined but other things have not. The ‘atomic clock’ of doom is as close as it ever was to midnight. Invasions real and threatened, accompanied by genocide are commonplace. Nation states which have bucked the current trend of new primitivism are being overwhelmed by the amorality of global oligarchs. It feels like something of a reversal is taking place. Oh, and the Untied (sic) States has resiled from its role as the world’s greatest—most biggest and beautiful ever- peacekeeper. A new era of exploitation beckons, as naked and violent as it ever was.

The programme reminded us that after the fall of the Berlin Wall it was announced or at least suggested that we were on the verge of ‘the end of history.’ At the very least that was an oxymoron, but what we can see now is that were the phrase ever to become true in human terms it would be the disappearance of the colours blue and green from the surface of planet Earth. But we may still have plenty of time left yet to discover that there were once life forms on the brown surface of Mars. In a quiet scientific way that would be progress even if the lessons may come a bit late.

Nevertheless I do hope that humans will exist in 500 or 1,000 years’ time, and that they have their equivalent of glossy art books, looking at the virtues of our post-modern art movement. Will they say ‘that can’t be improved upon?’ (I know I’m digressing here, but who could say Bach could be improved upon? When does the idea of ‘progress’ become redundant? With ‘post-modernism’ perhaps?)