What do you think?
Unlimited Progress: The Grand Delusion of the Modern World
Most people have a bias toward seeing the world as they would like it to be. It might be best for some purposes, however, to know the world as it actually is. Unlimited The Grand Delusion of the Modern World can help in that quest. One of the most misleading ideas permeating the modern world is the concept that progress can be almost unlimited. Most of this book focuses on modern science and how it underlies and influences almost all of our general views about what the world is like. Americans have become hooked on progress. Much of this addiction has developed because of the great advances of modern science and related technology. Author Dennis Knight Heffner, M.D., has a broad-based perspective on science, developed over half a century, that will help you understand that there are limits to progress. Being aware of them can help you make important choices affecting your life- especially political choices.
136 pages, Paperback
First published July 13, 2010
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
February 18, 2012
A short book that takes to task the idea that progress is, or should be, without any limits. The author argues that this is an idea that so permeates contemporary thinking that it is taken as a given.
Most of his examples come from science and technology and, in these examples, he argues that progress has natural limitations. Evoking CP Snow’s distinction between science and the humanities, he goes on to say that since progress in science is limited, though measurable, it follows that progress in the humanities is also limited, though difficult to measure in any case.
The chapter on Change and the S-shaped curve is useful but doesn’t take into account that sometimes abrupt changes occur as described by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
The chapter dealing with comparing digital and analog systems was well done, but the one on Chaos theory seemed muddled.
The author doesn’t tackle one of the underlying assumptions in the idea of progress. The idea of an endpoint or telos. There is no point in talking about progress unless there is something or someplace toward which one is trying to move. Inherent in this notion therefore is the idea of Utopia. This basic assumption is unspoken and, therefore, uncritically accepted in Western cultures. Christopher Lasch in his book The One and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics deals extensively with this and, more recently, John Gray in Black Mass, points out how utopian thinking underlies political movements on both the right and the left. The 20th century has witnessed the problems with this in the rise and fall of both fascism and communism both of which were based on utopian thinking.
The last chapter of the book is, as the author states, one of personal political opinion and leaves the reader wondering if the political message (that independents in the US need to declare themselves for the party of conservatism i.e. Republicans) was the purpose in writing the book. The depiction of political conservatives and progressives is very simplistic and seems to ignore that, just as progressives have a goal in mind, so too do conservatives. In both cases utopianism leads to fixed ideological positions that are not capable of dealing with a rapidly changing political and economic landscape. Surely both perspectives are needed and an open system of dialogue in which compromises make possible workable solutions. It is only in such an environment that practical wisdom/prudence/phronesis can work.
Most of his examples come from science and technology and, in these examples, he argues that progress has natural limitations. Evoking CP Snow’s distinction between science and the humanities, he goes on to say that since progress in science is limited, though measurable, it follows that progress in the humanities is also limited, though difficult to measure in any case.
The chapter on Change and the S-shaped curve is useful but doesn’t take into account that sometimes abrupt changes occur as described by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
The chapter dealing with comparing digital and analog systems was well done, but the one on Chaos theory seemed muddled.
The author doesn’t tackle one of the underlying assumptions in the idea of progress. The idea of an endpoint or telos. There is no point in talking about progress unless there is something or someplace toward which one is trying to move. Inherent in this notion therefore is the idea of Utopia. This basic assumption is unspoken and, therefore, uncritically accepted in Western cultures. Christopher Lasch in his book The One and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics deals extensively with this and, more recently, John Gray in Black Mass, points out how utopian thinking underlies political movements on both the right and the left. The 20th century has witnessed the problems with this in the rise and fall of both fascism and communism both of which were based on utopian thinking.
The last chapter of the book is, as the author states, one of personal political opinion and leaves the reader wondering if the political message (that independents in the US need to declare themselves for the party of conservatism i.e. Republicans) was the purpose in writing the book. The depiction of political conservatives and progressives is very simplistic and seems to ignore that, just as progressives have a goal in mind, so too do conservatives. In both cases utopianism leads to fixed ideological positions that are not capable of dealing with a rapidly changing political and economic landscape. Surely both perspectives are needed and an open system of dialogue in which compromises make possible workable solutions. It is only in such an environment that practical wisdom/prudence/phronesis can work.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review