Hubris and Progress

<p>This book explores the ancient question of why man seeks to go beyond his limits. A presumptuous tendency known by the ancient Greeks as <i>hubris</i> and believed to be punished by the gods it developed from a need for our survival to a habit as humanity has subdued animals dominated nature increased knowledge and sought even to overcome death. It also lies behind the crisis of our time as the values of democracy freedom equality and progress have been weakened – sacrificed to excess as we live in an eternal present dominated by greed and indifference regarding the future. Addressing this crisis of our interregnum period in which faith has been lost in the former certainties of modernity such as science progress and the idea of a better world the author considers whether redemption for humanity might lie in our hubristic tendencies as these give us scope to deviate from the existing path and find new ways forward. </p>