reimagining progress

“A lot of times when I imagine the future, it’s not flying cars - it’s healed people.”

- Adrienne Maree Brown

**The audio recording of this Morton Train is available to paid subscribers here.**

In March of 2017, on the eve of International Women’s Day, a statue called Fearless Girl was erected in the Financial District of Manhattan. She was placed opposite the iconic - and much larger - Charging Bull statue and seemed to be facing off with him. She has since been moved and now stands directly across from the New York Stock Exchange.

When the image of this statue first began to circulate online, it was met with jubilation. Perhaps Fearless Girl was seen as embodying the spirit of the Women’s March that had taken place only weeks before. Perhaps her “girl power” spunk gave people hope after Hillary Clinton’s electoral defeat. Perhaps it was just refreshing to have a new female statue in New York City, a place where male statues are, by far, the majority.

Right away, she became an icon of sorts. New Yorkers and tourists alike - women and girls especially - waited in line to get their picture taken with Fearless Girl like they would any other celebrity who inspired them.

While I can agree with the feminist sentiment (“more women in the boardroom”) that she supposedly represents, my immediate reaction to the statue was one of discomfort. It unsettled me in a myriad of ways:

I felt strangely protective of the girl who was placed directly in the path of a charging bull. I was irritated that the statue was essentially an advertising campaign for a male-dominated investment firm. I was bemused at the attempt of a Wall Street entity worth trillions to commandeer International Women’s Day (which was started by the labor movement and the Socialist Party).

But mostly I was disturbed by what I perceived as the insinuated message of capitalist Fearless Girl: “I can dominate & exploit & commodify the earth and its people as well as you can!”

She wasn’t standing up to the Bull of Wall Street, she wasn’t fearlessly fighting against an oppressive system, she was saying, “I am determined to join you.”

***

The following year, in August of 2018, a real-life fearless girl started skipping school to sit outside the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign that translates to “School Strike for Climate.” This simple act by Greta Thunberg initiated massive international youth involvement in climate protests (“the Greta effect”) and granted her an opportunity to speak at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019. “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” the girl railed.

***

In our society, in our supposed “civilized world,” we have these atrophied notions of what is considered progress: Technological advancement no matter how unethical, economic growth for a few no matter the cost to the many, and identity diversity within existing systems no matter the harm the systems cause those same identities.

I wonder if, during this unprecedented era of collective awakening, we are finally moving beyond those atrophied notions of progress, readily reimagining what progress - what moving forward - can be. (Perhaps that’s an essential component to our awakening!)

***

In the same way that the technological advancement of nuclear warfare became an existential threat in the 1940s, Artificial Intelligence has become an existential threat today. Not only is AI already replacing a myriad of jobs, livelihoods, and entire industries, the growing number of AI data centers is absolutely catastrophic for the environment and the communities that they displace.

Yet AI “progress” - and the enormous profit it provides a few - mindlessly continues.

A few weeks ago, a family in my home state of Kentucky made the national news when they firmly refused an offer of $26M from a tech company for their land so the company could build an enormous AI data center on it. “26 million dollars doesn’t mean anything,” the family said, describing their land as “priceless.”

Their neighbors and community members - all strongly against any AI data center being built in the area - formed a coalition called “We Are Mason County Kentucky” Their motto? “People over profit. Always.”

Those folks in Kentucky are rightly declaring that environmental conservation - not technological advancement - is the progress they wish to make.

***

A newly imagined progress is a “do as little harm as possible” progress. It’s a healthy growth progress. It’s a progress that honors human diversity, bio-diversity, and a diversity of innovative possibilities. It’s a progress that is sustainable, that recognizes our interdependence with the earth and with one another. It’s a progress driven by conscience and conscientiousness. Maybe even by love.

Artemis II was a beautiful example of this newly imagined progress. The success of its mission wasn’t measured by profit for profit’s sake. The achievement didn’t require harm to or domination over anyone. There was nothing threatening about it.

A post that went viral on social media spoke about the progress Artemis II represents: “My daddy picked cotton in Mississippi. The KKK burned my grandmama’s school down. I just saw a Black man navigate a SPACESHIP. And a brilliant woman led the dispatch… All of these astronauts are extraordinary… This was a marvel. I’m so deeply moved and motivated by this mission. This is who America is supposed to be.”

One of the astronauts described what was, for him, “the pinnacle moment of the mission.” It was when they named a moon crater after his late wife. “We all pretty much broke down. That was where the four of us were the most forged, the most bonded.” The video footage of the four of them holding each other in space is extraordinary.

Artemis II was a stunning achievement in science and human ingenuity. It represented a step forward in our long journey toward equality.

And what if the televised emotional tenderness and the recognition of compassion as strength were also signs of progress? What if the incredible sense of awe and the heightened awareness of the cosmos that the mission provided us were markers of progress, too?

***

I am reimagining, for myself anyway, the symbolism of that adorable, future-focused Fearless Girl statue. May she represent the visionary, the transformer of systems, and a healthy, hopeful progress.

Let’s move forward, y’all.