IDEOLOGY AND PROGRESS
IDEOLOGY AND PROGRESS

Summary/Abstract: The recession of the progress theme is part of a larger cultural context, specific for late modernity, when the great desires of modernity are perceived as illusions, and the ideologies seem to be exhausted. But ideologies survive and this fact certifies their power. They are not ended or exhausted, nor useless, but they continue to impose different reference criteria on politics. The illuminist foundationalist rationalism, has given a mythological dimension to the progress theme. Having in view the historical experience that we have today, it is necessary to give up on progress in this millenarist meaning. But there is also a more modest way to understand progress. It makes reference to the comparative assessment of the way in which the different values supported by the political ideologies are followed, and also to the improvement of the methods to diminish the suffering and the humiliations. Therefore it is a mistake to completely abandon the progress theme. Politics, without using progress as a reference, is being widowed by an important milestone, without which the negative use of power becomes easier.

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