Ascent

Robert L. Heilbroner says in his The Great Ascent, “the populations of the great continents of the East and South” “effected little or no noticeable change in the character of twentieth-century civilization.

Maybe a contributor to arriving at this type of conclusion is found in reducing

Maybe part of the reason this type of conclusion can even appear tenable is the same thinking that gives rise to reducing complex matters to a few variables and declaring the rest as externalities. If one decides that human progress depends on say production levels, investment levels, and the application of industrial technology, then you will overlook progress in any other areas such as the establishment of practices that allow for a sustained relationship with the land, social arrangements that contribute to universal participation, cultural values that place a importance on a historical perspective and elders, strong patterns of warm fellowship. Then, in surveying the movement of the various populations of humanity one finds their preferred variables existing with strength in one population and then might have the tendency to view the vast other changes in human affairs as arbitrary rather than in terms of progress or regress.

This, it seems, is a limitation of a materialistic conception of development which cannot hope to sufficiently correspond to the wide range of human endeavor.

Of course, the experience of the worldwide Baha'i community is not reflecting that the likes of investment levels, production levels, and industrial technology are the great determiners of collective progress. I expect that the diverse strengths of the varied people of the world are finding, where channeled their role in human progress and the establishment of prosperous communities. This is a larger set of human creations which investment, production, and industrial technology themselves belong to, all of which spring out of human capacity. It is in the strengthening and development of human powers that sciences, technologies, systems and crafts will progress, and it is through moral and religious power that they will be bent to human prosperity and attain their perfection. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote,

Consider carefully: all these highly varied phenomena, these concepts, this knowledge, these technical procedures and philosophical systems, these sciences, arts, industries and inventions—all are emanations of the human mind. Whatever people has ventured deeper into this shoreless sea, has come to excel the rest. The happiness and pride of a nation consist in this, that it should shine out like the sun in the high heaven of knowledge. “Shall they who have knowledge and they who have it not, be treated alike?” And the honor and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good. Is any larger bounty conceivable than this, that an individual, looking within himself, should find that by the confirming grace of God he has become the cause of peace and well-being, of happiness and advantage to his fellow men? No, by the one true God, there is no greater bliss, no more complete delight.¹

Bahá’u’lláh has written,

O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly and grossly unjust. Fear the sighs and tears of this wronged One, and lay not excessive burdens on your peoples. Do not rob them to rear palaces for yourselves; nay rather choose for them that which ye choose for yourselves. Thus We unfold to your eyes that which profiteth you, if ye but perceive. Your people are your treasures. Beware lest your rule violate the commandments of God, and ye deliver your wards to the hands of the robber. By them ye rule, by their means ye subsist, by their aid ye conquer. Yet, how disdainfully ye look upon them! How strange, how very strange! (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh) www.bahai.org/r/51929839

It can be said that there is a special relationship between mankind and the poor. Poverty in relation to God is an attribute of man; through the daily Obligatory Prayers we are enjoyed to confess daily our own poverty and lack and testify to the wealth of God. So, in a way, the materially poor possess outwardly a quality that the whole of mankind possesses inwardly.

Bahá’u’lláh tells us, "And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself."² In the poor mankind has opportunity then to show the benevolence and mercy for which it beseeches God. So then there is also a relationship between the treatment of the poor and truthfulness, if we are to treat them as we would like to be treated and we are in reality also in a state of poverty.

The poor hold capacity and power, Bahá’u’lláh has written,

O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly and grossly unjust. Fear the sighs and tears of this wronged One, and lay not excessive burdens on your peoples. Do not rob them to rear palaces for yourselves; nay rather choose for them that which ye choose for yourselves. Thus We unfold to your eyes that which profiteth you, if ye but perceive. Your people are your treasures. Beware lest your rule violate the commandments of God, and ye deliver your wards to the hands of the robber. By them ye rule, by their means ye subsist, by their aid ye conquer. Yet, how disdainfully ye look upon them! How strange, how very strange³

This capacity is the fount from which human progress springs:

Consider carefully: all these highly varied phenomena, these concepts, this knowledge, these technical procedures and philosophical systems, these sciences, arts, industries and inventions—all are emanations of the human mind. Whatever people has ventured deeper into this shoreless sea, has come to excel the rest. The happiness and pride of a nation consist in this, that it should shine out like the sun in the high heaven of knowledge.¹

"And amongst the realms of unity is the unity of rank and station. It redoundeth to the exaltation of the Cause, glorifying it among all peoples. Ever since the seeking of preference and distinction came into play, the world hath been laid waste. It hath become desolate. Those who have quaffed form the ocean of divine utterance and fixed their gaze upon the Realm of Glory should regard themselves as being on the same level as the others and in the same station. Where this matter to be definitely established and conclusively demonstrated through the power and might of God, the world would become as the Abhá Paradise.

"Indeed, man is noble inasmuch as each one is a repository of the sign of God. Nevertheless, to regard oneself as superior in knowledge, learning, or virtue, or to exalt oneself or seek preference, is a grievous transgression. Great is the blessedness of those who are adorned with the ornament of this unity and have been graciously confirmed by God."⁴