Posts Tagged myth of progress

I talk about things like the Myth of Progress, and I wonder whether it all sounds very conceptual to you who aren’t inside my head. But I see examples of what I’m talking about all around me, and I thought it might be time to start pointing them out, in a series I’ll call “Notice Your Culture.” Issa wrote about this in a post she titled, “Step One: Notice.”

The first one comes from Engadget’s review of the Motorola Droid X phone:

Motorola’s success as a competitive phone manufacturer is ultimately going to depend not on its ability to produce a single hit, but to produce a never-ending string of hits, each better than the one before it.

This is an example of the Myth of Progress in action. Success or progress is defined as continual improvement and expansion. Everything must be up, up, up and out, out, out at all time. Recession or contraction is viewed as failure or death, not a natural and essential part of any healthy system.

The remaining examples will come from a copy of The Economist magazine, which unfortunately means that there won’t be links to the articles. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

An ad for Shell Oil reads:

Japan, like many other countries, needs a reliable source of energy. Not just for tonight’s bowl of warming noodles, but for years to come. Let’s build a better energy future.

The first question I had when I read that was, “Many other countries? Like whom?” Which countries need a reliable source of energy, specifically? Countries who are outstripping their available energy reserves, that’s who. People who are living sustainably off of their landbase don’t need a reliable source of energy; they have one! Their landbase! The only reason that Japan is not able to meet its own energy needs is because its population and the lifestyle they expect has outgrown the energy that its landbase is capable of providing. This is a hallmark of civilization. Societies grow to the point where they must import energy and other resources from outside of their landbase, making them inherently unsustainable.

What will happen in years to come, according to this ad? Future generations will need energy from afar? Notice how the tone of the ad is not, “Future generations will have security because they will have reduced their population and lifestyle to fit within the energy that can be provided by their landbase.” Nope. Contraction and recession is not an option. Consuming less is not an option. This is the expansionist drive and the Myth of Progress at work.

An article about the Deepwater Horizon disaster reads:

Meanwhile, the Obama administration appealed against a judge’s decision to overturn its moratorium on drilling in deep waters, which was introduced after the explosion on the rig that caused the disaster in the gulf. Several oil-services companies and politicians in Louisiana have challenged the drilling ban on the grounds that it is arbitrary and has a negative economic impact on the region.

This makes me think of several of Derrick Jensen’s Premises:

Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.

Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.

If we did not believe that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable, then we would not even consider continuing drilling in the Gulf, given the obvious risks. But economics is the driving force, and anything that causes economic harm is resisted, no matter what else might come of it.

An article about China’s monetary policy reads:

China’s slightly freer currency would be all the more welcome if it spurred moves to boost consumption.

This is the Myth of Progress again. Pardon me if I beat that drum all the time; it’s a big one. The premise of the headline is that anything that boosts consumption is good. But think about it. If increasing consumption is always good, what is the inevitable outcome? Is it physically possible to always consume more? And why isn’t anyone ever asking whether the level of consumption that we are currently at is appropriate?

An article about an industrial accident in India reads:

The plumes of poison gas that leaked from the plant killed thousands within minutes. Three years later, Union Carbide agreed to pay the Indian government $470m in compensation, far short of an original $3 billion-wort of claims. But it was not until this year, on June 7th, that a court finally ruled on culpability for the accident. A district court in Bhopal convicted seven former Union Carbide executives of causing death by negligence and sentenced them each to two years in jail.

The article goes on to say that as many as 25,000 to 100,000 people may have ultimately died from the leak. Although there is public outcry in India over the lenience of the sentences, nothing has yet been changed, and the convicted people have not yet been extradited from America.

This is an example of Jensen’s Premises:

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.

The article closes with a paragraph that hearkens back to the Shell Oil comment that opened this post.

Energy-starved, India wants American companies to help expand its nuclear power, but they are deterred by the lack of protection from big compensation claims.

Why is India energy-starved? Is it because its capability to generate energy has been reduced? No. It is producing more energy today than it ever has. It is because its hunger for energy has outgrown its ability to produce it. This is a hallmark of civilization, and is one reason why civilization is unsustainable. The irony of India’s situation is that it is simultaneously civilized enough to need energy, and primitive enough to be abused by those who are higher than it in the hierarchy of violence. Why can’t India have as much energy as it needs without having to accept violence from the American (or other) companies that provide the energy?

Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.