What Is Progress
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- USD 9.99
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- USD 9.99
Publisher Description
Does the idea of progress still apply to our times? If so, what does progress really mean?
Today, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future, our very identity would be at stake.
Written just before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic—which is now putting its argument to the hardest of tests—this lucid essay explores how science and technology have been, and can still be, a powerful engine for human and humane advancement.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Schiavone (Pontius Pilate) mixes philosophy, politics, and anthropology in this stimulating inquiry into the "paradigm of progress." He details how the idea that humankind is on an "irresistible forward march" took hold during the 19th century, when it was reflected in the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories, and the philosophies of Marx and Hegel. In the first half of the 20th century, however, two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the prospect of nuclear annihilation undercut humanity's faith in scientific and technological progress, which has disappeared "almost completely" in the face of today's economic inequalities, climate change anxieties, and political extremism. Schiavone proposes a new, "dialectical" way of thinking about progress that acknowledges its "different directions: toward the abyss or toward an increasingly complete fulfillment of the human." Only by accepting that the arc of human history is both "intrinsically progressive" (more complex technologies, greater mastery of nature) and highly fragmented and chaotic, the author suggests, can society muster the vision and resolve to tackle its biggest problems and pursue greater freedom, equality, and self-knowledge for all. Goldstein's graceful translation complements Schiavone's incisive thinking and the book's broad scope. The result is an erudite and thought-provoking call for embracing the possibilities of the future.
