What is real 'progress'
Our present day culture is founded on the principle of progress. We have the notion that, albeit with occasional setbacks, human life is on an upwards journey. We look at the past with a mixture of pity and shame. How on earth did the Victorians manage, for example, without mobile phones or the internet? And as for their Imperialism: this was utterly shocking in its racism. Yet, for all our moral outrage at the past, we often fail to notice the toxicity of our own times. We do not see that while we may claim superiority over earlier times, in actuality our lives are, if anything, poorer than those of our grandparent and great-grandparents. In this video we explore the concept of Progress but also the classical view, which was diametrically opposed to our contemporary view. Maybe those old timers weren't so stupid after all.
04/02/22