Q.

Why is secular humanist/liberal faith in progress irrational and

why it is the only antidote to Nihilism? Why does a scientific and
technological progress become nihilistic?
ANS. After the denial of religion and declaration of man as the
measure of all things, the next idea that emerged was the idea of
Progress. Despite its repeated failures, this idea never becomes
obsolete. Even to this date, western civilization proudly declares
them as ‘Progressivists’. Since its beginning, it emphasized upon
human development through scientific, technological, and economic
development. To some extent, it did manage to improve the
condition of humanity. However, this was not the ultimate purpose
of Progress. Its major goal was to attain self-fulfillment and peace
through these developments, in which it faced failure.
Even after believing upon Progress, the world faced events of major
catastrophe in the form of two World Wars. Apart from them,
humanity is still struggling with hunger, poverty, ecological and
economic crises. The year 2020 also contributed in shattering the
belief of Progress, when due to a small virus and despite of such high
advancement in science, whole world faced all forms of crises at one
time. This all demonstrates nothing but the true irrationality of the
idea of limitless Progress.
Regardless of its failing performance, the reason people still believe
in it is because it is the only antidote to nihilism. By believing in it,
they can easily stay away from acknowledging nihilism. Since nihilism
promotes pessimism and is a complete hopeless approach, the idea
of Progress keeps hopes of people live. Their delusion for a better
future is never questionable and they keep feeling proud of
themselves by believing that through these developments they can
experience better things than their previous generations enjoyed.
These facades keep the idea of progress uplifted in their hearts and
through this they can fight the fear of nihilism that has also
penetrated to their hearts through the failure of Progress.
With the passage of time, science and technology are gradually
adopting nihilistic behaviors. Nihilism believes that nothing is true,
they deny all the facts and truths about world, universe, and declares
that there is no purpose of life and everything is meaningless. In
science and technology, we keep observing advancement as well as
changes in theories. Laws that were considered true yesterday are
now replaced with new laws. Everyday, we observe new theories
evolving declaring the previous ones false. This creates nihilistic
impression that nothing is true. Theories that are considered right
today maybe asserted wrong tomorrow.
Also, the psychological perspective about determinism and the fact
that every act is influenced by our surroundings also deploys nihilistic
belief that there is nothing good or bad. Through this approach we
have lost to differentiate between virtue and crime.
In this era of scientific advancement, society has explicitly adopted
passive nihilism. Instead of defying the laws and values discovered by
the system, individuals have started believing them right and are
following them. This is exactly what passive nihilism says. According
to it man surrenders to the system because they do not really care in
fighting back to it.