AGENDA AND PROGRAMME OF WORK

Making a contribution to the building of a peaceful world community is certainly the raison d’etre of this Circle which was created when the United Nations, through its world conferences, was performing the role of a global assembly of governments and peoples. The various issues debated by Triglav since twelve years are related, in some manner, to this search for a harmonious world order, and, quite directly, the recent meeting in California was a discussion on The Cosmopolitan Ideal: Content and Actors. A report of this meeting is available.

The notion of progress was touched upon at the meeting in California and also, even more recently, at a brief gathering of the Circle in Boston. The present meeting is devoted to a fuller discussion of this idea of progress and its relevance to the issues of the time.

In addition to this main item, it is proposed to include two points in the agenda. First to be considered is the possibility of bringing together the diverse threads of the Triglav discourse on the search for a harmonious world in some form of publication that would include a variety of essays and a comprehensive introduction. And, secondly, the idea of holding week long seminars in this area of France should be further explored.

The Idea of Progress and its Relevance for the 21^st Century

Central to the Enlightenment was the conviction that through the progress of reason Man will be able to shed various forms of obscurantism that had kept him in chains and to reach if not perfect wisdom but at least social peace, prosperity and happiness. The doctrine of liberalism and political regimes emphasizing the rule of law and equality of rights were built on this conviction. It would be absurd to downplay the extraordinary positive changes in the human condition brought by the implementation through various domains of knowledge of the idea that progress is possible. There are the accomplishments of science and the marvels of their technological applications and, perhaps more importantly, there is the propagation of individual freedom and the demonstration that people can enjoy their basic human rights in ordered and creative societies.

Yet, during the course of the 20^th century, in the wake of scientism, positivism and various pseudo-doctrines on race, the idea of progress took irrational and deadly courses. Science showed its destructive face with the atomic bomb and appeared to have forgotten its humanist roots when it erred in undertakings such as genetic manipulations. Social progress, first heralded by generous socialist utopians, courageous unions and political parties struggling for the rights and dignity of the working class, became associated with fascist and communist dictatorships. Moral progress, in turn, lost its spiritual and optimistic dimensions to be appropriated by doctrines and organizations with little esteem for the autonomy of the human person and great appetite for control and repression. As a result the notion of progress –and its heir, the notion of development- became progressively equated with improvements in levels of living.

Is this realism or deadly impoverishment? Is it likely that a polity animated simply by a project of material improvement will be able to confront successfully the formidable challenges humankind faces today? Are they actual signs that a renewed vision of progress is here and there taking shape?

To address these broad questions and structure the debate, three themes are proposed:

• What is the place of the idea of progress in the current culture?
• Idea of progress and liberal democracy
• Idea of progress and the realistic utopia of a Society of Peoples

What is the place of the idea of progress in the current culture?

• What is the current understanding of the distinction between change and progress?
• What is the “popular” idea of progress? What is the meaning today of the traditional saying that “one does not stop progress”? Is the perception of progress – its content, its desirability, the likelihood of its occurrence- very different among the peoples of rich and poor regions? Within societies, is the view of progress related to the socio-economic status of the peoples concerned?
• In which intellectual/academic/religious circles is the concept of progress alive? Are organizations of the civil society and non-governmental organizations motivated by an idea of progress?
• Traditionally, at least in western societies, public intellectuals have tended to criticize manifestations of change brought by technological innovations and the interplay of market forces. They saw as “decadence”, or “alienation”, what “the masses” saw as “progress.” Are the terms of this “gap” still roughly the same?
• What is the meaning of expressions such as “moral progress”, “ethical progress”, or “spiritual progress”?
• What can be said of the old observation that there is always a gap between the level of scientific and technological “progress” achieved by a society and the level of cultural and moral “progress” of the same society

