After Progress: Finding the Old Way Forward [Hardcover]

Anthony O'Hear (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2000

An important, bold challenge to our attitude toward progress.

As we stand on the brink of the third millennium, we are very much in thrall to the idea that civilization is moving forward in a progressive direction, and that overall in the world things are getting better. In After Progress, philosopher Anthony O'Hear argues that we need to temper our optimism and self-assurance, that progress has not been attained without some loss. The gains of the past two or three centuries, particularly in the fields of science and democratic politics, have resulted in losses in areas once thought of as allied to religion, such as art, education, morality and philosophy. O'Hear asks the basic question: why does it seem there are more unhappy people today in the US and in Britain when we are living in a time of unprecedented individual affluence, health and human rights? O'Hear sets out to find out how we might re-examine our lives of progress by looking back on what we have learned from the great philosophers, scientists, and thinkers of the past.

After Progress serves as an introduction to the ideas of major thinkers from Plato to Wittgenstein, as well as providing a new way to think about the present, by not ignoring the lessons from the past.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anthony O'Hear does not mince words: he believes we live in a time of spiritual and aesthetic barrenness, and he does not expect this to improve in the near future. The triumph of the Enlightenment and our anthropocentric faith in reason have, he argues, largely stripped our lives of meaning. Though we continue to struggle to answer the big questions, in O'Hear's assessment, "the meaning of life is just the little matter on which our official ideology of scientific enlightenment and liberal politics studiously refuses to pronounce; in place of anything like that, what we are offered are material prosperity, formal equality and political participation, and when these are not enough, drugs or therapy or yet more unrealizable political promises." In essence, the ideology of progress is a false mistress, and the good that is worth striving for is being steadily eroded by poststructuralism, deconstructionism, modern art, and the like.

Whether you agree with him or not, O'Hear is always opinionated and informed, leaving the reader with much to ponder. He dismisses environmentalism, decries the liberalization of sexual morality (which has made women more "vulnerable" in his analysis), criticizes psychotherapy as pointless self-absorption, and regards equality as a misleading ruse: "Individuals, meanwhile, who for one reason or another cannot compete in society but who are fed on a half-understood diet of equality and human rights, become increasingly resentful and violent when they realize that they are never going to make the grade socially or economically." A provocative assessment of the religious, philosophical, and moral costs of the recent leaps in science and technology, After Progress is a passionate book on a timely topic. --J.R.

From Kirkus Reviews

A dissertation that explores the astonishing gains in science and politics during the past two or three centuries, arguing that such progress brought a simultaneous decline in traditional values such as religion, art, education, morality, and philosophy. OHear (Philosophy/Univ. of Bradford) writes of the tensions between the apostles of Enlightenment materialism and progress versus people who have a strong respect for tradition, order, local roots, and religious beliefs. The Enlightenments fundamental themes of the pursuit of pleasure and elimination of pain have dominated the thinking of recent centuries. OHear views Socrates as an Enlightenment philosopher who questioned the Athenian culture so strongly that the Olympian gods could not survive. He reviews the opinions of philosophers of the Enlightenment and looks at the famous rationalists (Darwin, Marx, and Freud) as false gods hiding behind pseudoscientific facades. He supports the position of Darwins contemporary Wallace that our rationality, pursuit of knowledge, moral and religious sense, and love of beauty could not possibly be explained in terms of survival theory. Wallace found Darwins conclusions unconvincing and not remotely plausible, and OHear rejects the idea that humans are mere gene-survival machines or proven decedents of lower forms. He sees Marxist materialism as a crude and dishonest interpretation of history and capital, and he considers centralized planning to be one of the worst legacies of Enlightenment thinking still remaining in the politics of today. Freud purported to offer a scientific explanation for human behavior in his speculation that we are subject to strong, hidden psychic pressures that must be released. This theory allows little room for free will and civilized restraint. OHear concludes that religious optimism (of the sort offered by the Judeo-Christian tradition) gives hope and urges the maintenance of tested old values such as honor, virtue, religion, and family. A book of profound substance that challenges many pet beliefs and illustrates the dark side of progress. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1st US edition (April 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582340404
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340401
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,782,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timely Book, April 26, 2000

By 

Simon James (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Progress: Finding the Old Way Forward (Hardcover)

