Challenges are relative to scale. What is challenging for one, is not for another. What is challenging for a weak arm, is easy for a strong arm. What is challenging to a child, is easy for an adult. The challenge of civilization is different by size, a challenge to millions of people. Different societies and groups, populations, face different challenges based upon common factors. According to ‘western’ civilization, the challenges of previous centuries have been relatively completed.
Some of the challenges of the past stay consistent, but many others have not. For example, it is no longer a challenge to travel 100 miles in a day, or communicate with somebody across the world in seconds. The result of globalism, causes new challenges of pitting formerly strange people and cultures together, mashing all human differences together, resulting in conflict of values and ideals.
Progress is not always beneficial to everybody, and can be restricted to very few. Thus a minor section of the population “progresses” while everybody else remains stagnant or regresses. Thus progress is relative to specific groups of people or individuals.
Some people even sacrifice their own resources, or even a life, to further the ambitions and success (progress) of others. Therefore progress usually, or always, requires such sacrifices. For you to “get ahead” in western civilization, requires setting many or most others back. Your progress, at the cost of others. Thus “progress” is inherently competitive.
There maybe no such thing as “everybody progressing together”.
This is a factor of “western” civilization, as opposed to, eastern civilization. The past of european and american societies stand apart from asiatic, african, and native indian populations. Europeans (westerners) are different than mongolian, arabian, and indian civilizations (easterners).