Progress

"And why should physical strength survive in a world where there was never the need for physical labor? As for such qualities as loyalty, generosity, etc., in a world where nothing went wrong, they would be not only irrelevant but probably unimaginable. The truth is that many of the qualities we admire in human beings can only function in opposition to some kind of disaster, pain or difficulty. . . . Presumably . . . the inhabitants of Utopia would create artificial dangers in order to exercise their courage, and do dumb-bell exercises to harden muscles they would never be obliged to use. . . . It is as though a London stockbroker should go to his office in a suit of chain mail and insist on talking medieval Latin."

-George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937).