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The Progress Trap

By Ben Cobley

The Progress Trap

By Ben Cobley

0 - Default Title
Description
The idea of progress, one of the animating ideas of Western civilization, has now gone global. From Marxism and neoliberalism to today's mutant identity politics, it offers a framework of knowledge and confidence: an assurance that things will get better and that history is on our side. However, in doing this it creates a form of authority that is simultaneously imaginary and dishonest, resting on confidence in a future that is really contingent and unknowable. In The Progress Trap, Ben Cobley looks at this progressive mindset as a form of power, conferring a right to act and control others. 'Change', 'transformation' and the 'new' are the superior values, meaning destruction of the old: people, cultures and nature. It is a trap into which nearly all of us fall at times, so attractive are its stories and familiar its techniques. Hard-hitting but thoughtful, the book is a meditation on the sinister consequences of the progressive way of being: for ourselves, for our democracy, for our art and for the pursuit of real knowledge.
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
224
Release Date:
2025-05-30
Publication Date:
2025-07-29
Publisher:
Polity Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1509567623
ISBN13:
9781509567621
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
498 g
Height:
156 cm
Width:
232 cm
Thickness:
27 cm
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