We're better off materially, but did this come a the cost of social and community life? Did the modern world fail in this way?

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

December 26, 2023

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min read

Question: We're better off materially, but did this come a the cost of social and community life? Did the modern world fail in this way?‍

Answer: Well, I would say let’s consider some social things: slavery, wife-beating, religious hatreds. Have those improved or worsened in the modern world? I think the record clearly shows that we’ve made great social improvements in all of those areas.

Or consider some other kinds of social events: family vacations, music concerts, sports events. Do we have more of those and better access to those, or fewer and worse? And again I think the record shows that we have a lot more of those things and they are a lot better, so the modern world has made great strides both materially and socially.

About the author:

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy and a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society.

He is author of The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy, 2004), Nietzsche and the Nazis (Ockham’s Razor, 2010), Entrepreneurial Living (CEEF, 2016), Liberalism Pro and Con (Connor Court, 2020), Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (with Michael Newberry, 2021), Eight Philosophies of Education (2022), and Lectures on the Philosophy of Politics (Spanish translation, Publicaciones del Orden Espontáneo, 2026). He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Review of Metaphysics, and The Wall Street Journal. His writings have been translated into 20 languages.

He has been Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Visiting Fellow at the Social Philosophy & Policy Center in Bowling Green, Ohio, Visiting Professor at the University of Kasimir the Great, Poland, Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, England, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University, Poland.

His B.A. and M.A. degrees are from the University of Guelph, Canada. His Ph.D. in Philosophy is from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

In 2010, he won his university’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

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