End of progress? Philipp Lepenies defends an concept | EUROtoday

People not consider in progress. This is an more and more frequent prognosis. Herfried Münkler’s “Power in Upheaval”, Andreas Reckwitz’ “Loss” or Rahel Jaeggi’s “Progress and Regression” are present examples. No idea of modernity is as nice as the concept of ​​progress. In the present swansong, which primarily emphasizes that many individuals not expertise actual progress, what’s forgotten is what’s essential concerning the idea of progress: the design crucial. Progress isn’t just the concept that the longer term can be higher. It will get higher as a result of you’ll be able to actively do one thing about it. The narrative of progress has due to this fact not come to an finish. Rather, the dearth of progress is the results of a coverage that doesn’t actively form progress, however believes that it happens mechanically. Mainly by way of financial progress.

Originally, nevertheless, progress didn’t consult with the longer term in any respect, however quite to the previous. And the design facet didn’t play a task both. The time period described the revolutionary scientific findings that have been celebrated within the seventeenth century across the newly based Paris and London science academies. The time period “Progress” or “Progrès,” which was outstanding in each English and French on the time, was used as a justification narrative to persuade skeptics of the usefulness of the brand new scientific strategies. The argument was that in the previous few a long time individuals had clearly made noticeably additional progress in lots of areas of life than ever earlier than by way of the usage of motive and arithmetic.

Skepticism about progress is as outdated as this idea of progress. Even 4 hundred years in the past, not everybody was satisfied that new information, working strategies and innovations had actually made humanity higher. Progress initially remained a class of historic overview, the expression of joyful amazement at what had virtually mechanically modified for the higher since religion had been changed by means of motive. However, it might by no means have occurred to anybody to consider progress as a future choice and as an crucial for motion.

Therefore, within the historical past of progress, the essential second is when progress localized up to now abruptly grew to become a imaginative and prescient of the longer term and was paired with the concept of ​​potential social enchancment. A person is answerable for this and a textual content, written within the winter of 1793. The creator, the Marquis de Condorcet, expanded the European world of concepts for the primary time to incorporate a secular imaginative and prescient of the longer term. Condorcet found the longer term as an area of political feasibility. Tragically, the discoverer of the longer term himself had none. Condemned to demise by the Jacobins, Condorcet went into hiding, hiding in a tiny room within the Latin Quarter of Paris. There, anticipating his sure violent finish, he feverishly wrote a pamphlet entitled “Outline of a Historical Account of the Progress of the Human Mind.”

In the primary 9 chapters, Condorcet, like many earlier than him, described the technical and scientific progress of the previous as much as his personal current. But the tenth chapter had all of it. Why not assume, he wrote, that the usage of motive up to now will proceed? Why not assume that the undoubted path of perpetual enchancment strikes linearly additional into the longer term? Condorcet was satisfied that this could occur. However, the query arose as to the place this improvement was heading. For Condorcet, on the horizon of the longer term was the perfection of the human spirit, the second of absolutely the use of motive. As with the restrict view in evaluation, in keeping with the mathematician Condorcet, this horizon, this supreme, might by no means be absolutely achieved. But a gentle strategy to it was potential.

This meant that the trail of progress was not solely directed purposefully into the longer term, but in addition infinite. Spatial and temporal infinity have been nonetheless comparatively new concepts again then. There was one other mathematical motive why Condorcet, of all individuals, had the audacity to consider the longer term. The most revolutionary innovation throughout Condorcet’s lifetime was chance idea. It made it potential to mannequin the uncertainties of the longer term as a mathematically controllable amount. That’s why a probabilist was the primary to lose his concern of tomorrow.

But Condorcet was not only a mathematician. During the revolutionary interval he grew to become a politician, a passionate fighter towards each type of political and social injustice, towards the facility of the church and towards fact-free stupidity. Condorcet was satisfied that the sober use of motive, thoughts you in a world of maximum inequalities, unreason and widespread superstition, might result in ever-improving human circumstances. His concept of ​​progress due to this fact additionally included financial enchancment, schooling and political rights for everybody and with it – additionally an unprecedented concept as a result of it had by no means been formulated earlier than – the basically conceivable finish of distress and poverty.

