Some Recent Ideas of Progress

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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, Some Recent Ideas of ProgressWENDELL THOMASIn view of two world wars and the possibility of a third in which the human race might suffer annihilation, the familiar notion of progress as an escalator is being anxiously reconsidered. To the serious student of the subject two historical works, The Idea of Progress, by J. B. Bury, and Culture and Progress, by Wilson D. Waliis, are virtually indispensable. Since their appearance, however, various new concepts of progress have come to the fore. Three of these, combining scholarship with representative quality, are presented here briefly in the hope that, evaluated together, they may shed some light on man's future.Berdyaev's Conception of History's GoalIn vivid contrast to Western evolutionism, Nicolas Berdyaevexpresses a tragic, typically Russian view. He sees in history no spectacular social advance but various cycles of growth and degeneration.When we examine the destinies of peoples, societies, cultures, we observe how they all pass through the clear-cut stages of birth, infancy, adolescence, maturity, affluence, old age, decay, and death. Such considerations have led so important an historian as Edward Meyer to deny categorically the existence of human progress along a
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, straight ascending line.... Succeeding cultures do not always reach the heights of those that went before.... None of the problems of any given historical epoch whatsoever has been solved, no aim attained, no hopes realized.*■ The gloom is relieved, however, by a supernatural prospect. To Berdyaev, the concept of progress is by no means an unending process in time; progress implies a "goal detached from time." Man cannot progress, or "go forward," unless there exists an eternal goal toward which he can move. This goal is found in the "old Judaic idea of the Messianic solution of history," in the kingdom of God which brings history to an end. When this biblical idea becomes secularized into die religion of progress for non-Christians, says Berdyaev, the essential feature of progress—namely, its goal—is left out. Hence we have the illogical notion that progress is movement not toward a fixed goal but toward die indefinite future.Secular progress has been the faith of Comte and Spencer, of Hegel and Marx; but there is no ground for this faith, exclaims Berdyaev, except the religious. "What is left of progress once it has been emptied of its religious content?" Merely an illusory trust in "an end to the tragedy of universal history." Who, in the secular view, will behold the Golden Age of the future? Only those alive at the time. Accordingly, "nothing but death and the grave awaits the vast majority of mankind." The religious view, on the contrary, offers a universal hope. In fairness to those who have died before the goal of progress is reached, there should be a miracle through which die dead may share the goal with the living.This Christian idea rests on the hope of an end to historical tragedy and contradiction valid for all human generations, and of resurrection in eternal life for all who have ever lived.*xTbe Meaning of History, pp. 194, 198. pp. 188, 189.
Theory of Cultural Creativity, The Crisis of Our Age
Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, Piririm A. Sorokin sees no transcendent progress effected once for all by an irruption of eternity into time. To Sorokin, progress ist immanent as a creative cultural force. Every civilization, he says, experiences shifts from one cultural form to another. ,Such a change, however painful, seems to be the necessary condition for any culture and society to remain creative throughout their historical existence.... When their creative forces are exhausted, and all their limited potentialities are realized, the respective culture and society either become petrified and uncreative (if they retain their already exhausted form) or else shift to a new form which opens new creative possibilities and new values.'In Sorokin's view history shows only three forms of culture, the "sensate," the "ideational," and the "idealistic," which follow each other endlessly in similar cycles. Any form of culture is a whole in which all the parts—philosophy, science, art, government, law, social relations, etc.—are dominated by one of the three "supersystems" of thought and practice. In the sensate supersystem, which is earthly and secular, nothing is considered real that cannot be known by the senses. In ideational culture the motif is renunciation of the world for the sake of the supernatural. The idealistic supersystem is a rational combination of the best of both worlds.As in the dialectical movement found in German romanticism from Fichte to Marx, history exhibits to Sorokin a fluctuation from the "sensate" to the antithetical "ideational" and then to the "ideal-, istic" synthesis. When the sensate succeeds the idealistic, a new cycle begins. A secular evolutionist might agree, to some extent, with-Sorokin if he would start his cycle with the supernaturalistic "ideational" and find its culmination in the scientific "sensate" culture. But this procedure, while making no change in history, wouldTheory of Cultural Creativity, The Crisis of Our Age, p.II
