After Progress: Finding the Old Way Forward

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.

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.