What was vital was aware, goal-oriented motion. One shouldn’t watch for motive to unfold additional by itself, however one needed to take motion with a view to comply with the trail of progress extra shortly. This was to be understood normatively. The French systemic overthrow to a republic and democracy was a promise of political, social and financial enchancment over time. It was as much as political decision-makers to do all the things they might to make sure that this promise was fulfilled.

Condorcet didn’t survive the fear. But his concept of ​​progress has been an integral a part of politics ever since. Totalitarian, authoritarian or colonial programs additionally declare progress. However, trendy democracy has discovered a particular strategy to the narrative of progress, which implies that even as we speak one shouldn’t forego the pursuit of progress. It is vital to acknowledge that totally different paths result in the longer term. That there isn’t just one package deal of measures that must be put collectively to enhance everybody’s life. Democracy’s narrative of progress relies on pluralism. The progress narratives of communism or different totalitarian ideologies didn’t.

If democratic progress have been an image, one might take a look at Paul Klee’s 1929 portray “Main Route and Byways.” You can see paths that lead straight to the horizon. The spotlight: They are totally different. What is essential is that, even in a democracy, you need to align your self with beliefs which can be ready on the horizon and that you could realistically solely get nearer to. Justice is one such supreme, equality of alternative is one other, or the enforcement of human rights and, why not, prosperity for all, usually with the addition of “sustainable”.

In democracy there are all the time parameters that may be improved and that have to be improved. But hopefully you’ll all the time be guided by supreme norms. I discover it unconvincing to argue, like Rahel Jaeggi, that progress ought to quite imply not fixating on noble objectives, however quite fixing present issues. This promotes a short-term political perspective that shys away from actual structural adjustments and is actually disoriented. Every political system will need to have well timed problem-solving expertise, in any other case it can lose its legitimacy within the eyes of the individuals. But democracy is especially characterised by the truth that it has got down to transfer ever nearer to nice beliefs. These might change over time, they might shift attributable to threats reminiscent of local weather change, however the concept of ​​approximation sooner or later is a political imaginative and prescient that must be adhered to in order that democracy doesn’t lose its enchantment.

Democratic politicians have a accountability for progress. You should clearly do all the things you’ll be able to to make sure that individuals expertise over time that they’re higher off, that society turns into fairer and that undesirable developments are corrected. There are all the time setbacks, not each progress agenda works, and a few individuals profit much less from the progress made than others. But it turns into an important drawback when politicians don’t take accountability for progress, for instance after they proceed to consider that financial progress is the idea of prosperity and due to this fact progress – as was actually the case within the West within the post-war a long time. If, on the idea of a neo-liberal strengthened understanding of minimal authorities, they consciously don’t care about making the lives of their residents higher in a focused method. If that is precisely why sensitivity to different individuals’s experiences of loss is misplaced. When visions are lacking.

So if we’re at present noticing that there are increasingly individuals who not consider the narrative of progress as a result of they don’t see progress however have been experiencing regression for years (particularly within the space of ​​public providers, schooling and infrastructure, but in addition by way of rising costs, which too little is being accomplished to fight – all causes for drifting into populist territory, by the best way), we should always not distance ourselves from the concept of ​​progress or level out that modernity basically ignores the subject of loss. We ought to search accountability from those that might make selections in democracies however have forgotten their accountability for progress and the crucial to form issues. In democracy, progress will need to have a future. And in a time of ever-increasing unreason that rejects info, it may well’t damage to goal not solely at bettering dwelling circumstances, but in addition at typically bettering the usage of motive.

The creator is an economist and professor of politics with a concentrate on sustainability on the Free University of Berlin. His guide “Sovereign Decisions: On the Rise and Decline of Democracy” was revealed in 2025.