{"product_id":"9781509567621","title":"The Progress Trap : The Modern Left and the False Authority of History","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe idea of progress, one of the animating ideas of Western civilization, has now gone global. From Marxism and neoliberalism to today's mutant identity politics, it offers a framework of knowledge and confidence: an assurance that things will get better and that history is on our side. However, in doing this it creates a form of authority that is simultaneously imaginary and dishonest, resting on confidence in a future that is really contingent and unknowable.    In�The Progress Trap, Ben Cobley looks at this progressive mindset as a form of power, conferring a right to act and control others. `Change', `transformation' and the `new' are the superior�values, meaning destruction of the old: people, cultures and nature. It is a trap into which nearly all of us fall at times, so attractive are its stories and familiar its techniques.    Hard-hitting but thoughtful, the book is a meditation on the sinister consequences of the progressive way of being: for ourselves, for our democracy, for our art and for the pursuit of real knowledge.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rye Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55732509344120,"sku":"9781509567621","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0064\/1368\/0730\/files\/9781509567621.jpg?v=1794289478","url":"https:\/\/ryebooks.co.uk\/products\/9781509567621","provider":"Rye Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}