The question that I had been asking myself over and over again is "Have we, as a civilization progressed?” There are people who would have me believe that we are marching towards the apotheosis of progression as we know it. There are still others whose contention is that we are well past the progressive states of civilization and are currently groping in the horizons working towards what they call localized post progressive states.
Before delicately pursuing my ambitious treatise on civilization’s endeavors, I would like to make an attempt to define progression. Here again, one stumbles upon what I call "stand point paradox", which is, what is progression from a person's stand point does not necessarily be progressive to his fellow men. From this I gather that it is not so easy to furnish logically accurate and generally acceptable tirades on topics with no universal definitions. But the situation is not as apathetic as it is made out to be, there are certain ground rules with the aid of which one can identify the characteristics of this abstract mood of people called progression.
Many writers have based their arguments on these ground rules such as liberty to prove their point, to eschew any misgivings they took current living conditions and showed that liberty and other such ground rules have made the conditions hitherto presented possible. I would like to attempt a different routine.
In the early 19th century, the mathematics community revamped its basic fundamental structures by attempting to prove every single theorem, nothing was taken for granted. Eye of skeptic devoured on the mathematician's disconcertedness with any basic theorem, no matter how straight forward it was. This revolution ended with the reduction of mathematical rules into axioms; any attempt to prove a theorem could rely on these axioms without further interrogation. m + n = n + m was one such mathematical reality, it holds good for all values of m and n. Mathematicians were not allowed to assert proofs if they happened to take any equation or formula for granted; either the equation or formula should be proved with axioms or should itself be shown to reduce into an axiom. Those were the rules.
I would like to attempt the same strategy here. I won't be taking people's vicissitudes or moods attached with abstract definitions such as liberty. I would take a case just as it is, whole and complete without tethers of dramatic quality attached to abstract conclusions.
Today, a common working man from a reasonably developed country would go to work everyday, earn for his livelihood, on a long enough time line, he would save and invest in ventures that he analyses closely and is at ease with investing in. He would have children; husband and wife invest their time and energy in rearing their children from infancy to adulthood. The common man and woman in question would spend most of the time contemplating their individual futures, collective future, with kids, after kids grow into adulthood, and the future as "future" in itself. The common man would every now and then hear about a space probe launched onto a moon revolving around Saturn for instance, or news about a marine biologist expressing her disavowal of deep sea missions by the navy, or news as "news" in itself. The common man also indulges in artistic endeavors such as learning to play an instrument or teaching one, watching a movie or making one, listening to music or composing one. He would spend time with his friends and relatives, wife and kids, talk about politics, nations, wars, famines, philosophy and science among other things.
But he is never impulsive; his decisions are all weighed up with the collective aims, perceptions, thoughts and objectives of his family, friends and lastly himself. The common man is alien to objectives such as depth of inquiry, depth of reality, depth of relativistic perception owing to his preoccupations with his family, friends and other connections. He is rarely seen pursuing a daily routine with an eye of artistic flavor or an eye of scientific vigor or a head of philosophical muse or a body of conscience. Common man is blinded with his collective stake attitudes to a degree that he brushes off the above mentioned endeavors with scorn or worse contempt. He excuses himself with the culturally defined and nourished maxims, generalizations, platitudes or (for the lack of a better word), words strung together to give an empty phrase a self assertive eloquence. The self assertion, adornment and embellishments are garnered by his family, friends and other connections.
This attitude is so deeply felt that the common man ignores for a period of his life time that he is alive. That "being alive" is to represent or feel a cosmic harmony among some variable and profound multitudes of happenings around him is replaced with a regrettably execrable attitude of "easy going" or "indifference". This attitude is so strongly supported and almost conclusively advised by the cultural themes built around by an excess of these operational attitudes everywhere, that to locate an island of "gravity in thought" is a task of unimaginable vagueness.
I would call this situation "cultural affluence". common man flows in the river of cultural affluence, his myopic vision and his attitude of indifference does not qualify him to see through the rich architecture of bridges that support and divert this river flow, he does not qualify to see the enormity of a question such as "what is this river, why is it in flow, was it in flow before, will it be in flow after. All that matters to him is his family, friends, the weekends he spends with them, and the weekdays he spends himself for them. He is so immensely prided with himself that he has lost the basic human flavor called "individuality". This is synonymous to the mathematical axiom m +n = n+ m. I did not take any adjective such as liberty for granted, my treatise, although complex in nature reduces itself into the perceptible axiom "individuality”, the lack of which makes a common man a dead subject like a flake of dust flowing in a river of cultural affluence.
The times of Galileo, times of Aristotle, times of Leonardo, times of Plato were more or less the similar to the current times (times of Einstein), in each of these times, a common man exhibited the same "mockery" or "indifference" although on different levels, but the grounds remained fairly the same, excuses remained fairly the same. He just is indifferent, because it does not bother him, he is too preoccupied with his family and friends, with investing money, effort and time in contemplating a better future, with living his life. Even on his death bed, common man is cajoled and convinced by his family and friends and he dies peacefully, with the knowledge that he had been a good father, a good husband, a good citizen, a good friend. I wonder, does it not occur to him that these subjective self assertions (by the collective "common men" whole) are mere preoccupations; that he just lost his only chance of "conscience" that exists for a period of a life time.
Even a simple appreciation of a flower with its petals curled up and stalk standing right up, by a man is his body’s response which includes a nexus of incomprehensibly complicated sensory visions apprehended individually by his five sensory devices. These five sensory visions form a collective “whole” which then is realized inside a device of evolutionary triumph “brain”. Brian then spits out electrical impulses, which the nerves carry, culminating in the movement of hand to reach out for the flower, hand is guided towards the flower in a series of rapid fluctuations of sensory “positive feedback loops”, which rely on the apprehended sensory vision. I call this unimaginably complex and beautiful nexus “conscience”.
To be conscious is to acknowledge the surge of chemicals such as adrenaline secreted by brain in a complex mechanism that stimulates autonomic nerve action which the body comprehends and associates with a fairly neutral tone called feeling.
Does it not bother the common man that, he is a collection of atoms primed by a mechanism that transcends his understanding to produce multi dimensional senses, that he exhibits "conscience" while he is alive, that he has in his possession, a repertoire of armory with which he can make inquiries into his arbitrary state of "being alive", that 5 byrs of universal enigma and 2 byrs of protein synthesis over a period of painfully slow evolution presented the heap of atoms with a conscience, which he contemptibly foregoes with ignominious preoccupations, which he unfortunately considers infinitely superior during his life time.
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