The West doesn't need 'progress', it needs resurrection
A debate with Progress Studies reveals the exhaustion of a myth
Arctotherium is an engaging and insightful writer whose work I enjoy and often draw on in my own. Yet there are points where our approaches diverge, and I recently commented on one of his essays which I believed took an uncritical view of ‘progress’ and thereby revealed a blind spot in his approach.
I suggested that progress is not a self-evident or neutral concept, but a teleological vision of linear ascent in wealth and freedom. This makes it a particular late-stage rationalist artifact of Western civilization. The specific form of Western life that generated this vision is exhausted, and the West has now entered a phase where it no longer needs ‘progress’, but resurrection.
That might have been the end of it, but for the intervention of another writer, Michael Magoon, who is deeply invested in the ‘Progress Studies’ movement. He took umbrage at my description of progress as a myth, insisting instead that ‘human material progress’ is a fact. But this conflates fact with meaning. Technological or material change is a fact; progress is an interpretation.
Magoon denounced my position as ‘Post-Modernist bullshit’. This dismissal typifies the attitude of conservatives and libertarians, particularly of the older generation, who reflexively recoil at anything that questions their rationalist mythos. In particular, this is characteristic of the mentality frequently mocked as ‘line-goes-up conservatism’: that Western populations should not lament the collapse of their civilization, so long as GDP or other metrics continue to rise. (I am not saying this is Magoon’s position; I’m not sufficiently familiar with his work.)
The fact is there are genuine methodological insights in deconstructionism, post-Marxist philosophy, and critical theory: not least that knowledge, facts, and narratives are never neutral, but embedded in civilizational forms. Progress Studies imagines itself the guardian of empiricism, but in practice it smuggles in the same kind of grand narrative it claims to have transcended. Its myth is simply older and less self-aware than the left’s.
The irony is that thinkers like Nietzsche and Spengler anticipated these insights long before post-modernism, explaining over a century ago that what we call fact is often interpretation in disguise. But they were sidelined as conservatism and libertarianism collapsed into sterile rationalism.
This small exchange illustrates the subject of my previous Aporia essay: that prejudice is not a distortion of truth but the condition of meaning. The assumption that rising living standards equal progress is not a fact, but a civilizational prejudice. Like all prejudices, it orders perception and feels ‘obviously correct’ to those inside it; just as other civilizational frames, such as Salafism or Buddhism, do to their adherents.
Progress is not a fact. It is a dying myth that no longer commands belief. And the West no longer needs progress: it needs resurrection.
Magoon ended the exchange by declaring that I was 'a parrot,' 'not intellectually serious,' and that since I refused to wade through his links, there was 'no need to continue the discussion.'
This was, in its own way, the perfect conclusion. For what he cannot grasp is that the point I am making cannot be 'proved with evidence.' The claim that progress is a myth is not a matter of disputing graphs or GDP figures, but of exposing the frame that makes those numbers seem self-evidently redemptive. Progress Studies has no answer to this, because its very existence rests on the conflation of measurement with meaning.
That is why its adherents can only repeat themselves: line goes up, therefore progress. And it is why they become testy and rude when pressed on the philosophical ground they deny but cannot escape. Magoon thought he was closing the discussion; in truth, his performance was the strongest evidence for my argument. Progress Studies is not a discipline. It is apologetics for a dying myth.
The West does not need progress. It needs resurrection.
Since you directly address me in this article, let me reply in depth.
Be honest, have you actually ever read anything written by member of Progress Studies? And, no, I do not mean a quick skim. My guess is no.
It looks like you just really hate the word “Progress” and have a preconceived notion of what Progress Studies is combined with no desire to validate whether your preconceived notion is correct.
I think before critiquing a field of intellectual inquiry, you should actually read what they have to say. I see no evidence that you have actually read anything in Progress Studies or discuss with members of the field, despite the fact that I gave you a number of links overviewing the field. You seem to be just trying to jam it into a preconceived notion.
Endlessly repeating that “progress is a myth” is not evidence to support your claim. Nor does endlessly repeating “this conflates fact with meaning.”
In your previous comments, you state “Nobody denies changes in material standards of living.” If nobody denies it, then it is clearly not a myth!
If you do not care about its origins and causes, fine, but we do.
In this article, you go from one incorrect statement to another:
1. I am neither “a conservative nor a libertarian”. Nor do you actually give evidence that they are wrong.
2. Progress Studies is not a “rationalist” movement. It studies what actually happened. That is not rationalism.
3. Progress Studies does not claim “Western populations should not lament the collapse of their civilization." I have no idea where you got that idea.
4. Progress Studies does not “imagine itself the guardian of empiricism.” I have no idea where you got that idea. And by the way, empiricism and rationalism are two distinct beliefs in philosophy, so your claims contradict each other.
5. Yes, Post-Modernism is bullshit. And, yes, it is hostile to Western Civilization.
6. Progress Studies does not claim that “rising living standards equal progress.” It tries to understand the origins and causes of increased material standard of living so we can develop policies to get more of it.
7. I have no idea what “a civilizational prejudice” even means…
8. If “Progress is a dying myth that no longer commands belief” then why do you attack it so hysterically without presenting any evidence.
9. If you want to believe that “the West needs resurrection” fine. That is neither opposed to nor in agreement with increased material standard of living.
10. Massive increases in material standard of living is one of Western Civilization’s finest achievements. If you believe in Western Civilization, you should embrace it, not belittle it.
11. Why are you so obsessed with the name of field? What name would you prefer?
I challenge you to educate yourself, by reading about what Progress Studies actually is:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/what-is-progress-studies