The Hazards of Resisting Progress   Why is it that some cultures
advance, while others stagnate, stumble, or fade away? It's a
question that's asked often about the resource-rich continent of
Africa, which has seen so little progress over the past few
centuries, and which is being asked again this week as the
world's attention focuses on the tragic fortunes of plague-
ridden Haiti.   In a column called "The Underlying Tragedy,"
David Brooks writes that part of the reason the Haitian
earthquake was so devastating was the poverty of the country--
poverty that has persisted far longer and more pervasively than
in many neighboring countries that had similar histories, and
even had similar brushes with dictatorial and dysfunctional
governments. He quotes historian Lawrence Harrison, who he says
wrote that "Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations,
suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural
influences"--including its backward voodoo religion, high levels
of social mistrust, poor child-rearing tr