“Civilization” and “progress” have improved people since the “State of Nature.”
It is broadly understood that with time, the more we progress as an individual human being or a community, the higher civilized we become. It is also important to understand the cost at which we’re achieving progress. According to Rousseau, communities where arts and sciences have been developed saw the fall of morality and goodness. With an example of ancient Egypt and Greece, he states that it was after the progress of arts and sciences the society saw a decline in virtue based on luxury and leisure. Not only using historic examples but also modern civilisations like China have suffered with the development in science and technology. It clearly states that Civilization and progress have not really improved people.
There’s a captivating argument by the Durants that our needs and desires are largely achieved through progress in arts, science, and technology, but it has “weakened our moral fibre.” Edward Gibbon wrote that every age has improved in many aspects, including health, knowledge, and happiness. For instance, the average life expectancy has become higher to around sixty-five years, compared to a span of twenty-five years a century ago. Due to Urbanisation and Industrialisation, we’ve seen a large progress and development in the twentieth century. GDP has expanded, and per capita income has increased significantly. It looks like civilization and progress have improved the quality of life, but the question is of moral progress along which seems to be very challenging.
Civilization is about coming out of a state of nature, brutality, violence, or barbarity to a state of civilized individual and society. Though we’re better educated, technologically advanced, and economically developed, this civilization and progress are at the cost of social and political deterioration in life. With an acceptance from the Western part of the world that civilization is good compared to the state of nature. As we become more progressive as individuals and in society, we are detached from the practice of barbarism. According to many, including Samuel Huntington, being civilized is good, and it is bad to be uncivilized. With this argument, there are still many shades of gray. According to Zygmunt Bauman (2001, 4, 6), we can see the dark side of civilization, such as the Holocaust, which was not much “a temporary suspension of the civilizational grip in which human behaviour is normally held”. Though there is a development, but potential downsides of civilization need to be addressed.
The Nobel Peace Laureate of 1952, Albert Schweitzer, brings another take that civilization owes to moral and ethical considerations in society. On the road to achieving success socially, economically, and politically, a lot of damage has been done on the personal community level and to the environment on a very large level. Economic and technological growth are not sufficient. It definitely takes people out of poverty and brings improvement in life, but human development is based on economic, technological, as well as social and environmental progress. A society that does not address the environment it is living into cannot succeed for long. Inclusive growth is essential.
Philosophers have deduced that in the “state of nature”, as there were no regulations, development, and how life would have been before society became civilised. It is a continuous process. A hundred years from now, there will be more progress socially, economically, and technologically. Civilization and progress may have positive or negative impacts on human nature and its environment; ultimately, it depends on the decisions we make as individuals and as a society. So, Civilization and progress haven’t improved people but brought development, which is different than the social and moral improvement of human beings.
