See, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Except for the scientific method, I could take pretty much any of these examples and show that—even assuming complete agreement on values, which by itself means almost begging the question—the contemporary narrative of progress rests on the twin pillars of ignorance (or falsification) of actual history and arbitrary assignment of weight to trends that have gone in opposite directions. (And even for the scientific method, it can be argued that the contemporary official academic science is in far worse shape than the scientific community a century or two ago.)
Now, it is true that one can criticize certain narratives of progress without raising too much controversy. For example, I could dispute your first two points by arguing that the modern Western legal systems place common people in a far worse position than what their theoretical high principles would suggest, so much that, by some reasonable measures, the system is in fact more capricious, cruel, and unjust than what existed in the past. (However, it would be more difficult to get away with saying that the attempts to enforce some of these contemporary high principles, rather than insufficient vigor and consistency in enforcing them, are in fact among the causes of these problems.) On the other hand, for many other narratives of progress, any similar argument would quickly brand the speaker as unfit for polite society.
See, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Except for the scientific method, I could take pretty much any of these examples and show that—even assuming complete agreement on values, which by itself means almost begging the question—the contemporary narrative of progress rests on the twin pillars of ignorance (or falsification) of actual history and arbitrary assignment of weight to trends that have gone in opposite directions. (And even for the scientific method, it can be argued that the contemporary official academic science is in far worse shape than the scientific community a century or two ago.)
Now, it is true that one can criticize certain narratives of progress without raising too much controversy. For example, I could dispute your first two points by arguing that the modern Western legal systems place common people in a far worse position than what their theoretical high principles would suggest, so much that, by some reasonable measures, the system is in fact more capricious, cruel, and unjust than what existed in the past. (However, it would be more difficult to get away with saying that the attempts to enforce some of these contemporary high principles, rather than insufficient vigor and consistency in enforcing them, are in fact among the causes of these problems.) On the other hand, for many other narratives of progress, any similar argument would quickly brand the speaker as unfit for polite society.