In Praise of Progress

The New York Times “Opinionator” section published a nice little teardown of primitivism:

But you know what? The 19th century stunk. It’s a total pain to live this way.

For about 4,000 years living standards barely budged. Then, in the 18th or 19th century they began to take off and the upward ascent has been miraculous. People at the poverty line live better, materially, than kings and queens 200 years ago. Once human creativity was unleashed during the industrial revolution there’s been no going back.

The great test now is, can we maintain this (or similar) quality of life for the foreseeable future. That’s an uncertain prospect, to be sure. I’m hopeful, because I think the meta-civilization (the thing called “The West”) is durable and dynamic enough to avoid or weather any collapse with powerful ideas like humanism, science, and capitalism powering it.