The Idea of Progress in the Futurologists’ Framing

mgr Lech Ciepiał, Uniwersytet Śląski, Wydział Nauk Społecznych, ul. Bankowa 11, 40-007 KatowiceThe aim of my article is to portray the present-day state of the idea of progress, on the basis of futurologists’ credo. The article has a polemical character, voicing the issue in the context of the prevailing paradigm which treats the idea of progress as an anachronistic relic of the past, not responding to the present. It states that the idea of progress is permanently present in reality and still plays an extraordinarily fundamental, i.e. leading, role. Nevertheless, the idea is much more complicated nowadays than at the time of its former victory in the age of the Enlightenment. The contemporary idea of progress lacks naivety, and its character is multidimensional and ambivalent. The idea of progress experienced its most serious crisis in the twentieth century; not only was its development hampered but the crucial components of the idea were questioned. Fewer and fewer intellectuals had the courage to evoke progress. It can be taken for granted that the disbelief in progress has risen up to the rank of a new paradigm. Despite this conviction, there are philosophers, politicians, economists and businessmen who create new shapes of the idea of progress and build its new definition in the context of the collapse of its previous shapes. One of the groups proposing a new approach to the concept of progress is the group of futurologists. In this article we ipso facto recover the idea of the futurologist, defining in such a way a researcher who comprehensively, systematically, rationally and professionally goes back in his or her memory and examines the present time in order to track down predominant trends, to interpret their sense and to set a prognosis of the future against the background of them. Futurologists whose work is analyzed in this article have different approaches to the idea of progress. The comparison of their concepts allows one to avoid a unilateral approach and to create a comprehensive image of the idea of progress in its current shape. Among the most important futurologists, there are such names as: Alvin Toffler (together with his spouse Heidi), Francis Fukuyama, Edward Luttwak, George Ritzer, George and Michio Kaku