The Creston and District Public Library presents the compelling documentary film Surviving Progress, inspired by Ronald Wright's bestselling book, A Short History of Progress, as part of a series from the National Film Board.
Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement as awe-inspiring and double-edged. It reveals the grave risk of running the 21st century’s software — our know-how — on the ancient hardware of our primate brain, which hasn’t been upgraded in 50,000 years. Throughout human history, what seemed like progress often backfired.
With rich imagery filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks launch us on a journey to contemplate our evolution from cave-dwellers to space explorers. Surviving Progress reveals how civilizations are repeatedly destroyed by “progress traps” — alluring technologies that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. In the past, we could use up a region’s resources and move on. But if today’s global civilization collapses from over-consumption, that’s it. We have no backup planet.
Surviving Progress will be preceded by the animated short Drux Flux, which addresses the ideological excesses of the 20th century. Drux Flux is a frenetic animation inspired by Herbert Marcuse's book, One-Dimensional Man.
Surviving Progress and Drux Flux run at the library at 7 p.m. Dec. 13. Admission is free. Total running time is 92 minutes.
For more information, call the library at 250-428-4141.
—Creston and District Public Library