Public discussion of human migration and the ‘nation state’ show a dogmatic belief in unilinear ‘progress’ (the idea of Progress) on every side of the debate. An argument can be made to address all positions which implicitly or explicitly adopt the ideologies of ‘historical progress’.
Belief in ‘progress’ implies an idea of historical continuity, of succession, from tribal societies to liberal capitalism, and even beyond it. It is particularly important to see how every Modern ideology relies on a notion of uni-linear historical sequence, that is, an absolute sequence of time of Past, Present and Future.
Although so-called ‘progressives’ (liberals or ‘leftists’ in North America) are not alone in assuming uni-linear historical ‘progress’, their stance is particularly inconsistent and contradictory. To begin with, when ‘progress’ is assumed as a standard, one has to rely on some idea of ‘continuous development’, but then, the logical consequence is that–at every point in history– one could speak of ‘progress’ in relation to the ‘previous’ historical ‘stage’. An assessment of history becomes a series of judgements of value.
So, unwittingly the progressive is forced to accept a movement of constant perfection of human society, such that slave-holding empires would need to be classified as more ‘progressive’, or more ‘advanced’ than tribal pre-agricultural societies. The absurdity of this approach soon become evident when one tries to compare the ‘values’ of each type of society.
In that situation, to avoid the misery of comparisons, progressives (‘liberals’) –in particular– tend to adopt some form of absolute and universal state of perfection which lies outside of history, so that at every stage ‘progress’ can be ‘measured’ …. if only one would know such ‘standard’.
More sensible progressives do not accept such challenges because of the particularly comical and counterintuitive result of comparing –for example– Medieval societies with slave holding empires, but this flows automatically from belief in progress. Sometimes the absurdity is avoided by saying that ‘progress’ begins to exist only with the Reformation and the Illustration… only to lead into new contradictions, by renouncing the hidden assumption of a constant universal line of history.
In other words, if we assume continuity of history, an eternal notion of progress, we have to adopt an ahistorical eternal standard outside of history, and if we do not do this, then we have to accept that history is not continuous.
Less careful ideologues –oblivious to their contradictory statements or unchallenged in their positions, may continue to maintain the unexamined idea of eternal progress, of self-movement of human societies without noticing that the idea of ‘progress’ does not need history and cannot coexist with it.
Contrarywise, within the general ideology of uni-linear progress, history and the actual existence of tribes and kingdoms and empires and nations do not matter, or at least do not make sense!
We are then in a situation where antagonisms in current debates do not come from conviction or commitment, or even from conceptual differences, but from attachment and ignorance. The belief in eternal progress is shared by all parties, and it comes from unquestioned presuppositions and beliefs. In fact, for post-national psychologies, what is Modern is the blanket repudiation of history.
A trained historian may recognise –in both liberal and anti-liberal ideologies– ideas oscillating between of ‘perfectibility’ of human nature and its ‘negation’. In doing so it also should be possible to recognise the full range of ideas which flowed around and after the Enlightenment.
As noted above, liberals are not alone in the attachment to universal uni-linear history, so it is important to emphasise this is not a characterisation of liberal beliefs alone. Liberalism, indeed, even neo-liberal forms of it, have some positive aspects which should not be lost while we consider it as an ideology. It must be seen as an ideology –in the same way as all its complements and opponents in the public sphere–precisely because it is outside of history, but it is not alone in having this fundamental characteristic. All Modern ideologies are ahistorical.
Rejection of history, either to negate it altogether (as the negation of all transformation), or to manipulate it (assuming an ahistorical standard), has a problematic side, Rejection of history, while ‘political’ in its manifestation, is nevertheless apolitical and even anti-political. A public position, a philosophy can be political only if it recognises history, if it recognises social variety and change without advocating manipulation. Seen from this detached perspective, it becomes clear how all strands of Modernity ultimately become anti-political and totalitarian.
Positions, ideas, tendencies who attach to ahistorical assumed models (of any type) become necessarily apolitical, technocratic and anti-political, and conspire against the same populations they pretend to represent. Entire populations become ‘suspect’ of being “retrograde’ and are seen as ‘obstacles’ to ‘progress’.
Now, history is so that there is never a clean-cut separation between the ideologies. Liberals and Neoliberals depend on Nationalists and Socialists. They define one against the other and find their nature in the negation of the other. Therefore, we have Liberalism within Nationalism, and Socialism within Neo-liberalism, and the history of ideas repeats itself in circles and convolutions.
This is the case because a negation of the idea of Progress should not lead to a new unilateral dogma of History. Essentially, there is no ‘progress’ in Progress, and there is no Progress in the ‘opposition to progress’.