For generations, humanity has regarded technological development as progress. We build increasingly sophisticated machines, establish universities and research institutions, develop medicine and industry, and award our highest honors to scientific discoveries. However, we rarely stop to ask a more fundamental question: What is all this progress actually developing us toward?
If technological progress develops alongside an unchanged human ego, i.e., our innate desire to enjoy at the expense of others, then everything we place in human hands will eventually be used egoistically. The more powerful our technologies become, the greater our ability to exploit one another and nature. We then spend much of our time trying to neutralize the negative consequences of the very progress we created.
This does not mean that we should suddenly abandon technology, medicine, science, or everything civilization has achieved. The question is not whether technology itself is good or bad. The question is what purpose it serves.
Technological progress is beneficial to the extent that it helps human beings become more closely connected.
We need to begin evaluating development according to a different criterion. Does a particular advancement strengthen human connection? Does it help us establish relationships based on mutual consideration, goodness, and love? Does it bring human society into greater balance with nature?
If so, then it is genuine progress.
The fundamental mistake in our development has been that we cultivated primarily one force, that of egoism. We became increasingly capable of satisfying whatever the ego demanded without developing an opposing force that would balance it.
Nature, however, operates through the interaction of opposing forces. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, neither the egoistic nor the altruistic force should simply be eliminated. Both are necessary. Optimal development takes place with the combination of these two forces into what Kabbalah calls “the middle line.”
We need not destroy the ego. Instead, we need to balance it with the force of love, bestowal, and connection.
Without such balance, technological power merely magnifies our uncorrected nature. Give an egoistic person increasingly powerful tools, and those tools will eventually reflect the egoism of the person using them. This is why our development has harmed not only the environment around us, but the human being as well.
Therefore, I am not against progress. I am in favor of reasonable progress.
Reasonable progress means first understanding what kind of human being should use the tremendous powers that science and technology place in our hands. Before asking what else we can invent, we should ask what kind of relationships we want these inventions to serve.
When our development is aimed at greater connection, mutual responsibility, and love between people, technology will finally begin to serve humanity instead of forcing humanity to continually repair its consequences. That will be the beginning of true progress.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 21, 2026. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.