{"product_id":"ben-cobley-the-progress-trap-9781509567621","title":"The Progress Trap","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.","brand":"Polity Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53830346473814,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.momoxbooks.com\/products\/ben-cobley-the-progress-trap-9781509567621","provider":"momoxbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}