(below is the essay submitted for one of my online courses – i allowed the thoughts to brew off of yesterday’s post and then started composing after midnight. i preface this for as i give it a read now there is much to question and even offer objection to my own words. as i learned last week in another online class – Hume informs us not to trust testimony – Kant concurs that one must seek their own knowledge – ergo, read at your own risk knowing this is an essay of a novice in both literature and philosophy. that said, if you are well read, you shall not hurt my feelings if you wish to rip apart these words…well, as long as your comments uphold the ideology of Hume, offering a bit of evidence to uphold testimony – now, what is that called… )
(p.s. sadly, “Works Cited” has gone missing..)
(p.s.s. Marc Cary just came up on my Pandora – had to click over to find out who this killer jazz pianist was coolin’ the room- fab)
“Philosophical proponents of progress assert that the human condition has improved over the course of history and will continue to improve.” [1]
Despite the above statement, there are always those who propose the contrary. Two contrarians, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Gustave Flaubert, make no apologies in their writings. Both men raised objection to what they saw as a society being harmed by progress.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not a proponent of the Age of Enlightenment; he believed it regressed the human condition. The moment a person was removed from their natural state into a civilized society, the natural progression of ownership stripped away personal freedoms.
John Locke stated: “The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.” Rousseau explores this idea:
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.” 2]
Rousseau equates ownership of land, a natural progression of industry, as the root of what falls man’s personal progress in society. Society begins to evolve and revolve around ownership. Material goods become a measure of man. Rousseau questions if society can survive man’s progress as it gives power to inequality.
Gustave Flaubert also questioned the notion of historical progress of society. Flaubert writes at the height of the Romantic movement, yet he rejects Romanticism, seeing it as illusionary. One could say that Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is to Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin of Social Inequality”. The author feels this notion of “passion”, which helps to define Romanticism, will not alleviate society of her ills brought on by progress.
Flaubert writes with a deft pen as we watch Emma Bovary self-destruct as she continues to live a life led by passion. The passion is an illusion, though, not of nature or virtue, but manufactured via her books and society. She falls into the trap of believing that passion and status will lead her to happiness. Ultimately, Madame Bovary, rejects Romanticism and Enlightenment making one question what Flaubert would say is the answer to living in progress. Julian Barnes’s novel on Flaubert offers a curious insight:
“[Flaubert] didn’t just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together.” [3]
Madame Bovary offers a taste of reality; a fair warning that tragedy is part of the trappings of a progressive society. Madame Bovary reminds why certain fictions are not really fiction at all. Perhaps this is why some factions were outraged when it was first published -why any literature creating ripples outrages– not because it is objectionable, but because it drops the scales from the reader’s eyes allowing us to see the beasts we’ve become.
Neither Flaubert or Rousseau were darlings of their society; peers rejected their writings as backward or ignorant. Today, however, it is understood that their words reflect issues that have continued to plague a society ‘progressed’. We are still seeking enlightenment – filling shelves with books on ‘how to find happiness and personal freedom’. We continue to chase dreams in the name of our passions with hopes to fulfill our destiny.
Does a step forward in progress today continue to take a step away from our intrinsic humanity? If the answer is yes, could we say these contrarians are perhaps more right than wrong?
C.B. Wentworth
/ 2013/03/05Perhaps, their biggest error was looking for one be-all answer. As nice as collective enlightenment sounds, it can only happen one person at a time, for different reasons. Call it a Romantic notion if you will, but no matter the progress on the outside, we all have work to do on the inside.
angela
/ 2013/03/06Wisdom in those words, C.B., though, as a contrarian, I must say I do not know if we are meant to be in this world happy….
Mark Kerstetter
/ 2013/03/05That Barnes quote reminds me of the Melville story ‘Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!’ in which the narrator goes on a rant about our “miserable world” with its locomotives: “Great compliments of the age! What! to call the facilitation of death and murder an improvement! Who wants to travel so fast?…. that iron fiend goes yelling through the land, crying ‘More! more! more!’”
angela
/ 2013/03/06Must read this story sometime for now terribly intrigued. As I was writing to Susan in another post, Barnes’s book is now “to seek and read!”, however, one downfall of too many classes is finding time for reading OR writing. Must one have bills that require a job… ~ a
Susan Scheid
/ 2013/03/05Puzzling over this, it struck me that a problem here is the binary approach to thinking about all this. Progress is neither good nor evil, but a complex mix of both, don’t you think?
angela
/ 2013/03/06It is a great question, Susan, for what do we gain vs lose with progress? Do we not gain a headache for each advance that is to ease our ‘pain’. What IS progress, really? If you think about it, are we really that much more progressive than our history? I always circle back to the Egyptians and Mayans – especially the Great Pyramid, for today, we still cannot really say how they managed to build such a feat – imagine, they did it without Googling DIY!
Susan Scheid
/ 2013/03/07The sad thing about the Mayans and Egyptians is I think they did it with slaves. On the other hand,having spent the better part of the last two weeks dealing with electronic equipment problems, sucking away time I so looked forward to to think, dream, and write, I recall fondly the days when a book simply opened, music simply played, and the phone simply worked, all without calls to tech support.
angela
/ 2013/03/07Actually, it is theorized that it may have been akin to paying taxes. I have no doubt that those under rule or punishment had to help with building – not unlike some of our railroads.
What I really meant, though, was the intricacy of it – we still cannot figure how the stone was transported – raised – configured so tight that one cannot fit a credit card between two slabs. Not even going to get into the tunnels that align with the stars at that time … it is amazing considering the lack of equipment and technology.
Between job and personal, I spend at least 16 hours a day in front of the Internet. May your tech issue heal quickly!!
Susan Scheid
/ 2013/03/08Interesting about the taxes–glad we’ve had some progress on that form of payment, at least! And yes, I do see what you mean, it was remarkable as a design and engineering feat, and still is today.
I recognize the “time in front of the computer” issue all too well and empathize completely. That, I would say, is a prime example of the very mixed bag that progress is. Without it, I wouldn’t know you or be part of these vibrant discussions; but with it, I do often feel the world is out of balance, with so much of life and work in close communion with a computer screen. (Thanks too for the good wishes; all does seem well now, knock on wood.)