‘The True, The Good and The Beautiful’ by Phil Hanlon

February 27, 2014 by

‘In this video Professor Phil Hanlon suggests that if we are to transcend the problems of modernity we will have to understand why we are in our current predicament. To do so, he explores Plato’s idea that human beings naturally integrate the true (science), the good (ethics) and the beautiful (aesthetics or art).

We do this in our private lives but modernity has allowed a perverted version of one of the three (a reductionist and numerically driven version of science) to eclipse the other two particularly in government and organisations. The result is ‘scientism’ which is an ideology, as distinct from true science, which is an invaluable tool.

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‘Endgame’ by Phil Hanlon

February 12, 2014 by

Continuing the excellent series of videos from Professor Phil Hanlon’s website Afternow.

‘In a finite world, infinite growth is not possible: this is the crisis of sustainability that people everywhere must now face. In this video Phil Hanlon describes how issues like climate change, peak oil, population growth and resource depletion provide convincing evidence that there are limits to conventional economic growth.

Almost every aspect of life is characterised by growth, peak and decline. This is true of species, physiological systems, businesses and much else. The problem is that we are not good, as a species, at seeing the point at which decline is likely.  

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‘Consumerism: Dissatisfaction guarenteed’ By Phil Hanlon

February 4, 2014 by

I continue the excellent series of videos by Professor Phil Hanlon centred around ‘What’s next for the health of society’ from his Afternow website.

‘In this video Phil Hanlon explores in more depth what ‘modernity’ is and why it has created current levels of ‘dis-ease’ in the modern world.

Modernity has brought many benefits (including technological improvements, material comfort, modern medicine and health care etc), but the downside includes the ‘dis-eases’ rehearsed in the earlier videos. 

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‘Dis-ease’ by Phil Hanlon

January 28, 2014 by

I continue the series of videos made by Phil Hanlon, Professor of Public Health at Glasgow University. Check out all the video and writings on Phil’s Afternow website. I love this website – what Phil has to say is very important.

‘In this video Phil Hanlon suggests that the public health problems we now face (such as obesity, enduring health inequalities, the rise in mental distress, and increasingly problematic use of drugs and alcohol) have a common source: they are the result of the increasingly adverse effects of the mindset and approach which characterises modernity.

They can helpfully be thought of not as ‘diseases’ but as ‘dis-eases’, associated with modernity.  

He suggests that the biggest problem we face may be modernity itself, which means that the health and wellbeing issues which confront us can no longer be addressed by conventional forms of thinking, tools or approaches. 

We now face what might be called an ‘ingenuity gap’.  This is the gap between the problems we face and the adequacy of the tools available to create solutions.’

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