Progress?

So ProgressiveU poses the question: What is progress?

What is progress? What is the meaning behind this word, this concept, often used, rarely explained?

I don't believe that the problem of defining 'progress' lies in determining its meaning as an abstract concept. A quick trip to a dictionary (or common sense) will tell you that it means advancement, moving forward, evolving from a lower state to a higher state. Simple enough right? Just think of walking forward from an area covered with insurmountable shadow and darkness to an area where everything -- the past and the present (perhaps even the future) -- is illuminated by a glow of comprehension. That is 'progress' in its abstract state.

The great trouble for me arises when I try to classify a tangible event, action, or plan in reality as progressive or devolutionary and degenerate. Clearly, something is progressive if it causes those effected to advance. However, it is almost impossible to tell if something will have that effect. As humans, we have the tendency to automatically discount something as not being progressive if the concepts behind it are incongruent with our opinions. Thus, the diverse number of opinions leads to a diverse classifications of things as progressive or not. Keeping an open mind and shedding all preconceptions of something when considering things would allow for a more uniform definition of what 'progress' is when it manifests itself in reality. Now that's a progressive idea.

I equate progress with the betterment of humanity. Just how that is achieved, however, is up for serious discussion, and whichever ways are promising in leading us to that goal -- whether it be an international carbon tax for the environment, food equity programs for poverty, or AIDS prevention programs for health -- will certainly be considered progressive in my mind. Progress can occur on a large scale, but it can also occur on a minute scale. Situations pertaining to 1 person can improve, it can progress from the bad. Large scale progress is almost invariably a result of thousands of units of microcosmic progress that merge. It's like if each person in a city's life improved, the entire city would advance. The economy, civil rights, art, etc. would flourish. Furthermore, if every city in a nation advanced like that single city did, the entire nation would improve. Progress may come slow, and it may come as a result of the fusion of thousands of different units of improvement, but it will come if strived for.

Moving society forward, advancing Mankind -- that's progress to me.