Celebrating Human Progress

There is enough news to keep us all depressed most of the time. It does appear to be even worse than usual over the last few months and years, though maybe that is something we always tend to think. So it is very healthy to remind ourselves that humanity continues to progress at a remarkable pace, despite our obvious failings and errors.

The Gates foundation recently released a report that everyone should try to read and that should cheer us all up. True, one of the themes was that recent progress was in danger of stalling and that more funding and more attention from rich countries were urgently required. But for now, let’s focus on that remarkable progress.

Within just half a generation, huge swaths of human misery and deprivation have been removed. Many diseases have been eradicated and HIV tamed. Maternal and infant mortality have halved. Abject poverty has also halved and hunger is now rare. Healthy life expectancy has increased markedly. More and more people born today can expect a reasonable education, a life of some opportunity and healthy existence for at least seven decades.

It is worth reflecting on the causes of this amazing progress. This is a story with many heroes.

Top of the list must be science, and specifically the science of health. Closely allied to science is technology, especially information technology, which has made the scientific advance more widely available and has helped transform economic prospects in the developing world. Another major factor has been China, and especially the policies of its leaders over the last thirty years, which have led to rapid economic advancement and better lives for most citizens.

We can add governance of other developing countries, especially those in Africa. This could still be improved, but in many places at least some policies benefit citizens and are seen through to fruition. Linked to this is the end of the cold war, which enabled developing countries to be seen as part of humanity rather than pawns in an ideological battle. Partly linked again are enlightened policies by many developed nations. The smarter ones have worked out that supporting developing countries is a great investment even for their own citizens, not least because it reduces risks of refugees and terrorism.

Finally, we can thank philanthropists like the Gates’. It is amazing what the fortune of just one family can achieve. Now, imagine if the whole of the top 10% in the US were permitted to retain enough to enjoy a lifestyle similar to the Gates’, but offered up the rest of their wealth to philanthropy? That is rather similar to saying imagine if the US had tax policies similar to Europe’s. On that one, we can dream on.

So we can see a glass half full or one half empty. If we choose to see a half empty glass, the temptation is to look for villains, usually politicians, who impede progress. But I have a different way of looking at my half empty glass.

Look around you, and examine the humanity you see every day. Look in the medical waiting room, or the church pew or the subway car. Look too around your family thanksgiving table. What you will probably see, like me, is how far humanity still has to travel, but also the potential to get there.

Even in the developed world, many people are still inhibited from reaching their potential. Ailments can be physical, mental, emotional or operational. Physical ones include disability and pain, as well as obesity serious enough to inhibit work and suggest a foreshortened healthy life. Mentally, there are those lacking education but also those with ailments like autism or the inability to apply themselves constructively to challenges. Emotionally, so many are perpetually angry or delusional or shrouded in fear or shame. Operationally, many are inhibited from grasping basic opportunities simply through the accident of where they were born or who their parents are, while others face debt with no real prospect of escape. Across all categories come addictions, whether to painkillers, other drugs, alcohol, social media, jealousy, abuse, gambling or so many other things. And there are many whose own lives are damaged by proximity to a sufferer.

Even in leafy Forest Hills, perhaps only 20% of us are broadly free from such things and can truly be said to live fully healthy lives. In less affluent parts of developed countries, that might reduce to 5%. In developing countries, even though some ailments are less prevalent, it might be 5% as well.

So if in the last generation humanity has halved the number of short, brutal lives, the next generation still has a road to travel. Imagine a planet where that 20% could become 80%, or those 5% figures reach 50%? Now, wouldn’t that be marvellous?

The great thing is that it might be achieved. Look through the list of heroes, and imagine. Perhaps India can join China. For sure, the health science that tamed physical disease is already working on the mental and emotional ones. And the pace of technology is breathtaking. I also notice a great trend among the young, at least in privileged circles. The mental and emotional traumas I endured as an adolescent seem to be much less common in today’s young.

It would be great if we could find a way to measure this sort of holistic health. For then it could be a focus of policy. I am astounded how little political discourse concerns this sort of topic, for surely this sort of development is the whole purpose of human leadership? Even if nation states choose to limit attention to their own citizens, surely this sort of development is how they should be judged?

So I see a half full glass reflecting on the wonderful achievements of humanity in the last thirty years. It becomes half empty when I consider how we could raise the bar and define a healthy life in a more challenging way and observe how few of us would meet that standard currently. But it becomes half full again when I am optimistic that the heroes of the last generation have every potential to be heroes again in the future, and when I observe the wonderful generation that is today’s youth.

What holds us back? Well, that would be nation states, political discourse, and the need to think more widely about the nature of work in the age of technology. I don’t have much optimism about any of those. But we made progress despite all these burdens before, and I think we will again. Life can be a wonderful gift for almost everyone if we play to our potential – and we are learning how to do that. Progress may seem slow and faltering, but in the scope of human history it is rapid indeed.