Title: John Gray: Is Human Progress an Illusion?
Headings: John Gray: Is Human Progress an Illusion?
John Gray: Is Human Progress an Illusion?
Content: Like trembling Victorians terrified of losing their faith, these humanists cling to the moth-eaten brocade of progressive hope. Today religious believers are more free-thinking. Driven to the margins of a culture in which science claims authority over all of human knowledge, they have had to cultivate a capacity for doubt. In contrast, secular believers — held fast by the conventional wisdom of the time — are in the grip of unexamined dogmas. And what, pray tell, are those dogmas? They are numerous, but the central one must be that the human march of science and technology creates good for the world. Gray’s not as sure: He sees science and technology as magnifying humanity “warts and all”. Our tools allow us to go to the Moon but also murder each other with great alacrity. They have no morality attached to them.