If Not Progress, What?

Whether they know it or not, most educated people in the West still accept theWhig grand narrative of history. While most historians shun the word "Whig," I contend that the belief in general progress—even among historians—is still widespread today.

I hasten to emphasize that I am speaking of general progress, not of specific advances. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to think without some notion of advance, though even here there are problems. An obvious instance of specific progress, such as technology, seems always accompanied by some loss. Gutenberg gave a great gift to the world, but the printing press also made possible such things as the rapid spread of anti-Semitism. And while the computer revolution seems an obvious advance, it renders humans less oriented to contemplative modes of thought. Even in the matter of specific claims for progress, it may be that we should speak more in a tragic mode than a progressive one.

There have been a number of recent books laying bare the propaganda of progress, but my impression is that they have not yet significantly undermined received prejudice. So let me pause to comment on William T. Cavanaugh's superb The Myth of Religious Violence, which was the focus of an interview in this publication in April 2011.¹ Cavanaugh argues that there is a commonly accepted myth today "that religion is particularly and inherently prone to divisiveness and violence."² From this it follows that religion must be carefully contained and kept essentially private and not allowed to penetrate the public square significantly. One of the important tasks of the liberal democratic state is to be the agent of this containment. But, Cavanaugh argues, no state—especially not the modern state—is neutral, and the "myth of religious violence" merely constitutes one of the ways by which it silences the opposition. The Whig strategy, to take an iconic example, was to portray or label wars largely generated by the ambitions of the early modern nation-state as "Wars of Religion." Cavanaugh, on the other hand, along with people like William Pfaff, sees the modern state as much more the cause of violence than religion.³ Cavanaugh is not attempting to exculpate religion as a cause of violence, but wants to counter the view, almost instinctive today, that religion must be controlled because it is particularly violent.

A schoolmaster and child from Thomas Crawford's "Progress of Civilization" in the pediment over the east entrance to the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-86288].

Anyone familiar with the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre recognizes this type of analysis. MacIntyre countered the argument that society should be secular because secularism gives a neutral playing field on which no one is favored.⁴ Developing liberalism pointed the finger at religion as a special enemy of a modern, progressive society. This line of thinking associates the Middle Ages, Catholicism, the Crusades, and the Inquisition with an unenlightened society, and sees Enlightenment in Protestantism, commerce, and science. The goal of such thinking is a this-worldly outlook no longer built on the fact that humans are religious by nature. Thus was born the modern attempt to form a world without God, and in some respects much of modern history—for example Marxism and some forms of liberalism—may be viewed as an experiment in attaining such a world. These attempts, as many have argued, have not given us a world without God, but secular religions striving toward the goals that a progressive view of history have dictated—for example, the withering away of the state, or the end of history as evidenced by the worldwide spread of democratic capitalism.

Religious people commonly came to accept a view of themselves as emerging from a benighted past. Refashioned by the Enlightenment, much of Protestantism came to see itself as forward-looking and progressive; while Catholics had to apologize for things like the Inquisition and Crusades and promise not to let them happen again. These judgments are contested in current historical literature, but it is...