Progress, Midwestern Cornfields

Madame Necker,  the mother of Madame de Stael, wrote that “Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.” There are probably many others, especially conservatives, who have said or thought it. My own mother used to say that “People really don't change much over time. They just become more of what they are.” I've seen it written in reference to Vice-President Dick Cheney that "Men do not change, they unmask themselves."

That seems like a radically conservative, even deadening, thing to say, especially for those of us who want to see a better world. And yet I must say that it is probably usually true for conservatives, yes, but also for liberals whose views are really not very well tested.

There is a contrary tradition of belief in “Progress,” that society is improving slowly despite occasional setbacks, that science and its spread to all areas of life is the long-term trend. I immediately think in this connection of Condorcet. He and Madame Necker were almost exact contemporaries.

The profession of sociology arose in that context in France, primarily, but also later in the US in the context of immigrations. The first sociologists wanted to make their study “scientific,” and thus bring progress to society. Condorcet maintained his faith in that even though coming to a bad end.

My own take on the view that people don't really change is that it doesn't have to be so, although it may often or usually be so! Nothing is set in stone when it comes to people and their future. Their minds were not given them just for amusement, as Tolstoy put it in the Two Wars piece that I recently mentioned. And there is that old Russian proverb that Solzhenitsyn mentioned in his Nobel Lecture:

In Russian, proverbs about truth are favorites. They persistently express the considerable, bitter, grim experience of the people, often astonishingly: 'One word of truth outweighs the world.'

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The newly-planted cornfields through which I drive in Ohio and Indiana were exciting during the first two weeks of this month of May. The millions of plants grew rapidly, grew about six inches in two weeks and looked to be vigorous and healthy. But now, the last week of May, the plants are drooping and the fields dusty. The TV weatherman spoke last night of the possibility of a drought and of the fact that there was no snow here last winter. No one is saying a single word about the social issue of a man-made climate disaster, but I can see they are thinking about it.

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