A Short History of Progress

In “The Great Experiment” Wright continues his history of human culture. First he dwells on the rise and fall of Stone Age groups, brought about by hunting technique improvements. Second, he describes the development of agrarian practices that led to the resource wealth that could sustain larger, sedentary civilizations.

The main components that Wright wishes the reader to draw from this chapter are 1) two new progress traps: stone age hunting and early agriculture and 2) the ancestry of all human civilization in the fragile ecological negotiation of farming. This second point allows Wright to make the observation that we live in a massive progress trap of agriculture that, like it has so many times in the past, could snap closed at any moment.

Within this history, Wright particularly emphasizes the difference between cultural evolution, which happens quickly, and biological evolution, which happens slowly. While our mental capacity is that of Stone Age man, our culture and technology have far exceeded Stone Age capacities. Technology has, as such, replaced natural selection as the main determinant of the success or failure of cultures and groups. Species extinction, domestication, and agriculture offer the first examples of humanity drastically altering their landscapes, creating the artificial structures we need to sustain civilized life. Throughout this chapter’s discussion of agriculture, Wright suggests these structures are highly fragile, and humanity’s predisposition towards violence lurks right underneath them.

Chapter 1 began the history of humanity in the Paleolithic, and much of this chapter dwells in this era as well. From here the chapter moves to the Mesolithic. Wright walks a fine interpretive line in this history of human technological development. Each name of these eras refers to types of human tool use: they are called “Stone Age” or “-lithic” because human tools at these times were made of stone. As humans develop new materials for their tools, history moves into new ages, such as the Iron Age and Bronze Age. Agriculture, beginning in the Neolithic, or “New Stone Age” provides a bridge between periods of stone tool and metal tool use.

Wright abides by these historical demarcations, but also uses his differentiation between cultural and biological evolution to collapse them. Just as Wright shows we are essentially cave-people living in the modern world, he also shows that we are but Neolithic farmers living in modern cities. The argument that we live in the minds of cave-people and survive on the crops of early farmers helps Wright argue that our societies are still governed by the same rules as ancient ones.

Wright’s reflection on the development of agricultural surplus is also a reflection on the developments of social hierarchies. Wright argues all structures of elite power are tied into the systems of othering external communities, just as Cro-Magnons othered Neanderthals.

While this chapter draws common themes from human history, it is also attentive to scientific bias in these histories. For example, Wright highlights the tendency of technological determinism, the principle that guides human history into brackets of tool material use, as a myth of progress just like the Victorian ideal. Through this, Wright shows how an illusion of linearity permeates the sciences.

As in Chapter 1, Wright’s style of historical storytelling is characterized by its sweeping aspects and ability to draw broad themes from diverse historical examples. In this chapter, for example, he compares facets of cave art to Renaissance painting and follows a history of Cro-Magnon domination of Neanderthals with one of the European conquest of the New World. Wright uses such comparisons to elucidate his book’s main point: narratives of unchecked progress, war, and collapse repeat themselves in human history because our idea of progress predisposes us to these paths.