The Future is Progress, So the Author Said
Progress is funny. People always describe it as going forward. A year goes by, or ten, and there’s more and more…progress. So I’m told. But progress towards what? I’m tempted to chew on the word until it congeals and breaks apart into an amorphous blob like when you chew celery too long and it’s just a clump. Progress as clump.
What I’m really thinking about, though, is the end of the book The Invention of Surgery by David Schneider, MD. This book is, as its title suggests, a history of surgery though primarily focuses on what Schneider calls the “implant revolution”. The end of the book does that thing that I teach my freshman rhetoric students to do in their conclusions; broaden out the scope and tell me why you’re addressing this issue. Schneider does this pretty explicitly.
To be clear, I’m not really upset with the way he concludes, it makes sense to do this. As an audio book, it’s almost 24hrs long, so it’s helpful to have a, “you’ve just listened to this for the equivalent of a day, here’s why I thought it was important to write it.”
The end of the book creates this argument that implants, or the “implant revolution”, will continue growing and expanding and getting better like it has over the past few decades. The advances will come; potentially advances that lead us to rethink whether we are on the cusp of an evolutionary change as humans. In short: there will be unthinkable progress.
It was this focus on the inevitability of progress that really got my eyes rolling (which is especially dangerous for me as I listen to audiobooks exclusively while I drive). It reminded me of the end of The Body Factory by Héloïse Chochois which I read late last year. The end of Chochois’s comic isn’t exactly the same, her end is more of a call for change or potentially a comic essay on the potential of transhumanism, but the direction is similar: time moves forward, so will/can progress.
This makes me itchy even writing this out now, knowing that I’m taking issue with this idea of progress. There are two things that this kind of overtly positive (maybe being generous here?) thinking of the future makes me question: that we will inevitably move towards this “progress” and that this is desirable. I also question whether what they’re proposing is even a kind of progress, but that might be something longer or more formal? Or maybe I’ll just summarize my feelings at the end of this and hope that works too.
Considering the assumption that Schneider makes most clearly, that we will inevitably move towards this progress, is ahistorical. For a book that delves deep into history and explores how history has lead to modern day implants, this was difficult to understand. With so much research and conversation about history, it felt like there would be a clearer overview of it by the end. Schneider does explicitly state at the start of his book that he will take an approach to history that focuses on singular “genius” or great people within history, which, he admits, isn’t the fashion. I think for good reason. His work very much focuses on men, specifically men in a Western context, which is again limiting and maybe some insight into the ahistorical hope that implants will continue to be revolutionized.
All of this aside, though I think they are good criticisms of the book itself, the idea that progress will always continue seems to completely ignore the myriad examples of times when we have retreated or pulled back from further progress. Pulling one from the book I’m listening to now (Seeing Like a State), even though we knew monoculture farming was a bad idea, especially from historical failings of when we’ve done it, this continues to be something that governments and “experts” will push. Politically, we have seen oppressed groups gain independence or agency all for these policies to be regressively cut back, as we see in American politics now. Which, as a quick aside, the current political climate 100% made me more conscious of the issues I had with this. Potentially far more aware than I might have been one or two years ago.
But, the point is there are historical moments happening now and that have happened that are clear examples that though we might believe things bend towards justice or good, they retract as well. To suggest, as Schneider does, that there will be continued growth within any field indefinitely feels like a set-up for disappointment. Which is a nice way to say it seems completely ignorant. As a reader, this frustrates me because the unconditional hope or refusal to think that your thing, whatever that might be, can’t be touched by the culture or the world around us is silly.
To try to balance this a little, the book did come out in 2014. So, maybe this is where we all were then? Drinking from the fountain of hope, drowning ourselves little by little while white supremacy gathered around us giggling and encouraging us? I’ll admit that hindsight might be on my side here.
Even with this admission, it feels shortsighted to not see the capitalist system as also having a negative effect on the progress Schneider promises. Better quality and more advances need financial backing. More implants for more people would mean a general good for those who couldn’t afford it or could barely afford it. Even in 2014 this would mean massive changes to our federal tax system or higher wages for workers or at least a small sliver of benevolence from corporations that haven’t been able to read the word “benevolence” without spitting out the blood they’re drinking for longer than I’ve been alive.
There’s little conversation about how this fantasy of Schneider’s will all actually be paid for. At the very least, the book could have ended with a call to tax the wealthy. Too hopeful? Am I stepping into my own bullshit here?
The other part of the end that really got my temperature up was the assumption that this progress that he outlines is even something that humans would desire. The picture painted at the end of this book is one of a potential future where humans get implants that let them become stronger, faster, smarter, worth 6 million dollars. Schneider even makes a Six-Million Dollar Man reference outright saying this is the type of future he’s imagining for humans. There’s also conversation about an “evolutionary step forward” and advanced computers in our body, more than what is already available in implants now.
But would we want this? Are there a significant amount of humans willing to remove parts of themselves that make them human to make room for artificial parts? Do people want to be stronger, etc. based solely on things placed into their body instead of the “work” that so many fitness gurus use to sell their plans? Do people want more metal in them than flesh? More computers made by someone else’s brain or a computer made my a computer which was made by someone’s brain or…I’m looping here.
Why is the assumption that we want more implants? I see a clear desire for a hip replacement that doesn’t need to get repaired. That’s fair. Or improvements in implants that could provide for a higher quality of life for people as we age. Or even more access to implants as more advanced tech gets introduced. But to replace parts of our body with machine parts? It feels more science fiction than based in sociological research or even conversations with breathing people.
Now, I admit that I could be wrong here and that I’m alone in not wanting to put more metal and plastic into my body than is already present. But maybe the hindsight of a decade into the future gives me a little insight into the lack of desirability that this has. The backlash that many have had towards forms of technological “progress” like GenAI which is more marketing than actual helpful improvement in our lives, shows me that there are communities out there that would question Schneider’s assumption that we would all want to be more than human.
Why would we not want to be more human? In a world that consistently is trying to remove our humanity, I imagine the goal for many (as it is for me) is to become more in touch with that which makes us connected; to the world, nature, each other. That which makes us part of the living, breathing Earth. Yea, I also love a good robot/cyborg movie/video game, but when the creation of these leads to literally killing the planet (as LLMs and their ilk are exponentially doing), why would I want to be less when there would be nowhere left for me to be? I want to be more than I want to buy into this progress.
This progress sounds like a joyful cheering on of extinction or, at best, a full divestment of autonomy to a company/corporation that makes these “improvements” available to us. Truly, it sounds like Schneider (and a little bit Chochois, though her end doesn’t approach the intensity of Invention of Surgery) is eagerly awaiting the time when choice, feeling, and control over one’s own body is fully given up to a stranger or a computer made by one.
I also think we can ask more of authors creating texts about their fields of study. Considering questions like these, framing conclusions in actual context of the material being discussed, seems like something that would not only make for a more compelling end, but a more sincere delivery of the ideas being presented. Maybe what I’m seeking is progress when we talk about progress. Maybe I’m hopeful that we can get there together. One day.
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