- Jun 29, 2013
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Progress is a mysterious word that can be used for almost any purpose. Used by itself as a singular noun we tend to attribute positive things to it. " How's your progress? " you boss might ask. Somebody who is ill in the hospital might be said to be making good progress. On the other had progress can and does mean other things. A disease can be progressive. Decay is also progressive. In fact the movement of time that is almost always associated with both of those concepts makes them nearly inseparable.
On the whole the universe is subject to the laws of entropy and thermodynamics. Whoa! you say...how did we jump from social mechanics to quantum physics? Easy...they are in so many ways just another expression of the same science.
Not long ago I had a net-debate with a well known lefty on another forum who touted progressivism as something that always dominates the social norm. Barriers fall, laws change, separations disappear.....he said....every civilization that has ever existed has undergone this process .....with no exceptions! Ours will be no different! He was feeling mighty proud of himself for a bit but then our discussion continued. "What is progress? " I asked...and " What is decay ? "...... rather than to get a straight answer from him he simply blew up into a rage and accused me of being a negative thinker. But am I?
The other thing all of those civilizations share in common fate was eventual extinction. Seems they always begin at a strong point with certain rules, norms and separations that were established oft times for perfectly pragmatic reasons....reasons that people tend to forget. Instead of being happy that they have a working system, people, as they always do, look for things that make them unhappy. They look for perceived injustices, things that they consider to be unfair; Rules that they want to change for their own particular reasons and voila! Progressivism is born into that society. Eventually the changes set in, habits change, rules disappear...and with it so does that civilization....because it loses the very reason why it was there in the first place and falls prey to another social structure that has rules, identity and unified functionality.
Very often the new rules deal with ideology rather than being socially tested for viability and mechanical stability...yeah that's right I used the word machine referring to humanity.....it is one you know....and we do well to remember that. But I digress. Having new rules, progressive rules formed from ideology or for lack of a better synonym " wishful thinking " doesn't always work out that well. It often runs smack right back into the ugly reality that rejected it in the first place. Not all progress is like that...but a lot of it is. In fact I'm going out on a limb here. ...IMO most of it is.
We today are experiencing an unprecedented wave of progressivism and with it an increasing departure from reality. It's inevitable I'm afraid. I don't say that all progress is bad but I do say that our society is subject to the greater rules of the Universe and we, like the vast cosmos around us progress into decay and that is an inexorable and inevitable process.
On the whole the universe is subject to the laws of entropy and thermodynamics. Whoa! you say...how did we jump from social mechanics to quantum physics? Easy...they are in so many ways just another expression of the same science.
Not long ago I had a net-debate with a well known lefty on another forum who touted progressivism as something that always dominates the social norm. Barriers fall, laws change, separations disappear.....he said....every civilization that has ever existed has undergone this process .....with no exceptions! Ours will be no different! He was feeling mighty proud of himself for a bit but then our discussion continued. "What is progress? " I asked...and " What is decay ? "...... rather than to get a straight answer from him he simply blew up into a rage and accused me of being a negative thinker. But am I?
The other thing all of those civilizations share in common fate was eventual extinction. Seems they always begin at a strong point with certain rules, norms and separations that were established oft times for perfectly pragmatic reasons....reasons that people tend to forget. Instead of being happy that they have a working system, people, as they always do, look for things that make them unhappy. They look for perceived injustices, things that they consider to be unfair; Rules that they want to change for their own particular reasons and voila! Progressivism is born into that society. Eventually the changes set in, habits change, rules disappear...and with it so does that civilization....because it loses the very reason why it was there in the first place and falls prey to another social structure that has rules, identity and unified functionality.
Very often the new rules deal with ideology rather than being socially tested for viability and mechanical stability...yeah that's right I used the word machine referring to humanity.....it is one you know....and we do well to remember that. But I digress. Having new rules, progressive rules formed from ideology or for lack of a better synonym " wishful thinking " doesn't always work out that well. It often runs smack right back into the ugly reality that rejected it in the first place. Not all progress is like that...but a lot of it is. In fact I'm going out on a limb here. ...IMO most of it is.
We today are experiencing an unprecedented wave of progressivism and with it an increasing departure from reality. It's inevitable I'm afraid. I don't say that all progress is bad but I do say that our society is subject to the greater rules of the Universe and we, like the vast cosmos around us progress into decay and that is an inexorable and inevitable process.
