THE IDEA OF PROGRESS
Progress is a forward movement, an advance, a development. It is a gradual betterment, improvement.
Progress can belong to different domains: scientific, social, technological for instance.
Progress can have pros and cons, advantages and drawbacks.
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PROGRESS is usually defined as a FORWARD MOVEMENT. It can be a gradual BETTERMENT. We can think of three types of progress:
- or technological progress, e.g. the invention of the Internet ;
- progress, e.g. the invention of vaccines – that has enabled lots of people to avoid lethal diseases like tetanus ;
- progress, e.g. equal voting rights for everybody once you've come of age whether you're male or female, black or white, green or blue (!).
Progress is generally seen as positive.
Yet, progress usually has advantages but also drawbacks as the two sides of the same coin. For instance, one of the advantages of the invention of the Internet is that it enables people to share knowledge – via digital platforms such as Wikipedia for instance. Yet, one of its mirroring drawbacks is that everything – accurate or not – can be found on it, and so, information can turn into misinformation, even disinformation.
Also, progress usually rhymes with change. Some people are ready to embrace it whereas others resist it. For instance, with new technologies, on the one hand you have the "high-tech addicts", and on the other you have the "high-tech phobics".