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, radically alter the impression made by Sorokin's works which seem to assign the place of honor to "idealistic" culture.In Sorokin's view there have been so far in Western history four 'crises of transition. In the first crisis the sensate Creto-Mycenaean culture was replaced by the ideational early Greek culture; in the 'second, this form of life shifted through the idealism of classic Greece to the sensate Graeco-Roman period; in the third crisis, this culture gave way to the ideational Christian tradition; in the fourth, Christendom slipped through the idealistic Renaissance into the sensate culture of Western civilization.We are now in the midst of a tremendous fifth crisis in which sensate modernism will change into a new ideational or perhaps idealistic culture. (One wonders why there is any "perhaps" in a scheme otherwise so rigorous.) Sorokin's advice for us today is to realize the revolutionary character of our crisis and prepare ourselves, under God, to institute familial relationships in society.Toynbee's Criteria of Social GrowthArnold J. Toynbee presents no elaborate scheme of transcendent or immanent guidance. Defining progress simply as social growth, he undertakes to discover (i) the nature and (z) the criterion of this growth.To discover the nature of progress, Toynbee compares civilizations that grow with those that do not, with "arrested civilizations" such as the Eskimos, die nomads, or the ancient Spartans. The Eskimos have met the challenge of ice, the nomads that of the steppe, ind the Spartans that of hostile neighbors, by successful adaptations to environment.The Eskimo acquires an artificial seal's body in the shape of his kayak and an artificial pair of flippers in the shape of his double-bladed paddle. The nomad acquires an artificial horse's or camel's body in the shape of his mount. The Spartan acquires an artificial fang in the shape of his spearhead and an artificial carapace in the shape of his shield.
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, These are, indeed, miracles of human will power and human ingenuity; but the faculty of working miracles has tobe bought at a price.The price is arrested growth. Each of these groups outdid itsneighbots in meeting the demand of an exceedingly difficult situation. By a tour de force it succeeded in adapting itself to its environment, but its power was not sufficient to stimulate further development after the challenge had been met, the precise adjustment made.A deficient challenge may fail to stimulate the challengedparry at all, while an excessive challenge may break hisspirit.One he can barely meet will result in stagnation.The real optimum challenge is ... one which .., stimulateshim to acquire a momentum that carries him on a step further: from achievement to a fresh struggle, from the solution of one problem to the presentation of another, frommomentary rest to reiterated movement."The nature of progress is thus an 4lan toward change.What is the criterion of progress? How can we tell that anycivilization will continue to gtow, will continue to look for andaccept a new challenge? Some thinkers, Toynbee says, have proposed the test of "increasing command over the human environment"; that is, geographical expansion through armed might. Oninvestigation, he declares, we discover that this type of control can -not be cotrclated with growth. For example, every time the boundaries of ancient Egypt were extended by conquest, its culturedeteriorated.A good case can be made out for the cottelation of geographical expansion not with social growth but, on the contrary, with social disintegration Militarism ... has been'A Study af History, Vol. j, id ed, p. 87.
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations during the fout or five millennia ... by causing the local states to collide ... in destructive internecine conflicts.Another proposed criterion of social growth is "increasing command over the physical environment"; that is, advance in thetechnical field. This, as we know, is the long standing popular test of progress. But Toynbee observes that technique may improvewhile civilization declines. New Stone Age culture, for example, is inferior to that of certain groups in the Old Stone Age—witness theexquisite art of the Cro-Magnon man. Again, the Iron Age represents a technical advance over the Bronze Age; but the culture of theiron-sworded Dorians is inferior to that of the bronze-sworded Minoans. Moreover, technique may remain stationary while civilization improves, as we see in the transition from the lower Old Stone Age subman to the higher Old Stone Age man, and in the passagefrom the Dark Ages to the more enlightened Middle Ages without break in technical continuity. What, then, does Toynbee regard as a true criterion of progress? He proposes two tests. The lesser test, called "etherealization," governs technical growth and through it the growth of society. By etherealization he means simplification resulting in greater nearness or efficiency as, for example, the replacemenr of Louis XIV style of dress by the present, or of hieroglyphics by cursive writing, or of telegraphy by wireless or radio.The greater test, called "transference of the field of action," is one which, according to Toynbee, governs social progress directlyand is the most satisfactory criterion under consideration. This means, in our day, a transfer of man's attention from the naturalworld to civilization itself where the "challenge from within," such as a race problem, or the mounting terror of international war, ismet by the response of self-determination on the part of society.
