Human Progress : Technological Development or Collective Morality?

As the human race developed through ages, it passed through challenging and unforgiving stages of debauchery. From the times when fabricated and remote philosophies subverted civilisations, to the distinct today where we find inimical ideas in the modern arenas of advanced technological developments, there are similar patterns of moral decay. 

What we as a nation mistake for the success of our civilisation is actually an unfortunate illusion of technical development. The rise of great empires and industrial revolutions, as exposed by history itself, can only mark human progress on the grounds of technological development. However these eras and movements are self-explanatory for the fact that humanity is still in decline when it comes to growth centred on collective morality. 

Humanity’s hedonistic approach towards progress is particularly evident in the transformation of warfare by the strongest nations in the world through their use of laser-guided weapons, combat drones and missiles. From the use of space weapons by the U.S and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War for attacking targets on Earth, to the sinking during the American Civil War, super powers have misused their own technological inventions against humanity in an attempt to revolutionize warfare. The employment of a similarly fatal invention, the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that gave rise to ‘an atomic plague’ still continue to adversely affect the health of the generation being born into these localities. Initially, nuclear research was furthered to achieve advancement in technology. However with time morality crumbled in the face of political necessities as the selection of cities can be described as a scientific experiment rather than a plain strategic military calculation. This attitude of inflicting damage seems to repeat itself in history when the need for commissioning such deadly measures triggers as soon as political tensions escalates between countries, proving how humanity lacks the capacity to look beyond its short term gains. 

As political claims continue to glorify the growth of important states from under-developed infant civilizations into powerful and dominating nations that they are today, it is crucial to comprehend that these ultimate powers have a very asymmetrical approach towards technological development and how they use it.

Humans have not been able to maintain the pace between development in terms of politicised world affairs and morality.

 It doesn’t matter how advanced super powers have become if the concept of racial faux still continues to target ethnic groups including Muslims and Mexicans. Despite the efforts of the civil rights movement and the formation of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) prejudicial treatment of such minority groups, continues to render humanity devoid of even the basic principles of morality. Perceptions like the anti-Muslim bigotry, under the prevalent pattern of Islamophobia, reaffirm the partiality in the global racial structure. The twentieth century dictator Adolf Hitler blamed the Jews for the loss of Germany in World War One and the prevailing economic crisis and proposed the ideology of the Holocaust following which he massacred about six million Jews. Having a strong ethnocentric bias against them, Hitler used anti-Semitic ideas that already existed, to eject the Jews from society. The fact that people like Adolf Hitler and now Donald Trump, the President of the United States, based their entire political campaigns on the grounds of demeaning moral approaches such as racial and ethnic discrimination, exposes the basic evils that we as a nation are guilty of; our lust for attaining more power, by putting down the weaker sections of the society, and our misplaced egoistic values that reinforce the concept of the lack of morality in most parts of the world.

The overarching nature of humans can be analysed observing their predisposed attitudes towards minorities. Though some humanitarians like William Henry Bill Gates and Warren Edward Buffett bring a ray of hope to the otherwise bleak scenario of the world order, we cannot undermine the fact that they form only a minority in the entire human race, the majority of which always aims to extend personal gains. Thus it is inadequate to generalise the notable intents behind their success to the rest of immoral mankind and claim that humanity has developed in terms of collective morality too.

In the era of explosive progress in this realm, it is intimidating to find that many genres of technology remain extraneous to much of humanity. The hasty evolution of technology in the form of electronic devices and social media has itself moved today’s generation away from traditional norms and set standards of priorities rendering a very neglected stance towards morality in general. Instead of investing increasingly in social technological developments, that provide large short term profits, we as humans have a duty to invest in long term projects based on morality that might not render the same levels of monetary gains.

As it is evident, the glory of technology is moving forward at a constant rate. However having a stable economy and a stable industry is not enough as we are only as good as the aim behind our technical development allows us to be. The mistaken perception of the twenty-first century is that humans have challenged the very gods in the comforts that they have provided through science and technology. On the contrary we are merely a psychologically and emotionally selfish race with the profitable tool of technology at hand. Despite being the result of almost four billion years of evolutionary success, it is safe to say that humans today are no more moral than those that came before as they are still devoid of development based on the pillars of humanity.