On the Painfulness of Progress David G. Hays Raoul Naroll planned to call a book on cultural evolution Painful Progress. The progressiveness of evolution is apparent in data on longevity, economic inequality, and so forth. What Naroll intended to say about pain cannot be known, but he opened and closed The Moral Order by mentioning the pain of incomprehension. The author argues that progress causes such pain during periods of transition but alleviates this and other kinds of pain over the long term. I defer my review of evidence on the cultural evolution of mankind to my next book, Painful Progress, where it is my main topic. Raoul Naroll, The Moral Order (1983, p. 37) To speak of progress today entails risks. Journalists as well as scientists now deny that evolution is progressive; the wars of the 20th century are cited in evidence. Naroll was aware of ethnological relativism and of contemporary warfare and massacres, yet he was willing to attempt &dquo;a meta-ideology&dquo; (Naroll, 1983, p. 409). For that purpose, he adopted core values: &dquo;This work is dedicated to the building for all mankind of a just and stable world order of healthy, happy, peaceful, and free people, enlightened by science and enriched by a wide variety of cultures&dquo; (p. 48). 1b justify these values, Naroll argued that worldwide political unification is the inevitable outcome of evolutionary processes and made a &dquo;guess&dquo; that, to be stable, a world order would have to embrace &dquo;humanistic&dquo; values (pp. 50-53). Changes toward this condition count as progress, but Naroll’s primary conception of progress was &dquo;powerCross-Cultural Research, Vol. 28 No. 4, November 1994 322-327 e 1994 Sage Publications, Inc. 322 323 ful knowledge ... science and technology&dquo; (p. 49; also see Naroll & Naroll’s Main Currents in Cultural Anthropology, 1973, p. 16). A plethora of facts about the contemporary world exhibit evolutionary change and progress in Naroll’s moral sense. The per capita gross national product (GNP) of a country is an indicator of its conversion of knowledge into wealth. The share of GNP received by, say, the poorest 40% of a population is larger in countries with greater GNP. Where per capita GNP was above $5,000 in 1980, the share of the poorest was typically above 15%; elsewhere, the poorest more often received less than 15%.1 (GNP in my data is reduced by expenditures for defense.) My index of the income of the poorest 40% (IP40) is their per capita GNP. (If the share was not available but at least 40% reportedly lived in absolute poverty, then IP40 $1.) Where IP40 was greater than $1,000 in 1980, male life expectancy at birth was close to 70 years, the number of extra years of life for females was generally greater, infant mortality was below 20 per 1,000 live births, the median number of murders per 100,000 population was 2.7 (where IP40 was smaller, it was about 4.7), and deaths from industrial accidents relative to value added in manufacturing were much less common. Deaths from political violence during 1948-1977, per million population, generally declined with increasing IP40. Rape and suicide may increase with IP40. The data on rape may be distorted by women’s inability to complain in some countries. On suicide, see Naroll’s The Moral Order (1983, pp. 201-221) for his theory of broken social ties and displaced hostility. An index of democratization due to Tatu Vanhanen (1984) takes into account the share of smaller parties and independents in elections and the degree of electoral participation. The value of this index rises with IP40; the countries with IP40 greater than $1,000 and no democratization were all ruled by Communist parties except for Spain, where Franco was still alive. Literacy among males in 1980 was above 90% in all but two countries where IP40 was above $1,000. Literacy was less common for females in countries with low IP40; Naroll (1983) called this &dquo;perhaps the most critical measure of sexual inequality&dquo; (p. 312). The entire population aged 6-11 years was enrolled in primary schools in all but two countries with IP40 greater than $500. Secondary education was less common, but enrollment was at least = 324 80% of the population in the appropriate age group in 18 of 22 countries with IP40 greater than $2,000. Between 1980 and 1990, per capita GNP rose by 50% on the average; the largest decreases were in countries that extract petroleum and in those ruled by Communist parties. Surplus GNP growth is then the increase in a country beyond 1.5 times its 1980 income. GNP growth is what Naroll called a snowball process; the surplus is larger in countries with IP40 above $1,000. Political violence somewhat inhibits GNP growth. Using the income of the poorest 40% and per capita deaths by political violence together reveals a pattern (each is split at its median). The broadest spread of surplus, ranging below and above average growth, occurred among the 17 countries with low violence (0.1 to 26 deaths per million) and high IP40 ($519-$6,457). Among the 18 countries with high violence (48 to 18,445 deaths per million) and low IP40 ($1-$158), 15 showed less growth than average; the spread of outcomes is narrow. Even the 19 countries with low violence (1 to 44 deaths per million) but with low IP40 ($1-$400) in 1980 do not vary much from average growth. Among the 15 countries with high violence (53 to 3,900 deaths per million) and high IP40 ($176-$2,461) there is a wide range, but 14 of the 15 had less than average growth. The democratization index is also a good predictor of GNP growth; the surplus is positive in all but two countries with scores above 20 (Belgium and Venezuela are the exceptions) and is negative in most of those with smaller scores. Life expectancy increased almost everywhere between 1980 and 1990. If we assume a ceiling at 80 years, the gain of each country can be expressed as a fraction of its distance from the ceiling in 1980. Assessed in this way, the gain was substantial in most countries with IP40 greater than $2,000. The exceptions are four Communist countries and Denmark (where life expectancy in 1980 was already 75 years). Infant mortality generally decreased between 1980 and 1990 but increased in a few countries with low democratization. Female illiteracy remained above 70% in 1990 where primary school enrollment in 1980 was less than 60% of the population aged 6-11 years. The relative gain in female literacy from 1980 to 1990 was associated with primary school enrollment in 1980 and was slightly associated with the democratization index. 