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After Progress: Finding the Old Way Forward

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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.

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.

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!

Mr. O'Hear portrays the notion of progress in essentially two ways: Technological (i.e., Material) and Spiritual. While progress in the material realm has offered advancements in transportation, medicine, and spectacle for example, humankind has not advanced spiritually.

We have denied the divine aspect of nature and of ourselves via materialism and scientism, thus in the Nietzschean perspective killing God (or the gods) and displacing the truly mythic and religious qualities of existence. Mr. O'Hear also encourages the reader (in a sort of Buddhist way) to accept the fact that with life comes suffering and that modern day Western humans hide from this fact. We hide behind psychotherapy, antidepressants, alcohol and drugs; we fill our days and nights watching television, surfing the internet, and otherwise being involved in the trappings of pop culture. And, much to our misfortune, we increasingly see things in a Darwinian manner, believing that we are merely machines of reproduction. Always seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, the much needed development (or redevelopment) of spirituality and human wisdom have fallen to the wayside. For the author, this is where the emphasis on life should return. Life, as in art, should be an expression of Beauty in the archetypal sense.

While Mr. O'Hear's observations of our society may be bleak in themselves, there is nevertheless the notion of hope for our species suggested throughout this book. Hope most assuredly is an element of the divine. Hope is above our bodily animality and mortality, our base cravings and desires.

Hope, however, is more than mere optimism. Hope is an acknowledgment that our spiritual future is more important than our material past.

This book will definitely make you think. Highly recommended.

O'Hear initiates a general attempt of tracing the historical roots of contemporary global (albeit misplaced) faith in the concept of progress. Not unlike Alistair MacIntyre, O'Hear suggests we have lost our way. Unlike MacIntyre, O'Hear suggests a reorientation to human dignity through morality and religion (as opposed to virtue). O'Hear's diagnosis and suggestion for relief is more clear than MacIntyre's, but is suprisingly devoid of environmental crisis and issue recognition. In a world of increasing pollution and pillage of natural resources, one question remains staring both MacIntyre and O'Hear in the face: "Does contemporary and historical evidence sustain the concept that the human species is in fact superior to other species and therefore capable of invoking universal solutions to a perceived moral conundrum?" Some place in Book of Genesis there is reference to being stewards of the earth. Philosophy and philosophers vis-a-vis MacIntyre, O'Hear and Singer can make a case if they discontinue separation of published word and virtue from a lived philosophical life.