With the general public becoming increasingly fascinated in and influenced by science and other documentaries, this book is timely. For O'Hear seeks to demonstrate that the concept of unbridled progress - humans (and human nature) striving ever forward to a bigger, better, brighter future - is flawed. Indeed one may come away from this book thinking that the concept is bankrupt. O'Hear explores the history of the idea of progress (and its parent 'reason'), especially its formulation in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought. He also examines writers who considered the idea of loss as applicable to the 'march of man' as progress. The best section remains the analysis of the twentieth century which brilliantly demonstrates just how much these 'thinkers of loss' (as O'Hear describes them) were correct. The critique of education and religion is particularly apt and makes for necessary reading. To give some idea of O'Hear's line of thinking, it is worth quoting from the conclusion his reply to that famous question: 'What, then, is to be done? Nothing. Nothing is to be done.' It is a sombre thought and many readers will not like it. But this is a book which should be widely read, simply for the challenging thoughts contained within which are at variance with so much that is popular and assumed today.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rave On, John Donne!, July 11, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: After Progress: Finding the Old Way Forward (Hardcover)

The title above is stolen from a rap-like Van Morrison song by the same name; and refers to ways in which our pilgrim's progress has gone so badly astray in the last hundred years or so. So does the author of this book, Anthony O'Hear, rave on, rather eloquently, I might add, regarding the ways in which we have collectively transmogrified, vulgarized, and corrupted what was originally considered man's progressive search for the truth and enlightenment into a mere free for all for material goods and personal pleasures. Thus far have we gone astray that we think we have reached the final stages in man's progress when in fact we have so narrowed, lowered, and reduced both our strivings and the meaning of the notion of progress into superficial and mere material terms that our quest is now a mere shadow of anything like its originally rich, universal, and varied meanings.

It is more than coincidental, according to the author, that with the rise of science and technological innovation a new, much more limited and "operationally (read superficially here) defined" notion of progress means has for all intensive purposes diminished it, for science and its accompanying rationalistic ethos can only address certain aspects of a quite limited range of questions and issues of all those concerning mankind, and not necessarily the most cogent or meaningful at that. Indeed, our forbearers much better appreciated and understood that scientific technique itself could never meaningfully address moral, ethical, or philosophical issues, for these are by their very nature beyond the scope of such a rationally limited enterprise as science. Instead of recognizing the limitations of science however, we seem to have redefined progress in such a venial fashion as to make it virtually meaningless. O'Hear believes that our age is one devoted almost exclusively to a revolution of technological innovation and serving narrowly defined human rights and needs, and he argues that most of us find ourselves profoundly limited in terms of the scope of our own lives to ones characterized by material striving for individual comfort and happiness.

Yet through the very act of defining our notion of progress so narrowly and superficially, their utility in terms of providing any satisfaction or meaning to the individual is systematically frustrated, and seems rather meaninglessly channeled into a characteristically trivial pursuit for more material goods. Until we learn to redefine the nature of our quest into a world-view better invested by a reinvigorated appreciation for a more aware, introspective and characteristically moral and ethical standards, our progress will tend to be limited to the pettiness of material acquisition. Under such circumstances, our chances for achieving any true and substantial progress on the road to the traditional meanings of progress are poor. So long as we continue to view progress in such an impoverished, limited and superficial way as to limit it to material comfort and greater personal wealth, we will likely go no further in any meaningful way. This is an interesting book, one that substantiates the same kinds of traditional arguments that traditional scholars have made regarding the nature of contemporary society and the dangers associated with our increasingly exclusive scientific and rational orientation toward each other and the world.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mock on, Mock on Voltaire, Rousseau ..., June 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: After Progress: Finding the Old Way Forward (Hardcover)

Ideas have consequences. We are the bankrupt spiritual airs of the 18th Century Enlightenment and the cult of scientific rationalism and utilitarianism. O'Hear reminds us of the old social, moral and religious values that have been lost and the threats that "progress" poses to our humanity. Human beings have remained stubbornly resistant to perfection by attempts at social engineering. O'Hear believes that genetic engineering - in the name of progress - will be on the agenda for the Twenty First Century. He reminds us that eugenics - popular in the first half of the Twentieth Century - only lost its appeal to progressive thinkers of the left because of its association with the Nazis. The book is an intellectual defence of social and philosophical conservatism - no less persuasive for the passion with which O'Hear presents the case - and an invitation to be sceptical about the claims of scientific progress. It will be deeply unpopular with supporters of Mr. Blair and the 'Third Way' - assuming they deign to read it - although O'Hear has little time for the current British "Conservative" party. He recalls Burke's defence of tradition and authority and makes one read the arch-reactionary Plato seriously again (the analogy between the prisoners in the cave and the masses glued to their television screens is an engaging one). I also enjoyed the comparison which O'Hear makes between the interior of a Gothic Cathedral and that of the Millenium Dome to illustrate the vacuous spirit of our age. The book is a delight to read and a splendid antidote to the self-congratulatory tone of American cultural pundits. I doubt if any American politician would have the vaguest notion of the point O'Hear is trying to make. No doubt O'Hear is conscious of the irony that he occupies a chair in philosophy at Bradford - a University (I well remember it being built in the 1960s) - which was supposed to excell in technology not abstract thinking!