The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its CriticsW. W. Norton & Company, 1991 M09 17 - 591 pages "A major and challenging work. . . . Provocative, and certain to be controversial. . . . Will add important new dimension to the continuing debate on the decline of liberalism." —William Julius Wilson, New York Times Book Review Can we continue to believe in progress? In this sobering analysis of the Western human condition, Christopher Lasch seeks the answer in a history of the struggle between two ideas: one is the idea of progress - an idea driven by the conviction that human desire is insatiable and requires ever larger production forces. Opposing this materialist view is the idea that condemns a boundless appetite for more and better goods and distrusts "improvements" that only feed desire. Tracing the opposition to the idea of progress from Rousseau through Montesquieu to Carlyle, Max Weber and G.D.H. Cole, Lasch finds much that is desirable in a turn toward moral conservatism, toward a lower-middle-class culture that features egalitarianism, workmanship and loyalty, and recognizes the danger of resentment of the material goods of others. |
Contents
Preface | 13 |
The Obsolescence of Left and Right | 21 |
2 The Idea of Progress Reconsidered | 40 |
The Abdication of Memory | 82 |
4 The Sociological Tradition and the Idea of Community | 120 |
5 The Populist Campaign Against Improvement | 168 |
The World Without Wonder | 226 |
Class Struggle and Workers Control as the Moral Equivalent of Proprietorship and War | 296 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
according Adam Smith American appeared argued Authoritarian Authoritarian Personality believed Brownson called capitalism capitalist Carlyle Carlyle's century Christian civic conception condemned conservatism criticism culture debate democracy democratic desegregation economic Edwards effect Emerson enlightened essay ethic evil faith force G. D. H. Cole Georges Sorel guild guild socialism guild socialists H. L. Mencken hope human idea of progress ideal ideology important individuals industrial intellectual issue James justice labor liberal living loyalty Marxists means Mencken ment middle class mind modern moral movement nature neoconservatives Niebuhr nineteenth-century nostalgia opinion Orestes Brownson past philosophy political popular populism populist production Progressivism Puritan question racial radical reform religion religious republican revolution revolutionary sense social social gospel socialists society Sorel spirit syndicalism syndicalist theory things thought tion took tradition virtue wage wage slavery wealth William women workers working-class wrote