There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that's rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Everybody has values. Now, you know it may be formed in a secular setting, it may be formed in an intellectual setting, but everybody comes forward with values.
What I've learned is that unless it's an emergency, like a fire or brain surgery, hierarchy is not necessary and may be damaging. If you have a hierarchy, you're repeating the strengths and weaknesses of one person without allowing for the accumulative strength of a group.
Real progress comes from people.
As a consequence, progress has come to mean simply more power, more profit, more productivity, more paper prosperity, all of which are convertible into standards concerned only with size or magnitude rather than quality or excellence.
All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
Values are more important than money.
The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics - greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.
Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society.
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
Indeed, the existence of class, of social hierarchy, is as old as man himself. It prevails in the jungle where strength determines hierarchy; among men, it has also been savagely the same, whereby rulers vested with power through personal combat, or through lineal heritage as in the case of royalty, ravage their subjects.