This age has an unthinking belief in progress. Many believe that the current state of affairs is the best that it has ever been, more or less, and by its nature will develop into something even better. As if there were something built into history that caused this. This belief runs so deep that Marx even attempted to find what this something is.
“Belief” is too weak of a word: “faith” would be nearer the truth.
Because of the way one invention builds on another and one discovery leads to another, there has plainly been material progress down through the ages: Cures for childhood diseases, printed books cheap enough for even a day labourer to own, water piped to one’s house instead of drawn from a well, computers that come up with answers in seconds instead of the hours or years of human labour it used to require. And so on.
Many assume that this material progress goes hand in hand with moral and political progress. But here the reasoning often runs backwards: instead of judging from an independently established system of morals, we take the system of morals we find around us and judge history from that point of view. And, of course, if that is how we reason, then history will always seem like a story of progress. As with moral progress, so with political progress.
For example: We live in a democracy. Therefore it must be best. And look: history has progressed from the rule of kings to the rule of the people. See that? Progress!
But this is very badly reasoned.
Much better minds than mine – such as Aristotle and Hobbes – have argued that democracy is not the best. They may be right, they may be wrong. But you must first argue which system of government is best – independently of history or of whatever kind of system you happen to live under, as both these men did – and then judge the record of history. The same with morals. Your measure must be independent of what is measured.
If you say that such independent judgement is impossible – which may be true – then making the case for progress becomes equally impossible.
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