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SUMMARY:You can’t stop progress - Rupert Read\, Reader in Philosophy\, U
 niversity of East Anglia
DTSTART:20141006T120000Z
DTEND:20141006T130000Z
UID:TALK54755@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Julie-Anne Hogbin
DESCRIPTION:“You can’t stop progress”\, we are endlessly told. But w
 hat is meant by “progress”? What is “progress” toward? We are rare
 ly told. Human flourishing? And a culture? That would be a good start / a 
 good aim – but rarely seems a criterion for “progress”. (In fact\, s
 urvival would be a good start…)\nRather\, “progress”\, and similarly
  "growth"\, is simply a process\, that we are not allowed\, apparently\, t
 o stop. Or rather: it would be futile to seek to stop it. So that we are s
 eemingly-deliberately demoralised into giving up even trying.\nQuestioning
  the myth of “progress”\, and the arguably-concomitant myth of [econom
 ic] "growth"\, and seeking to substitute for it the idea of real progress 
 – progress which is actually assessed according to some independent not-
 purely-procedural criteria – is a vital thing to do\, at this point in h
 istory. Literally: life\, or at least civilisation\, may depend on it. Thi
 s move raises some difficulties for ‘the Left’ in politics: because it
  brings into question the catch-all understanding of Leftism as ‘progres
 sive’. Or rather: it radically brings into question whether being ‘pro
 gressive’ is a good thing…\nOnce we overcome the myth of “progress
 ”\, we can clear the ground for a real politics that would jettison the 
 absurd hubris of liberalism and of most ‘Leftism’. And would jettison 
 the extreme Prometheanism and lack of precaution endemic to our current ps
 eudo-democratic technocracy. The challenge is to do so in a way that does 
 not fall into complete pessimism or into an endorsement of (the untenable 
 features of) conservatism. The challenge\, in other words\, is to generate
  an ideology or philosophy for our time\, that might yet save us\, and ens
 ure that we are worth saving.\nThis talk can then be heard as a kind of re
 ading of Cambridge's own Ludwig Wittgenstein’s crucial critical aphorism
  on this topic: “Our civilization is characterized by the word progress.
  Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its feature
 s.”\n
LOCATION:Coslett Building 124 (Anglia Ruskin University\, Cambridge Campus
 )
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