Progress? What progress?

In a post further down I mentioned that I was beginning to read Annabel Patterson's book Nobody's Perfect which seeks to argue in favour of the whig(*) theory of history.  What with the gardening and all, I haven't progressed (no pun intended) very far but I have been mulling over some thoughts and observations.  In essense, the whig theory of history states that gradually over time the human condition has improved and that this very improvement is the essence of the progressive movement.

Instantly, the barrack-room lawyer in me demands to know what is meant by 'improved'.  This is important for the whig case because immediately whole layers of 'improvement' in our daily lives can be removed from claims by philosophers and politicians and instead laid correctly to the credit of scientists.  From Francis Bacon onwards, the scientific method has led to technological improvements which have, to use 'Obama-speak', transformed our lives.  We live longer, we live healthier and, most important in my view, we live richer.

It is, I suspect, the riches which have really transformed our political lives.  When you have nothing, a condition shared by roughly .01% of the population today, then political activity has no meaning.  The minute you own something you begin to take notice of what the rascals above you are up to, and the more you own, the more you wish to make your masters accountable.  If I am right, I cannot see how high falutin' ideas emanating from politcal philosophers are anything other than descriptions of what is happening rather than prescriptions on what should happen.

However, today, with the universal franchise, we live pretty close to the ideal of the early whig thinkers but pause and ask yourselves, exactly how free are we?  One might look at our present condition and suggest that it is not the Marxist nations who live under the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the western 'democracies'.  I am an elderly, English, white, heterosexual christian (with a small 'c') and my life and my desires and my thoughts on what constitutes a civic society are over-ruled by a great tidal wave of the great and ignorant unwashed.  So, how free am I?

I look back to the renaissance age of Shakespeare.  England was ruled by a claque of nobles surrounding the autocratic queen.  Daily life was hedged about with religious edicts the most onerous of which was the strict requirement to attend church on Sundays.  For a free-thinking middle-class man like Shakespeare it was necessary to be exceedingly careful as to what opinions you voiced on various sensitive subjects, much as today, it would be unwise to crack jokes of a sexual or religious (that is, Islamic) nature in public.  So no change there, then!  However, that did not stop him making a successful career in theatre and accruing a considerable fortune in doing so, even if he had to rely on the fact that the authorities, or their jacks-in-office, were too thick to spot the religious and political sedition hidden in his texts.  So again, I ask, apart from the material benefits provided by science and technology, how has life improved.

At this point I am aware of a growing rumble of approaching fury from the militant feminists all screeching with but one voice, "What about the 'wimmin'?"  My response is, what about them?  In Shakespeare's day middle and lower class women were rarely educated and were confined to domestic duties.  Of course, higher class 'ladies', depending on position and looks, might well exert considerable influence in certain political circumstances.  Today, women, like men, are educated to the level needed to satisfy the job market and the nature of their daily drudgery has only altered in having been moved from one sphere to another.  So again, I ask, what's really changed?

I hasten to add that these are preliminary thoughts, and not particularly well articulated but if anyone has any further comments to make I would welcome them.  How I miss my old e-pal, Deogolwulf, whose blog is currently on hold, which is such a pity because he is what I call a real thinker.

 (*) Prof. Patterson is eager to differentiate between small capital 'whig' and large capital 'Whig'.  The former being the general philosophy which today we would call 'progressive, and the latter indicating the political party whose leaders and members would hold a variable belief in progress depending on the circs - well, they're politicians, after all!

 

Comments

[dearieme]

You've got the detailed timing wrong, David. "..age of Shakespeare. England was ruled by a claque of nobles surrounding the autocratic queen." The nobles had been complaining ever since her father's time about how they were losing power to the New Men. And they were.

"Daily life was hedged about with religious edicts the most onerous of which..": her edicts were much looser than before - no burning of heretics, only a demand for an appearance of conformity. Unlike her father and her sister, she wasn't a monster. She wasn't a sweetikins either, of course.

[David Duff]

"a demand for an appearance of conformity"

Exactly, DM, a mirror image of our own society today - so where's the progress the whig progressives keep wittering on about? The point I was trying to make was that a free-thinker, like Shakespeare, could go about his daily life writing his plays provided that he was discreet with his opinions.

[dearieme]

Ah, progress has gone backwards if you compare the Orwellian demands of the Forces of Progress with the Virgin Queen's remark about not wanting a window into men's souls.