#2: Progress At Your Own Convenience

Dr. Blau, I've been waiting until we finished reading this book to write this blog post, because I was sure that the later, heavier chapters would surely inspire me to write... But after what, 8 weeks? I still ask myself almost every single day about Chapters 2 & 3 from Slack and Wise: "Progress" and "Convenience." In retrospect, I probably should have written these sooner given how often I thought about these two chapters, but I really thought Agency or surely Identity would do it for me... And while they were both excellent chapters, these questions of progress and convenience are on my mind almost every day.

I was so glad when you asked Dr. Slack (I had to actively restrain myself from having a when-I-met-Dr.-Ceccarelli-level explosion, because hoLY SHIT I SAW THIS WOMAN AND SHE ANSWERED A QUESTION I ASKED!!!) about what she does in her life to actually deal with believing what she does about progress and about convenience, because I've been struggling with the same thing. It's never enough to question the status quo; you have to be able to do something about it too. (If it's unclear, I whole-heartedly support the Revolution.)

The whole time I was reading these chapters I was nodding almost every two seconds. I've underlined things several times for emphasis, written "YESSSS" (or some variation thereof) in the margins almost 10 times, and generally just agreed with everything the authors were saying. I mean, they're just so right. "We often hear, 'you can't stop progress;' but what is often meant is, 'you shouldn't stop progress'" (17). THAT'S ONE OF THE MOST CORRECT THINGS I'VE EVER READ!!! "When it comes to conveniences, the reasonable choice seems to be to toss it and consume something new" (45). DR. BLAU!!! YES!!! Amazon has something called Amazon Dash, and they're basically little buttons that you own and they're hooked up to your Amazon account, and each button is for a specific product, and whenever you click the button, it orders that product for you. If that isn't the epitome of "progressive" and "convenient" technologies aiding and abetting the delightfully horrific structures of consumerism and capitalism, I don't know what is.

I agree with basically everything they wrote in these chapters, so I won't go on about that much longer, but for me... They just didn't really go far back enough in the human timeline.

Are progress and convenience just human desires? Convenience maybe more conscious, progress less so? When fire became a thing, was that not just so we could see at night? Either to protect ourselves or to hunt for longer, whatever it was? Was that not just convenience? And then as fire led to things like cooking and traveling for longer periods of time and other cool stuff, was that not progress? Do the things that historically progress our society start as conveniences?

I know what S & W talk about are progress and convenience in a contemporary sense, and I'm totally on board with them. I think we've totally exacerbated what these words mean and how important they are/should be to people, and I think we're screwing ourselves over as a society in always wanting to achieve "progress," making everything that is progressive just a stepping stone instead of an accomplishment. I think we're making too many shortcuts in the name of convenience that're starting to negatively affect our memory (individual and collective), our critical thinking, etc.

But are these just inherent to humanity? Humans are a storytelling species; are they also a species that wants an easier, better life? I mean, other animals do this too, right? The reason the predators will stop to eat the slowest of the pack isn't because it's objectively the best prey to eat, it's because it's the most convenient. Clark talks about it himself in his chapter "Global Swarming," when he talks about how ants make food trails. He literally writes, "... in order to discover and exploit the best, meaning shortest routes..." (145). (Already a ton to be said about how he's totally buying into the narrative of convenience, but disregarding that...)

I know the point isn't that doing things for the sake of convenience or the sake of progress is 100% inherently bad, but that we should question why we are doing something and if our "progress" is really progress, and if our convenience comes at negative expenses to things... Basically, to be critical... But it's hard to find the line. And I might be over-critical and way too cynical of innovation because of its tendency to privilege certain people and disadvantage others (white supremacist capitalist patriarchy rearing its ugly head, once again)... But maybe I shouldn't be?

I don't know Dr. Blau. I'm still a little confused on this one. Not confused... Just uncertain. I feel like these chapters left me with so many questions (some of which I'd like to think are "good question" questions), but I just feel like I have so few answers.