Course Description
If capitalism is the religion of modernity, as Eugene McCarraher has argued, then progress might be understood as its creed. Suggest to the average American that the world is worse off today than it was 600 years ago and expect a firm, even furious defense of modern medicine, airplanes, and grocery stores. In response, skeptics of modernity often struggle to articulate an alternative account of progress, finding themselves uncomfortably allied with mainstream politics or stranded amongreactionaries. One must, it seems, side with progress or decline, either uncritically embracing modernity or wholesale rejecting it—an untenable dilemma for those of us unable to ignore the contradictions of modernity, yet also unwilling to quit the internet.
In this four-session course, we will investigate the meaning and promise of the idea of “antimodern progress,” primarily through a study of the 20th-century Catholic philosopher and friend of the Catholic Worker Movement, Jacques Maritain. Given Maritain’s paradoxical role as both a lifelong critic of modernity and leading influence in the Catholic Church’s embrace of modernity, he provides an apt starting place for a critical revaluation of progress. Through lecture, discussion, and short readings of primary materials, we will work to understand, evaluate, and elaborate upon Maritain’s antimodern account of historical progress with the aim of identifying and proposing concrete expressions of antimodern progress in the world today.
When, Where, Who
When: The four-part course will meet on 2/4, 2/11, 2/18, 2/25. All course meetings will take place from 7-8:30pm CST.
Where: Course meetings will take place on Zoom. Live sessions are available to Maurin Academy partons at the Worker-Scholar tier or above. Recordings will be made available to patrons at the Salt of the Earth tier or above. Check out our Patreon for more info!
Who: The course is taught by Caleb Owens, a graduate student in theology at Boston College.
Course Schedule and Readings
- Week 1: Progress and Modernity – February 4, 2026
- In this session, we will survey the key philosophical and theological underpinnings of modern progress. We will also analyze common contemporary attitudes toward progress.
- Reading: Brad Gregory, “The End of Macro Narratives of Progress?”
- Week 2: Maritain’s Antimodernism – February 11, 2026
- In this session, we will discuss the life and work of Jacques Maritain and the “antimodernism” of his early thought through a critical exposition of his 1922 work, Antimoderne.
- Reading: “Maritain’s True Humanism” in First Things
- Week 3: Antimodernism and Progress in the work of Maritain – February 18, 2026
- In this session, we will trace Maritain’s antimodernism in his later work and evaluate this antimodernism alongside his claims about moral and political progress in history.
- Reading: Excerpts from Maritain, Jacques On the Philosophy of History
- Week 4: Antimodern Progress: Problems and Possibilities – February 25, 2026
- In this session, we will critically evaluate Maritain’s antimodern theory of progress and explore the work of Bernard Lonergan as a potential corrective. We will also discuss possibilities for antimodern progress in our current world and time.
- Reading: Lonergan, Bernard “Dialectic of Authority”