The Perils of Progress

There is often a moral dimension to the popular fear and resistance associated with technological, social and environmental change. This kind of fear (“future-shock” immediately comes to mind) involves the struggle to cope with new modes of living, as well as a sense of loss for the old. We can never go back to the way things used to be. These ideas are discussed in this article in The Economist (Christmas 2009)) dealing with the way the concept of “progress”  has been seen throughout history.  The article proposes a generally humanist approach to the (basically false) future utopia/dystopia dualism. Refering to the work of Susan Neiman who rejects “the false choice between Utopia and degeneracy. Moral progress, she writes, is neither guaranteed nor is it hopeless. Instead, it is up to us.”