As we stand on the brink of the third millennium, a large part of the human race may feel justified in a certain complacency. We are very much in thrall to the idea that history is moving forward in a desirable - or progressive - direction. In much of the world - and certainly in its most prosperous parts - we are all basically liberal, fundamentally pacific and reasonably affluent. Anthony O'Hear argues in this text that we need to temper our optimism and self-assurance, that progress is not inevitable in any field. His theme centres around the loss which is inextricably linked with progress, especially the sort of progress made in the West over the last few centuries. Could it be that the type of material and political advancements on which we pride ourselves is directly responsible for our spiritual and aesthetic decline? O'Hear believes that our era is one of technological progress and of individual rights and needs, and that our institutions and economies are largely geared to promoting the two. This text examines the implications of this state of affairs: that for most of us there is nothing worth striving for beyond individual happiness; and that there is little in our common culture to sustain ideas of excellence in serious pursuits. It addresses the question of real happiness and satisfaction and probes the dimensions that cannot be accounted for in scientific terms: love and beauty, the sense of moral obligation and reason itself.
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 liberalisation of sexual morality (which has made women more "vulnerable" in his analysis), criticises 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 realise 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. --Christine Buttery
