The Myth of Progress and Knowledge Cont.

Progress

The more prevalent of the aforementioned attacks presented in Straw Dogs is the one on progress. Gray repeatedly states that progress does not exist outside of science. This attack is a little trickier to refute, so we will take it step by step touching several of the different renditions of the argument present in Straw Dogs.

Early on in Straw Dogs Gray defines belief in progress thusly “To believe in progress is to believe that, by using the new powers given us by growing scientific knowledge, humans can free themselves from the limits that frame the lives of other animals” (4). To put it the other way around, and in the terms that Gray himself believes, to believe in non-progress is to believe that, humans cannot use the new powers given us by growing scientific knowledge to free themselves from the limits that frame the lives of other animals.

As far as I can tell, the validity of this latter proposition depends on some variables. If the limits Gray speaks of are limits imposed on us from outside ourselves and outside the laws of nature, then this may not be true. We could in fact plausibly free ourselves from those limits.  One might be able to free oneself from imprisonment in a jail cell for instance. But if the limits he is referring to are the limits imposed upon us by our own DNA and from inside the laws of nature then he is most certainly correct. One could never free oneself from needing DNA to survive for instance. I wonder, then, if this may be a case of disagreement over semantics. Certainly, the believer in progress doesn’t really believe that science will change the limits imposed on us by DNA and the laws of nature. Surely he simply believes that it will only satisfy him, short of DNA alterations, which would impose their own new limitations..

The next thing to note, is that with regard to progress outside of science, Gray seems to articulate two different arguments in its prosecution, so we will need to separate them for clarity. By non-progress he sometimes means that progress isn’t sustainable for very long periods of time–what progress is made, is soon lost. For instance, Gray seems to have this sort of cycle in mind when he says “Belief in progress has another source. In science, the growth of knowledge is cumulative. But human life as a whole is not a cumulative activity; what is gained in one generation may be lost in the next” (Xiii). Regarding this outlook on non-progress outside of science, one can simply ask how this is different from progress inside of science? It seems that it is often the case in science that one makes gains only to have a huge setback or to be thrown back to square one. Hard drives malfunction, hurricanes ravage, employees quit or die, all of which can cause the accumulation of knowledge internal to science to be lost. Yet, we would not resort to calling this non-progress, only loss. Why then when governments are overthrown, or the like, must we do so?

In other instances he seems to be saying something more absolute about the possibility, or lack thereof, of progress outside of science. This becomes clear when he says things like “In the world shown us by Darwin, there is nothing that can be called progress” or “Science enables humans to satisfy their needs. It does nothing to change them” (4,155). We are here presented with the idea that the alteration of the needs of humanity is a necessary condition to establish the existence of progress outside of science. It seems to me bafflingly clear that this is not and cannot be the case. Surely one can grow closer to starting a family (just a random goal one could progress towards), or any other progressive task, without having to literally alter their human needs or dabble in the world of test tubes and strict methodology.

But maybe I have not given Gray the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he doesn’t literally mean anywhere outside of science. Maybe he is specifically thinking of humanitarian endeavors. If he is simply saying that we cannot make progress toward a better humanity because this requires changing the needs of the individual humans that make up humanity, then to this I again say Why? Why is the alteration of need the sole path to progress in this domain? If the answer is because all other alternatives are only temporary, then I refer to my response from earlier in this section.