Progress

Created: Tuesday, 07 April 2015 05:19 | Written by Glen R Stansfield

I grew up in the industrial North West of the Britain. In Lancashire, cotton was king. I remember as a child going to the local park, at one end of our valley. We used to count the number of mill chimneys we could see from the swings. Now if my memory serves me well, the number was 22. The majority of those mills were still working in some capacity. Perhaps the boilers had long been cold, and the cotton no longer king, but industry was still present.

Some years ago I returned to the park. I was too big for the swings, at least that's the official story, but I could see down the valley just the same. I could see one chimney. That solitary sentinel, a marker of a past way of life, was all that was left of the industry in the valley. The saddest thing of all is the mill it's attached to is no longer a place of work. It has been converted into apartments.

Where once industry thrived, employment abounded, and communities flourished, there are now derelict factories, unemployment and social isolation. This, apparently, is in the interests of progress. The sense of community has been destroyed, and people no longer look out for each other in the way they used to.

We have to question this 'progress'. Without our humanity, our social interaction, our caring for each other, we have an existence, nothing more. The interaction with fellow man is what makes us human, what gives us meaning to our lives, it makes our being here have a purpose. So why do we take that meaning away in the interests of 'progress'? We don't have to. We can make progress and still be humans. We can look out for each other and be part of a community. We just have to remember how.