The Fatal Myth of Human Progress

Once upon a time, long ago, in an ordinary part of space, a small but extraordinary planet gave rise to Life. Among its great variety of living things was an extraordinary animal.

This creature was not physically exceptional among its apelike cousins. But it was unique because it survived and flourished by dominating the planet’s resources. It did so by using its wits to cooperate, and by making and using tools. It was inconceivable to the planet, Earth, or to this unique creature we’ve come to call “human,” that this ape might ever pose a threat to itself and all other life forms on the planet. Humans thought little to nothing about the future. They remembered yesterday but lived in today.

Human survival skills were not always successful, especially in unpredictable weather places such as the Middle East. To avoid starvation in years of drought and food scarcity in this area humans began growing and storing food. They were successful. They also tamed cows, sheep and goats so they no longer needed to be hunted, and their meat and other products were tasty and useful. The bread humans made from the grain they grew filled their stomachs all through the year. Death from starvation seldom happened anymore.

Surplus food, mostly cereal grains, also became a highly valued commodity. That is, something of value that humans could trade with other humans for other items they needed or desired. Stored food became a prized possession that required new social structures, rules, and procedures for its protection and use. This surplus of food also became a source of conflict as a prized object of thieves and armies.

Among the new social structures were cities ruled by divine kings where large numbers of humans lived and slept closer to each other than ever before, in houses. Outside the cities lay their food-growing fields and animal grazing lands where they worked.

Eventually the settled city-states grew to become large nation-states that required more complicated procedures such as government, writing, counting, laws, and money; and more effective tools of ever greater variety and usefulness. Among the new and improved tools were those for more intensive food growing and the exploitation of the planet’s resources; and better weapons for defense and conquering other humans during wars that soon began among the nation-states.

This is how the degrading of the planet’s resources began. An ever-increasing disparity of accumulated wealth also started between the rulers and the ruled, the haves and have nots. The numbers of this extraordinary creature also grew. The degradation of the planet’s environment continued, and the gap between the rich and poor intensified.

Then came the Great Ages of Religion, Empire, Renaissance, Exploration, Enlightenment, Reason, Science, Industry, Colonization, Space, and Information. Along with the knowledge and material advancements each age brought, they also strengthened the control the wealthy and powerful wielded. More importantly, the triumphs of each age reaffirmed the rulers' myth of human exceptionalism and progress.

But no-one among the rulers foresaw any problem with population growth, the harm they might be doing to the planet’s livability, or the widening gap between the rich and poor. When the wealthy and powerful eventually did see a threat they interpreted it as one to themselves. Specifically, they feared the possible loss of the wealth they had accumulated and the privileges it brought them.

That threat, they rightly thought, was in the minds and hearts of the workers, the relatively poor over whom they ruled. They, the have nots, intuitively remembered that long ago all humans lived in roving hunting and gathering bands. That these were small groups where all were valued and shared in the group’s wealth equally; and where conflict was avoided and alliances formed through marriage, ecological information sharing, and trade with other groups.

Beginning in the early 20th Century the wealthy and powerful, to defend their riches and privileges, began allowing just enough wealth and power to flow downward toward the middle and bottom of society. They also created a story that would pacify the less fortunate, and decorated it with enticing consumer goods from their factories. That story was the myth of progress toward prosperity for all through hard work. If, the poor were told, they were obedient and worked hard they could become as wealthy and powerful as their rulers. At mid-century, U.S. leaders of business, religion and politics converged to further bolster and sell the myth.

Finally, during the last one hundred years leading to the present, humans have come to realize that they have, in fact, damaged the entire planet irreversibly, and created social and economic conditions around the world that are very fragile and can no longer be effectively controlled.

The extraordinary planet and the extraordinary life form it created, humans, now face imminent environmental and economic catastrophes over the next one hundred years. Yet the majority of humans, rulers and the ruled, refuse to give up the myth of progress toward prosperity for all through unregulated capitalism.

However, the smartest and many others among us have come to realize that the story the wealthy supposedly created for everyone has been a lie. Humans are now thinking scientifically about the future. And we now see that the myth of progress for all was intended mainly for the wealthy and powerful so they could keep more riches and privileges than those who worked for them and over whom they ruled.

The end of the story of modernity is at hand. We now know that it, ungoverned capitalist modernism, cannot have a happily-ever-after ending. It will end in great and widespread suffering and death from climate and economic collapse. The extraordinary creature, now known as Homo sapiens, the wise human, is only beginning to think about a new and better story.

That new story must include a path to sustained livability for Earth and wellbeing and flourishing for everyone, equally.

The End