Beware the American Assumption that Progress is Inevitable

In discussions, I tend to view lots of post subjects into which I wanted to throw a monkey wrench just because they reflect this notion that progress must occur and that it’s always for the good.

There are loaded histories to that concept of inevitable progress. (I’m thinking when I hear that of Marx, Gandhi, Hegel, and Greek philosophers.)  We are taught history in America poorly because of that insistence on a narrative of inevitable progress that can present a skewed reality.  Social studies teachers are the field with the fewest people who have been trained in that actual profession teaching in it.  A good book on this notion is James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me .

Check out his book at: https://sundown.tougaloo.edu/liesmyteachertoldme.php

It’s sectioned out well.  (I’m borrowing his phrasing of “inevitable,” so I want to credit him in a general way there.)  Think about Progressivism at the turn of the last century, and about how current Americans largely lack that assumption that the future will be better, that their children will be more prosperous.

These are big questions, folks, and I wanted to put a little critical braking on our existing assumptions about progress.