Progress Or Progress?

Prog:ChagChange is everywhere. Progress is rare.” Anonymous.  The essence of life is change, which, we’re told, leads to progress.  But there are two types of progress — phony and real.

Phony progress, which is common and based on technology and money, leads to change for the few, the 1%.

Real progress, extremely rare, improves everyone’s lives, including the lives of all the Others who share Earth with us, living and nonliving.

Our ancient ancestors, Indigenous People, understood and practiced real and rare progress, very carefully considering every change and how it might impact the seventh generation into the future.

But we civilized(?) Homosaps, Homo sapiens(?), haven’t progressed, evolved, or matured. We rarely, if ever, consider what our progress will do to the 2nd generation down the road, let alone the 7th generation!

Instead, we’ve devolved to phony progress, foolishly accepting every change, especially in the realm of technology (when was the last time you bought into the latest upgrade to your houseful of technological “miracles”?), convinced that the free market is our savior. It is neither free, nor savior!

Progress is a verb, to pro-GRESS, and noun, PRO-gress. In the GODs, the Good Old Days, corporations like General Electric (GE) the vast weapons corps, used the noun form to brainwash us with “Progress is our most important product,” using Ronnie the Ray Guns droning voice-over.

Droner Obomber is no different, and we’re still being lured by images of phony progress and change, listening to the corps entreat us to progress to our doom.

Alfred North Whitehead: “The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”

Likewise, we are led to believe that we can control light pollution and restore dark skies by simply passing a few laws / ordinances, fixing 100 million or more light fixtures so they shine down, not up, out, and all about.  Foolishly, we’ve bought into the “free” market lies and compromise to add new technologies — LED streetlights, etc. — and more; but none of this false ‘n phony progress will do anything to eliminate lights that desecrate nights!  Pointblank: Those who cannot change their minds — the darksky.orgs and astromagazines — cannot change anything!

 

2 comments

  1. A few weeks ago a friend and I were having a phone conversation and we talked about how the state leadership in Columbia, SC along with local leaders can’t “think outside the box.” I said, “that’s never been my problem.” And my friend said, “you’ve never been in the box!” My reply was, “They keep doing the same things over and over and calling it progress. Einstein said that when someone does the same thing over and over and expects a different outcome every time it’s the definition of an idiot.” These so called leaders go beyond tunnel vision, they have “Drinking Straw” vision. Very restricted and narrow view of reality and what positive change could really bring about – especially for dark skies! But we’re stuck with ’em until smart ones come along. Hope I live long enough to see that!!

    1. It dawned on me recently that we really don’t have very smart leaders in this country, and in my state especially. They don’t have to be intelligent! Dumb works just fine. After we elect them – or they are appointed to boards or commissions – they take a “municipal course” to learn how things are/were done and then all they have to do is keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. It has “worked” for them for well over a century, why stop now.

      And we try every way we can to educate these folks about all of the problems with light pollution and how easy it is to fix. Not much happens, does it?

      Don’t expect much to happen, after all, “Dumb” pays very well!

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