Recognizing The Failure of Progress

There comes a point when progress ceases to improve. When it trashes and degrades what came before it, somehow obliviously.

Now, this phenomenon has countless examples in recent history. Let us say architecture, first with Modernist values via Bauhaus (subtly) then less subtly with brutalism and then eventually our contemporary glass box slop, we see the entire original focus (beauty in design) gets lost along the way while perpetually searching for ‘the new thing’. In cinema we might say you are hard-pressed to find a true film buff who ever felt CGI special effects improved in any way upon the craft of filmmaking. Yet the ‘progress’ marches on, unquestioningly, as we now verge on entering the realm of pure, pointless AI slop. Generally among the artisans it seems a token of ‘minimalizing labour’ via technology overtakes any value concerns about preserving artistic integrity. That is, you cannot make a decision to maintain quality if some new tech offers an advantage quantitively.

But why? Why can we not safeguard quality?

The reasons for this are clouded in a particular question of inevitability and natural entropy vs a purposeful hijacking (an intentional and suicidal nose-diving). Either way the phenomenon of ‘runaway progress’ seems hallmarked by what appears to be a parasitic zombification, which re-programs the values of the progressing function (subverts its telos) while keeping the whole complicated apparatus of its production operational.

A zombie.

However, seeing as it is mostly a very recent 20th century phenomenon, we must act under the assumption the nose-dive is artificial and combatable (even if it ultimately isn’t, ha). And in light of that, to examine our problem the conclusion seems to be that progress is held in too high regard as our chief and unquestionable value, and even if we want it to be so, it must be sublimated to perpetual self cross-examination or it will fail us. We needn’t discard the concept of progress, but it must in include a safeguarding philosophy of maintenance of quality. And what’s more, we must always be open to questioning and examining our underpinning values, and not get lost in the superficial operation of an art or function.


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