I am in harmony with Tom Givón’s op-ed (“No: Airport juggernaut is another manifestation of rampant development,” Herald, Oct. 5).
Givón’s views are congruent with J.B. Bury’s classic in the field of the sociology of knowledge: The Idea Of Progress. Bury observes that a belief in progress is an act of faith that cannot be supported by empirical evidence.
For example, the ancient Greeks believed the best of man was in the past (the Golden Age ) and scholars in the Middle Ages held that Greek Philosophy was the source of the “Eternal Truths and Verities.”
It was not until the industrial revolution that man began to believe that things were getting better for humankind
The assumption that Durango is progressing because Fort Lewis College enrollment is bigger, there are more million-dollar houses being built, or The Durango Herald’s circulation is growing, results from value judgments, not empirical evidence. “Getting better” is an axiological decision, probably resulting from an act of faith in some often unidentified value system..
John Wesley Powell once observed, while sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon and observing the Colorado River thousands of feet below him, “Someday men will expect this river to do only what an ocean can.” (I believe this comment can be found in Powell’s Report On The Lands Of The Arid Region Of The United States, 1878.)
Above all, before supporting the construction of a bigger airport, read The Idea Of Progress (1932).
Frank Tikalsky
Bayfield
