Progress Myth as Legitimacy Engine

The article argues that treating 'progress' as an inevitable arc is less a neutral historical observation than a legitimizing story: elites and institutions use the belief in steady improvement to justify policies, defer accountability, and marginalize dissenting historical readings. Recasting progress as myth reveals how political actors weaponize temporal optimism to close off debates about tradeoffs, distribution, and risk. — Calling progress a myth reframes debates about policy tradeoffs, making visible the rhetorical role that optimism plays in legitimizing institutions and blocking alternatives.