A Short History of Progress

In 1890 the French painter and writer Gauguin left Paris for the tropics, longing to find “primordial man” (1). After receiving word of his daughter’s death, he painted a new work, titled D'où Venons Nous? Que Sommes Nous? Où Allons Nous? (Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?) In this book, Wright will try to answer Gauguin’s third question by first answering the other two. This is a necessary undertaking, as humans today cannot afford to risk the same mistakes we have made in the past. Because of our globalized reality and shrinking renewable resources, “the vessel we are now aboard [i.e. our current civilization] is not merely the biggest of all time; it is also the only one left” (3).

Belief in the Victorian ideal of progress, the idea that history continually moves towards improvement, has been strong since the Scientific Revolution. However, this idea is a “myth” (4) just like all others—a “map by which cultures navigate through time” (4). Although progress has served civilization well, it also possesses “an internal logic that can lead beyond reason into catastrophe” (5). Claims that Western capitalism is the highest zenith of civilizational development, despite its clear ecological and cultural consequences, are examples of delusions of progress.