Progress?

“What men do is shaped by what they believe they can do.” John Roberts


I was fascinated to watch the first part of Niall Ferguson's new series on Civilization recently, in which he seeks to examine why the West became the centre for the development of numerous empires in the 16th century, whilst other realms, like China, failed to do so.

Niall puts this down to the development of what he defines as the West's 'six killer apps'.  These are:
Competition
Science
Democracy
Medicine
Consumerism
The Work Ethic

The first episode looked at how it was Portugal's appetite to monopolize the market in spices that brought about sea-fairing exploration and expansion and how china has now embarked upon the very same competitive process in developing its new 'belt and road' enterprise.

Lots of interesting observations, no doubt, yet even as I watched and listened, I felt unsettled because, as useful as these 'apps' might be, they were not the full story.
The reason China can now apply these means to itself is because a fundamental shift happened in its 'hardware' to make it a nation that would do as the empires of the West had done.

Almost a century ago, through the process of the cultural revolution, Mao and his followers replaced the philosophical 'story' of China from one based upon Confucianism to Communism, and the present expansion is the clear consequence.

If that's the case, what was it that caused the West to become the power house of growth and change some 500 odd years earlier?

Europe changed from a feudal backwater in the 15th and 16th centuries because in 1453, Constantinople fell, and all the great learning stored there flooded back into the continent, seeding both the Renaissance in culture and the Reformation in the church. The 'striving creed' of Christianity (John Roberts - The Triumph of the West) found its feet, and the West truly reaped the benefits. 

What all such changes tell us is that it is the stories which inspire and motivate us that really make the difference in what we do and how we do it. If we believe there is a higher goal or a bigger picture, then we understand our place and time to have value and meaning. 

The problem in the West today is that above and beyond our immediate needs, there is very little seen as providing that purpose, and so we become caught in the latest technology (individually viewed as 'killer apps') without thinking about the deeper ramifications of what's actually unfolding around us. Ferguson's approach here is telling in that respect, because it rests on entirely materialistic means and ends when the truth is that these kinds of development have deeply spiritual connections and ramifications (consider, for example, Tolkein's insights into these in The Lord of the Rings, or Lewis' striking commentary on the matter in his Cosmic Trilogy).

It's easy for us to detach the benefits of such change from their true beginnings in the West today - two world wars, secular culture and the constant spin of new technology make it extremely hard for us at times to look deeper into the why and how of being where we are, but the truth remains that all of these common things now are the results of several hundred years of seismic shifts in the way Europe and later America came to define its reason and thereby its role.

We live at a moment when much of the globe is, again, in convulsion, and the prevalent threats of totalitarianism and also perceived meaninglessness are widespread, so it can be of real value to re-discover the rich sources of truth and value deposited by the events of the 16th century, rooted in the notion that we have value because we are the handiwork of God, redeemed by His salvic work in Jesus Christ.
It's a meaning that many today are afraid to raise or encounter, and some are very clearly seeking to erase or re-write, but it is one that we shouldn't avoid - it's been far too important to the history of humanity, and its ramifications are vital for the past and the future.