The problem with progress is that no one knows its aim.

People will tell you that progress will bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. We know that’s not true. People work more, have fewer leisure hours, owe more, have less social security, less peace of mind, fewer reserve resources, fewer liberties, less beauty and goodness and reason in their lives and very little spirituality.

Progress in America and on Maui seems to be a vulgarization of society. Progress appears to be a kind of barbarism. It was precisely this, which made the ancient Greeks consider “progress” as defilement, irreverence and destruction. Especially with the natural environment, the ancient Greeks were preservers, not exploiters.

Basically, “progress,” as “conservatism, “free market systems,” capitalism, “rights of property” and other slogans, are afterthoughts which rationalize greed, selfishness, acquisitiveness and materialism. Progress does not improve the lives of the many. In fact, progress creates waste, eventual shortages and great inequalities.

“Progress” is a word that is used to justify the retention and enhancement of privilege, power, property, profit and position. All at the expense of the many.

American progress says nothing about the essential nature of man and society, and what we need as a community and spiritualizing force.

– Raphael O’Suna, Haiku