What does progress look like?

Another evening at 30+ degrees, another La Ruca Listening Circle with fresh faces bringing fresh ideas and novel approaches to avoiding the glare from the sun.

This topic, ‘What does progress look like?’, was our most ambitious yet, and (happily) we ended up with no firm answers and nothing like a consensus, just more questions and perspectives that will fester and ferment. 

 “When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.” — Henry David Thoreau

“Stick your progress where the sun don't shine

Keep your big mess away from me and mine

If you leave us alone, well, we'd all be just fine

Stick your progress where the sun don't shine” — John Rich

Before everyone’s thoughts became intertwined in the conversation, the initial round revealed two main levels at which to engage: collective/political progress and individual/personal progress. While they are inevitably correlated, some parallels became apparent in both categories.

What followed was a roaming tour through opinions, emotions and worldviews, pregnant with frustration, well-wishing and a dissatisfaction with simple answers. Off the top of our forgetful heads, these are some of the themes and observations that stood out… 

• Relentless pressure on continual individual progress

• Measuring progress on inequality disparity

• Hopelessness worsened by information overload 

• Different visualisations of progress from linear to a spiral moving forwars through cyclical stages of revolutions and backlash, nothing really changes overnight but we are not in the same place we were.

• Progress for who? the expense of the exploitation of other demographics, other regions, other cultures

• Films that have not aged well, symptomatic  of a collective change of perspective indicating progression

• Progress fueled by the raging idealism of youth?

• Activist burnout and activist disagreements

• The importance of transgenerational conversations for progress

• Nostalgic longing for simplicity and community

• Hope and optimism: as realities, myths and tactics

• Lack of optimism within leftist politics?

• Hope as an essential ingredient for educators

• The promise (and threats) of AI and technological progress

• Can technological progress free workload from people and provide more free time?

• Is people having free time a threat?

• Progress achieved by the expansion of the self in understanding the views, experiences and individualities of others

• The dangerous allure of progress and the atrocities committed in its name

• Ecological perspectives on human-centric history (what if we disappear?)

• Are we obsessed with progress? is dancing an antidote…?

• Multiple metaphores on dancing: dancing as a stance against the pressure for individual progression, dance as a way to being present, dance as a hedonistict privilege

This Wednesday the Listening Circle maxed its capacity and justified the strategy of keeping numbers small. In the previous LC particularly,  the speaking time of every attendee was more equal. A smaller number makes everyone more visible to the rest and individuals self-regulate better to distribute the time amongst themselves. In a bigger group, some individuals will give more room for assessment of the relevance of their thoughts before speaking. The size of the group enabled a more intimate atmosphere that transpired in the personal contributions of attendees. Relatedness and compassion was more palpable in the smaller group and the conversation flew on a single wave while in the larger group multiple threats coexisted throughout the session. 

The Listening Circle is intended as a groupt of peers facing each other as respectful equals giving everyone a chance to be seen and heard. No group can ever be diverse enough to represent all views, no one individual represents any group either. In the Listening Circle, we don’t represent anyone, we don’t even represent ourselves, we think outloud with others. No identity is to be drawn, claimed or defended. We all have unique experiences and changing opinions, we are all in contradiction and we all have days or groups where we feel like sharing and days or groups where we feel like listening and neither of those days define or represent who we are as a whole. 

The idea of progress and to be actors of such progress was experienced like a frustrating pressure for many who advocated for the necessity of being more present by thinking and acting at a lower scale both in terms of locality and time frame. Others expressed deep pesimism before the irreversibility of the alienation from presential presence of technology and the alienation from nature and purpose of living by the extreme capitalisation of everything.

We’re super grateful for everyone who came, listened and contributed, and – while we’re not sure what ‘progress’ looks like for the LC – it feels like it is taking shape more clearly each time.

After a holiday hiatus, the next sessions will be back in La Ruca on Tues 5th (‘Us and Them’) and Wed 20th of August (‘The Purpose of Art’). 

Looking forward to listening with you again soon,

Saviour and Crisper x