325 These data suggest that a per capita GNP of at least $6,000 as of 1990, allocation of at least a moderate share of the total to the poorest fraction, and democratization are accompanied by longer life,2 less infant mortality, less violence, and perhaps some improvement of the relative condition of women. I have not touched on all the points of Naroll’s moral code; my own guess is that other data would show the same tendency toward compliance with his standards (I consider the present condition of moralnets below). This observed progress may be largely unintended, but in evolutionary processes the selective pressure is always local and immediate even though the consequences may be far-reaching. Change occurs, and we can only anticipate that it will continue to occur. Much of the change has been of the kind that Naroll characterized as progress. The pain of remaining in the conditions that have obtained in most of the world for most of the past-low GNP, great inequality of income and political power, short life span, and sexual inequality -is obvious. Yet Naroll emphasized the other kind of pain, that induced by progress itself. To make his point, he drew on a play, The Three Sisters, by Chekhov. The issue in the play is the meaning of life: One must &dquo;know what one is living for or else it is all nonsense and waste&dquo; (Naroll, 1983, p. 1). Naroll closed with a series of questions, returning at last to the three sisters, the sufferings of their times and of ours, and the possibility that &dquo;some high purpose&dquo; might be served by suffering that leads to understanding and the ability to cope with human problems (p. 406). Russian intellectuals of Chekhov’s time had, I submit, rejected the traditional order of their ancestors without finding a new one; American (and other) intellectuals in our own time seem to be in that condition. Chekhov lived, as we do, in a time of transition. The Russian transition ended with the stabilization of the Soviet Union by the Communist party. How ours will end we do not know. During a transition, ordinary physical suffering is amplified by at least two sources of psychic suffering. One is the absence of traditional cultural themes. Themes of the 1940s provoke laughter among intellectuals today; one of them was patriotism. Comprehension is, most deeply, thematic appreciation of all that transpires. The suffering due to lost themes can be compensated only by the creation of new ones more appropriate to the human condition; The Moral Order sketches a candidate. 326 Another source of psychic suffering during transitions is the weakness of &dquo;moralnets.&dquo; Once upon a time, it seems, one’s moralnet included most of the persons with whom one might interact in a lifetime. Urban life required a different form, but until a short time ago moralnets formed largely on bonds of kinship and marriage. Reasserting &dquo;family values,&dquo; which is to say returning to prior forms, seems to me an improbable outcome for our predicament. Something new is more likely; I cannot believe that our descendants will live for long without stable social ties at several levels of intimacy from which to obtain emotional warmth, economic support, protection from enemies, and confirmation of cultural themes (most of these phrases come from Naroll’s The Moral Order, pp. 392, 394; the last is a reformulation). The old order of society and culture-the one that grew from the Renaissance to the 1960s in the West-broke down, I submit, because too many individuals became aware that it could no longer promote health and happiness well enough to justify its prohibition of the diverse and sometimes novel values and ways of life that attracted them. Whether and to what extent the Vietnam War, reliable contraception, television, occupational geographic mobility, the decline of religious belief, and other matters contributed remains to be assessed; in my view, young people grew up to think differently about the world and saw everything in a new way. Many persons are willing to suffer deprivation of sociality (living alone or as single parents) and lack comprehension (rejecting the old themes of religion and even science) as they search for new themes and forms. The creation of science and art have also been achieved through individual suffering; with Naroll, we must admit that sociocultural progress is no less worth its cost. Notes 1. My data analysis meets none of Naroll’s tests. I used every country for which data were available with no effort to balance regions, guarantee statistical independence of cases, and so forth. The data came from journalistic sources (mostly from Kurian, 1984, 1991; also some from Universal Almanac 1993, 1992, and 1993 Information Please Almanac, 1992). Hence I see no merit in making statistical tests. My purpose is only to call attention to some issues. 327 2. Sagan (1987) holds that increasing longevity is due to improved self-esteem and understanding, qualities that began to spread in modem populations after the French Enlightenment. He argues that changes in nutrition, sanitation, and medical care often followed increases in longevity or were ineffectual. He sees the benefits of community. He presents much diverse data but does not have Naroll’s technical sophistication. References Kurian, G. T. (1984). The new book of world rankings. New York: Facts on File. Kurian, G. T. (1991). The new book of world rankings (3rd ed., updated by J. Marti). New York: Facts on File. Naroll, R. (1983). The moral order: An introduction to the human situation. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Naroll, R., & Naroll, F. (Eds.). (1973). Main currents in cultural anthropology. New York: Appleton-Crofts. The 1993 information please almanac. (1992). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Sagan, L. (1987). The health of nations: True causes of sickness and well-being. New York: Basic Books. The universal almanac 1993. (1992). Kansas City, MO: Andrews & McMeel. Vanhanen, T. (1984). The emergence of democracy: A comparative study of 119 states, 1850-1979. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica.