spitx

  Third, public transportation is generally valued more highly here than
  in other places for a variety of reasons.

If various professionals employed by the state were paid in accordance of their value to the society (even if only to a certain slice of society), members of the armed forces would be centi-millionaires.

That line of reasoning is utter bunk.

  As an Austrian, NATO was never there to protect us.
  America was admired for setting an example as a 
  great nation where people can live freely.

What, in the civilized lands of Stiegl, has ever threatened the free movement and assembly of people, at least since the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian empire? And what has prevented Austrians from immigrating to the shores of America, like the Germans, Swedes and the Dutch?

I'd really like to know.

(Very trace amounts of sarcasm deposited in this response.)

Agreed.

It should have read:

  "The arc of human progress is an illusory one" 

or

  "The arc of human progress - as defined by the narrow parameters of decreasing
   number of recorded human conflicts and genocides, declining number of
   incurable devastating medical conditions, improving/degenerating overall
   environmental health of the planet etc - is an illusory one." 

or

as you put it

  "true human progress is illusory" (whatever the parameters that determine it)

However what cannot be denied is that "liberal humanism", as Gray puts it, has come to wield the "pervasive power" it has now, in large part due to the advancements made by the West in the fields of science, technology and medicine and not despite of those advancements.

It's hard to make a case for universal "liberal humanism" when your own people are succumbing to famines in the millions.

Eg: The Great Famine in Ireland (1845–1852).

So simply put

  1. Knowledge is an absolute necessary element for the overcoming of 
     "cultural backwardness, blindness and folly" and to advance 
     "to ever more elevated stages of enlightenment and 
     civilization" and thereby the progress of humans.
  2. Human knowledge is said to be limited.
  3. Ergo, human progress will always be stunted by the said natural 
     limit of knowledge.    
  4. Further: There is no necessary condition that prevents humans from 
     reverting to the ways of the past once that limit has been reached.

The areas of composite art you mention hardly have a fraction of the sweeping brushstroke of influence and the ability to impress upon society, certain mores and affectations that the more established forms of art (that you refer to in the last line) have.

It is by no means an exaggeration to say that most people who patronize art in cities and wealthy donors who lavish large sums on money on museums, opera venues, orchestras and various other ventures that promote art, probably have never heard of the crossover types you mention.

Hence it is fair to say that these newer art forms barely register in terms of their influence on the popular mood of the culture of a city much less a nation.

It is no secret that berating the ills of technology is Hollywood's favorite past time.

From Fritz Lang's Metropolis to Terminator to the recent Prometheus and a million flicks between them portray in no ambiguous terms the banes of unchecked technological advancements.

Ignore that for a moment.

The scuttling of technology, even when it could greatly aid and enable a better experience, can be seen in sports as well.

FIFA is a notorious luddite. They act as if the soccer gods will strike with lightning if they so much use an instant-replay.

The overlords at the French Open won't even touch Hawkeye with a ten foot pole. Players have to resort to pointing to where the ball left an impression on the clay to argue for a point that could decide their fate.

I only know of the NHL that embraces an uncommonly high amount of technology to make better ruling decisions. Every goal of every game is reviewed remotely in Toronto just to be sure. Offside calls and a host of other decisions are still handled by a couple of on-ice referees.

All said this technology-hating nonsense and the morons who advocate such superstitious dogma are everywhere.

I pray for the day when this bullshit will be called for what it really is - a form of a hate crime, an intolerance of reason and utility.

I'd love to pick up a book that deals with this issue: why and when painters - and more generally artists - have come to adopt this anti-technological outlook.

Was it a fear that the pervasiveness of technology would make their craft(s) obsolete?

This sort of thinking is rife even within artistic circles.

Artists whose medium is photography are like the ugly lepers of the visual art world.

I find this anti-technological bent in modern Western cultural life particularly unsettling.

Don't take what I'm saying to an extreme; I have nothing against consumable art in its many forms.

However I think the cultural life of cities in the West - in its various forms (art, theatre, cinema, classical music, architecture) are ruled by cohorts who wholly constitute the anti-technological fringe.

They live for abstraction and something about that makes them virulently anti-technological.

Suggest a book or essay that addresses this issue in great depth.

Perhaps I haven't followed you to a T.

What specific problems or arguments in philosophy are not easily illustratable, using plain language?

I do understand that some thoughts and experiences of the human order may not be easily captured or made intelligible by language.

I guess you could slot the experience of a color-blind person in that category. Especially in the past when testable apparatuses have not yet been developed to even diagnose that such a medical condition does indeed exist.

However I fail to understand why most philosophical arguments cannot be made intelligible to laymen.

René Descartes' "Brain In The Vat" argument is quite easily comprehendable.

It is my opinion (and very often found to be true) that most obtuse arguments (philosophical or otherwise) are indeed "highly technical stuff that doesn't matter much, or vague concatenations of abstractions their own authors didn't fully understand."

In fact I think PG is being charitable. I wonder if the "highly technical stuff" that doesn't lend itself to the peer review of more than a handful of scholars is even valid and credible in the first place.

I know that I am going down the slippery slope of If-I-and-most-non-scholarly-people-of-above-average-intelligence-cannot-grasp-an-argument-then-it-must-be-patently-invalid-and-thus-hogwash.

However at times I wonder if it is indeed possible that the scholarship of even a fraction of the world's most esteemed scholars (in various fields) actually has some validity and truth value associated with it.

Since nearly all of it is produced in academia and thus only subjected to the scrutiny of academic peers.

I wonder if it is just a nice formal product of a large volume of essentially meaningless cogitation that passed the consensus of equally unworthy peers.

This has to be true especially in the more arcane disciplines where there is little oversight or cross-disciplinary activity.

I'm sure there is a name for this phenomenon. Something on the lines of "legitimacy by consensus".