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The Progress Trap : The Modern Left and the False Authority of History by Ben Cobley


£25.00

The Progress Trap’ 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.

Description

The idea of progress, one of the animating ideas of Western civilization, has now gone global. From Marxism and neoliberalism to todayโ€™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. โ€˜Changeโ€™, โ€˜transformationโ€™ and the โ€˜newโ€™ 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.

Additional information

Title

The Progress Trap : The Modern Left and the False Authority of History

Publisher

Polity Press

Author

Ben Cobley

Book binding

Hardback

Release date

30 May 2025

Pages

224

Condition

new

ISBN/EAN        9781509567621


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