PROGRESS AND REGRESSION

Robert Misik in conversation with Rahel Jaeggi

PROGRESS AND REGRESSION

The abolition of slavery, the introduction of social security systems and the sanctioning of marital rape are generally regarded as social progress - as a change for the better. Nevertheless, the idea of a general progress movement has lost its former lustre, and even evokes scepticism. The diagnosis of regression, on the other hand, is on everyone's lips. It is applied to various contemporary phenomena, from right-wing authoritarian populism to democratic fatigue.

In her book, Rahel Jaeggi defends the concepts of progress and regression as an indispensable socio-philosophical tool for the critique of our time. She sees progressive or regressive not only as the result, but above all as the form of social transformation itself. By asking about the blocks to experience that encourage regressive tendencies, she develops a concept of progress that avoids both Eurocentric distortions and the idea of an inevitable development trend. Progress, she shows, is not the run-up to an already known goal, but the never-ending process of emancipation.

Rahel Jaeggi, is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she has headed the Centres for Social Critique since 2018. She has taught as a visiting professor at Yale University, Fudan University in Shanghai, the New School for Social Research in New York and was a fellow at the Institute for Advance Studies at Princeton University. Her research interests include the concepts of alienation, commodification and reification, ideology, form of life, institution and solidarity.

Moderation
Robert Misik, Author and journalist

Rahel Jaeggi:
Progress and regression
Suhrkamp, December 2023, ISBN 978-3-518-58714-0