Idea of progress and liberal democracy

• How should the disappearance of the notion of social progress from the language of the United Nations be interpreted? What will happen to liberal democracy if social progress is considered obsolete and replaced by an increasingly improbable project of material economic advancement?
• Are the signs of the time – notably increase of inequalities, collusion of financial, economic and political powers, weakening of parliaments and strengthening of the executive branch, lack of popular participation in decision-making – to be read as announcing a crisis of the liberal democratic ideal?
• From another angle, can humanism survive the death of the idea of social progress? Is the revival of religion a consequence of this decline of the notion of progress?
• Then, should other signs of the time – including a new relation with Nature, the search for simpler and balanced styles of life, the recognition that individual lives and societies demand both growth and stability, the interest in the religious sentiment and in various forms of spirituality, the development of a renewed solidarity with the poor and the victims of man-made and natural disasters – be read as announcing a new culture and a new civilization liberated from the “illusions of Progress” and from excessive reliance on instrumental rationality? Is a new wisdom in the making, and, with it, new political arrangements?

Theme 3: Idea of Progress and the Realistic Utopia of a Society of Peoples

• The words “realistic utopia” and “society of peoples” are taken from the small book The Law of Peoples that John Rawls published in 1999 as a sort of coda to his famous The Theory of Justice. “Political philosophy is realistically utopian when it extends what are ordinarily thought to be the limits of practicable political possibility and, in so doing, reconciles us to our political and social condition. Our hope for the future of our society rests on the belief that the social world allows a reasonably just constitutional democracy existing as a member of a reasonably just Society of Peoples.”(p.11)
• The juxtaposition by Rawls of the adjectives “realistic” and “reasonable” with the noun “utopia” is unusual. Under which conditions, could a realistic utopia have enough mobilizing power to create the political forces necessary for the elaboration of a society of peoples? This very Kantian reliance of Rawls in the power of reason and in the appeal of what is reasonable is admirable. All the more so when so much irrationality and violence is invading the spirit of the time. But would it be sufficient? Where would the political passion necessary for building a “society of peoples” comes from?
• How could the “spiritual resources” and “different forms of knowledge” often evoked in the debates of the Circle be concretely harnessed to create a momentum for the realization of this society of peoples? Elements of the global civil society are actively engaged in such task. What is then missing that explains the low visibility of their efforts? Are the contours of the “realistic utopia” too vague?
• What should be the role of art in the building and “maintenance” of a wise world community? The correspondence between Dag Hammarskjold and Barbara Hepworth offers an appropriate introduction to this most important issue. From Barbara Hepworth: “You have the fully integrated “vision” which demonstrates the naturalness and beauty of the spirit of man which all of us, in varying degrees are striving to obtain by the unity of mind and imagination.” From Hammarskjold: “I can tell you that my first impression (of her catalogue) is one of great beauty but also of an increasing sense of the drama of the present fight between sub-human chaos and human creative order (.) A work of art cleans your soul and straightens out your will (.) A work of great art sets its own standard and remains a continuous reminder of what should be achieved in everything.” And from Hammarskjold’s address at the Museum of Modern Art: “Even in the political sphere we are likely to look to the creations of the past with nostalgia. But we know that those creations can never be brought back to life, that ours is the duty to find new forms, starting often from nothing.”
• Apart from justice and respect from human rights, Rawls sees “reasonable pluralism” as one of the constitutive elements of a society of peoples. At the Triglav meeting of March 2008 in California a claim for “cultural equality” was made (see pages 10 and 11 of the report). There is a great difference between “reasonable pluralism” and “cultural equality”. Reflections on “thick and thin morality” and on the concept of “truth” made last year in Ougny (see report, notably Part III) should be pursued in relation with the issue of pluralism in a world community.
• The search for a cosmopolitan ideal, or realistic utopia, is not an option, or a luxury, but a necessity imposed by the fact that humankind is on a path of self-destruction. Such was the main message of the debate in Santa Barbara last March. It follows that constructed ideals or utopias are of no interest, or are only diversions, if not accompanied or followed by practical measures, such as a disarmament agreement, the prohibition of a particular technology, or the setting of an institution with real power for addressing environmental issues. Would then “progress” be understood as the development of the capacity of humankind to control and orient its creativity towards a common good shaped by imagination but also moderation and restraint? Should such “progress” be renamed wisdom, or learning the art of living?