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, Realms of AgreementThe ideas of progress developed, respectively, by these students of history seem at first glance to have little in common. Berdvaevrests his case on theological dogma; Sorokin's writings are reminiscent of German idealism; Toynbee's outlook is broadly Bergsonian.But reflection reveals that all oppose the concept of history as an escalator on which mankind is necessarily carried onward and upward forever. By defining progress as growth in the midst of stagnation and disintegration, Toynbee rejects the popular notion thatprogress is continuous or universal. Berdyaev also regards social advance as the growth phase of cycles of growth and decay. Likewise Sorokin thinks of human advance in terms of cycles of creativity and exhaustion, or of creativity involving radical shifts. To none ofthe three is progress a simple or straightforward movement. Is there any other realm of agreement? Looking below the surface we find that each presentation, while denying continuous progress, does recognize some form of over-all human advance in additionto the intermittent phases of social growth. Sorokin's main argument seems to be that Western culture, in the long run, has remainedcreative (and thus progressive) precisely by means of discontinuous movements. Toynbee's two criteria also point to an over-all progress.For human techniques, clearly, have expressed "etherealization"—or, in the recent idiom, have become more streamlined—from the StoneAge till the present. And "transference of the field of action" likewise suggests a cumulative advance. After transfetring our field ofaction from the natural world to civilization, for instance, we may transfer our attention to beautifying, instead of exploiting, thenatural world. Even Berdyaev, no less than a Comte or a Marx, believes in man's total progress; but he stipulates that progress be conceived as having a culmination in the kingdom of God. In sum, each presentation accords to progress the equivalent of two dimensions: up and out. Though an upcurve of social growth be followed by a down-curve of social decay, the outward thrust of man's increasing power
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, converts the cycles into a spiral. Thus the growing phase of thePersian Empire marks progress over the corresponding Assyriancurve because the Persian realm was not only richer in culture but'also more justly governed, and so greater in power. Likewise thecreative phase of the Roman Empire—its remarkable two centuriesof peace beginning with Caesar Augustus—represents an advanceover Persia because of Rome's greater territory, deeper culture (including the Greek), and more flexible government. For similar reasons our modern society, if it grows toward a world republic, willrepresent an advance over Rome.Progress and EternityIt is here that we find the significance of Berdyaev's concept ofprogress as culminating in the kingdom of God. This kingdom, in itsbarest terms, implies a world-wide righteous government. Withoutsuch a government, and the consequent abolition of war, man facescatastrophe. With it, he reaches a definite historical culmination asfar as this earth is concerned. After ages of isolation in primitivegroups, and of conflict though barbarian powers (which have recently worn the mask of civilization), man finally comes to the peaceand light of a global organisation and view. Territorially speaking,there is nothing beyond, as far as our knowledge of the Milky Waynow avails except worlds less habitable than the earth. Thoughhuman advance from this stage may persist indefinitely into thefuture, the long-awaited advent of peace on earth does mean a vast,unprecedented, and joyous culmination.Unfortunately for the soundness of Berdyaev's total view, theclassic Greek concept of the world's divine, or eternal, goal has beenconfused with the prophetic Hebrew dream of a future kingdom ofGod. The two ideas can be reconciled, but not hy identification. Theeternal goal, we may say, is the God in whom we live, move, andhave our being. Through progress occurring in ceaseless time thisdivine goal is actualized, or expressed; and its culminating actualiza-
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, tion for man, from the standpoint of historical integration, is God's kingdom on earth.What of those supposedly unfortunate individuals, perhaps including ourselves, who die before God's kingdom arrives? This is*Berdyaev's main question when he considers the idea of social advance toward the kingdom. The message of Jesus is that the kingdom-of God is within us. For any generation God's realm is in some measure here now: partly actual (in past achievement), partly possibleand mysterious (in the future), and partly ideal (in the intellectual present). Generations or centuries may differ in glory as do humanbeings themselves. But every period has its regions of progress. And every man of imagination can rise above his own time and view history as a thrilling unfinished drama in which he is called on to act.