PLEASE, DEFINE PROGRESS
I was looking for a new way to talk about science, so I just jumped out of the science box to look at it from a distance, to see its place in the world. (I want to admit right up front that I’m kind of a science nut, but not blind to its shortcomings) Science seems to be very obviously about human progress; it has changed life for us more dramatically and quickly than any thought paradigm in human history, and what it’s done for the individual explains our wholehearted acceptance of it.
However, as science has taught us: for every action (even on the greatest thought paradigm levels) there is an equal and opposite reaction, and these days we are up to our chins in experiencing much of the more challenging and perhaps destructive reactions to science.
Of course, anyone can blather on and on about the benefits science has brought us, but what about the fact that it is now a competing religion for the souls of humans. This religion has become a huge challenge of unintended consequences for individuals, nations and all humanity. Did we trade our souls for a life of convenience and watching rocket ships blasting off for the moon and parts unknown?
The problem is now we’ve swallowed the bait and we’re all hooked. The unintended consequences are fully confronting us; the wonders of science has far outstripped the teachers of the humanities and freed the average, the below average, the above average, the way below average, and maybe worst of all, the way above average person to concentrate on themselves which has brought us the new full-bodied religion of self, which looks just like Hedonism. Holy grief, us humans, if we can’t find a cliff to run off of or a ditch to run into, we’ll find a wall to splatter ourselves against. Can we win for losing?
Jack